Binge

Bad day. Tomorrow has to be different.

Theory

Consistently good sex is rooted in a relationship that contains a measure of conflict and contradiction, something with crests and troughs as opposed to one that is placid and smooth-sailing and always genial. It is to be found between two people who drive each other crazy, and not always in a good way. It thrives when two people have differences of opinion as well as just plain differences. And one of life's greatest ironies is that a relationship that is 100% pure mutual admiration, respect and caring seems to make for sex that's kind of boring.

Of course, that's just a theory.

What's happening to me?

Started the 3rd season of Grey's Anatomy and I'm finding myself irritated at the characters - practically all of them. The only character I find myself liking at the moment is Miranda Bailey. She and Addison Montgomery - the philandering wife of McDreamy who tries her best to work at her marriage. Everyone else just pissed me off, and none more so than Meredith Grey.

Is this a sign of ageing that I no longer have the patience for simpering twenty-somethings and their whiny little problems? What's that about.

Have decided to finish this series before going on to Weeds, then to Studio 60. House I will save for last. Resolutions for tomorrow: the 4k run, the healthy lunch and a complete concept for the story I promised to M and J.

Not a manic monday

Thanks to diligent weekend work, I managed to deliver on all my work commitments today. As such, I felt perfectly within my rights to go off for a lunchtime yoga session - another power hour class. Afterwards, I had a lovely salad with grilled chicken from Doc Greens. Nice fresh greens, yummy dressing and garnish of walnuts and cranberries. Nice place that - the kind of place which makes you feel like you can eat there everyday. Got home early and was even able to fit in a 40 minute ralk to the track. Were every day like today...

The Power Of Yoga

Flashback to Friday
Finally made it back to the yoga studio after two months. Wanted to do a Hot Class...but work circumstances conspired to place me into the Power 1 class that took place 45 minutes later.
And it was exactly what the doctor ordered. Pure power. Pure exhileration.

New friends

Here's what is wonderful about life. Even at a time when you think you are past a certain kind of experience, you get taken completely by surprise. And you discover something. Or something lets you know in no uncertain terms that you are wrong. There are things that can still happen to you. Whether it's making a mistake or picking a fight or outgrowing a friend.

Or making a new one. So to A who I met at a work event and shared a taxi with and coincidentally to A at church - thank you for showing me, I still know how to make friends. And choose good ones.

So much to watch, so much to do, so little time

I've got Weeds 1 and 2. I've got Studio 60. I've got House 3 or part of it, anyway. And I've also got Grey's Anatomy 3 or at least some of it.

BUT

I've got a book review and a column to write both due on Monday. Not to mention all the rest of the family stuff that happens on the weekend....

So how

It's scary when it happens. When finally, finally, the story that you thought through in your head has finally been captured, trapped on the page...and it though it looks good especially in stretches, there's something missing but you can't quite put your finger in it. And there's no point in doing anything else except move on. Write another one.

Accupuncture Adventure

After hearing so many positive stories from friends and family about the wonders of accupuncture, I decided that the first chance I got, I would try it out. So went to Tanjong Pagar Plaza in Chinatown, a little mall-ette attached to an HDB complex. On the second floor, just above the bank, I met Dr. Theresa - a Chinese physician and accupuncturist. In a quick conversation during which she felt my pulse, she basically made some guesses about my body and my eating habits. She told me how often I would get hungry, the poor quality of my sleep, and how I was frequently thirsty. All of it true - just from feeling my pulse? It was hard to fathom, though of course, she eyeballed me quite a bit as well. The bottomline: I have plenty of heat and wind in my body - so the toxins including fat just hang out...like a lot of murk in still waters. Then she had me lie down on my tummy while she massaged me rather vigorously in the neck and in the back.

"Ow ow ow." I said.

"Does this hurt? Does this hurt?" she asked squeezing harder.

"Yes, it hurts!" I retorted my face down in a paper towel.

"Ah ah..." she said knowingly.

She then proceeded to skin me with cups and then placed them all over my back. Then she pierced me with needles at various points. Call me a masochist...I rather enjoyed the experience and the localised sites of pain. She then left me for a bit and I fell into the deepest nap I'd ever experienced. I only awoke when I realised she was giving me instructions about various herbs and tablets I should take. I didn't pay much attention. So much better to just think it's all magic and hocus-pocus...so much more pleasurable to have the entire process shrouded in mystery.

I yelped each time she unpopped the cups - it was a new and not disagreeable. She then had me turn on my back so she could needle me at certain points in my tummy. The sensations at each needle-prick were rather strange - like little balloons of fluid being burst. I asked her about it, but only got the answer, "Aah, ah." Like this was all the way it was supposed to be. Why even bother asking, I thought to myself.

At the end of it, she gives me various pills to drink and a bottle of a horrific brown concoction - I no longer bothered to ask what it was. And that was it. That night, when K came in for her nightly wee, I did not even hear her. Last night, I slept straight through like a nine month old baby - a powerful, heavy sleep. I see her again next week...

Star lesson

"I realized that's what you have to do: You just say a sentence and hope the next one comes."
- Hugh Grant as quoted in February Vogue, on writing his book

Super Trouper

Despite her fever, K was a happy little girl today as only a nine year old can be happy on her birthday. All sweetness and hugs..."I don't mean to be rude, but may I open my presents?" No longer did she care about her party, once she found out that we could move it to next week. At breakfast, she gamely posed for her bday photos - surrounded by her gifts. And when she read the card her Dad and I had written out especially, she was visibly touched - "Thank you Mommy! Thank you Daddy!" she exclaimed in her little girl laughter-laced peal. Utterly utterly sweet. She set about preparing to see the doctor, all sensible and business-like. And during the day, she claimed, "I can't really lie down and rest..." and set about fixing her school bag (even fixing C's school bag), painting her craft sample (the one she had planned for her and her schoolmates to do), assembled her new dollhouse, played with it, and gamely did all her Kumon worksheets. In other words, she was a terrific trouper. The only time she started fading was when night fell - and she hadn't much of an appetite for her spaghettti bolognaise and pizza dinner. But again, she smiled and blew out the candle on her birthday cupcake (she decided she would save making a bday cake for when her friends were coming). We ended the day with six chapters of Dr. Dolittle. When I got to a word - obstreperous - I commented that I didn't know the meaning of the word, K piped up, "It sounds like angry to me..." Just marvelous - that's what she is. I am brimming with joy and pride that I am her mother.

The Dappers

After some 10 years working in women's magazines, I have entered the wild, weird, world of men's magazines. It is taking more than a measure of getting used to. To complicate matters, the company I've joined - it's now been a little more than three months - is a start-up. This means it's all the things you've ever heard, read or experienced on your own about start-ups - good and bad. It is interesting, though. And not boring. And in no way, automatic, the way women's magazines were getting to be. So far, the experience has taught me a lot about being a man. Some things happen fast, almost without warning. And some very important things are allowed to creep along unnoticed. A workplace laced with testosterone is very volatile, I must say. Decisions tend to be instinctive and all-of-a-sudden-like.

And then, there are the Dappers. I work for the Dappers. Was hired by them. They are not what they appear - but they are very comprehensively both as a group and as individuals very dapper. There is a lead one, a second in charge, one who supports and one who looks at the physical, day-to-day things. And there's a wise, yoda one - who is still very dapper. Sometimes, on the days I have time to think of things that do not matter, I am of the mind that they should also start a band.

Chaos!

While C has no more fever, he's not quite himself eithe r. So we go out for K's family bday celeb - she had requested sushi and ramen. We also go shopping for her bday gift - she picks out a wooden doll house. We run our various Sunday errands as a family, glad that we have already attended mass the evening before. And then all of a sudden K says she's not feeling too hot. Which actually means, she is feeling hot. 38.4 hot.

This means we have to cancel her little after-school bday tea party. She is livid and desolate. C is too out of it himself to even react. Tomorrow will not be fun - as it means I have to hie them off to see Dr. N - without a car. The time for resisting a prescription of antibiotics is past. Now we seek professional help. K bursts into hot, tormented tears of anger, resentment and self-pity. No one wants to be sick on one's birthday. Misery is a sick little nine-year old girl - abject misery.

TGIF!

What a week this has been! Kiddie medical business. Great good news in the family. Finding out about new responsibilities at work. Catching up with Cam from HK. Sympathetic supportive session with sunny side sister over Starbucks (Now, try saying that three times without stopping!). A visit from my dear kasin Ninarkitek and the wonderful four hour chismis session late into the night - just like old times, as though we were sixteen again. Topic: family business, real estate, modern relationships, men and ...well women, keeping sane and coping with failing memories, the multitasking life. Amazing how with family, you slip into your codes and there's no need to footnote references. She knew my Yentle lyrics. She got all the contexts. And laughing as only quintosians can about the perennial Pinoy romantic line, clearly considered courtship: "Have you eaten na?" That's a sign that a Pinoy guy cares about you more than just a friend. Even though, haha, that's a line T has never uttered to me. Ninarkitek tells of a version that's even one step higher: "O...make sure you eat well, ha?" We nearly died. I think we must have woken up the neighbors. (Note to Ninarkitek: You should start a blog called Ninarkitek... o...diba!)

The only cloud...C's down with a horrid flu bug and just not his old self. ("I hate this. I hate this," he mutters to himself almost unaware he is saying it out loud, his eyes and nose streaming. He is very good about expressing his feelings.) Taking him to the doctor later to make sure that it's not the new strain of staph infection that kills in 72 hours (What can I say - headlines affect me). The silver lining? T comes home tonight, I did five rounds on the track this morning. Let the weekend begin...

Productivity

Why does it all come down to getting up early and getting exercise, first thing? Listen to me, could I be more annoying? Yet there's just something about this run I've been doing. Maybe it's because of this track on Evans road ... it's so inviting, it just begs to be run upon, even though you're not much of a runner, not really. But you want to be. So you try. You don't try. Like Yoda, you just do it. And the result is you wake up, you really wake up, and all the rest of it - like energy levels and mid-morning munchies - it all comes easy. Or easier. Who would have thought that there would be a discernable difference between a morning walk and a walk with a real 400 metre jog at brisk pace right smack in the middle of it? Managed to reinstall my yoga membership as well as my bookstore discount card in one fell swoop. All ready for Hatha or Hat with Mahds on Thursday. And would you believe it, I even got parking for while T is not here.

Had scrumptious noodles for lunch today with a lovely older gentleman, also a Dapper. He very gallantly invited me to lunch to talk publishing shop. He was so nice about it, I agreed, even though I had errands to run. Who would have thought you could still get a lunch for 2.8o on Orchard Road. Good food and fascinating conversation.

Tomorrow, Day 2 and hopefully more of the same. Forming the intention of productivity actually does work. And as far as everything else goes, I should just make like a duck and have it all simply slide down my back.

Non-sequitur on craft. If you're in the habit of starting with a title, drop that. It can be more stifling than a fellow student in a writing workshop. Don't think about a title. Just think about the story. And think on Electric Company terms: beginning, middle and end. Yes, very especially end.

Later that night

Scratch that. Just had work interrupted by a terrified K who demanded that I take that book out of the house. Close to tears and near hysterical, she all but shrieked, "No more Roald Dahl!" I tried to calm her down. Come on, it can't be that bad. She wouldn't have me even utter the title of the book (Witches). "Take it out of the house. Please take it out of the house." Roused by her noise, C burst into the room all concerned. K dissolved into tears, all but inconsolable.

When we finally got her calmed down with hugs and kisses, rosary beads plus permission to sleep in C's room, I asked, "Was it really a bad book?"

She answered definitively, "Yes."

"Didn't it have a happy ending?" I asked.

"No," she replied flatly.

"But -"

"Just. Take. It. Out. Of. The. House," she chanted in a way that made the hairs on the nape of my neck stand on edge. What could be so bad about that book, I wondered to myself. Dahl wrote Danny Champion of the World and Charlie & The Chocolate Factory and Matilda - all three of which K enjoyed, by the way. Sure, he also created the stories in Tales of the Unexpected, and the TV series scared the pants off me when I was a kid. But I thought that was more due to Alfred Hitchcock's creepy narration and the circus music that played in the opening credits. Not so much the stories themselves.

When she was finally asleep, I located the book and gave it a quick skim, taking more time at the final chapter.

In the book, witches are just like you and me. You just don't know they are witches. The three ways you can tell - witches are bald, so they must wear wigs. Witches have blue spit. I forget what the third one was. Anyway, the narrator/protagonist is turned into a mouse by a head witch. But over the course of the book, even as a mouse, the narrator is able to save all the children in England as well as defeat the head witch and the entire coven with the help of his grandmother, who is, naturally, human. In the final chapter, they are having a conversation about whether there are any more witches in the world. The grandmother answers that there must be. The narrator, who is at this point, still a mouse, is dismayed. Together they unhatch a plan to locate all the witches in all the world and defeat them. In the final paragraph, they agree to set off on a great, new adventure.

In short, it's a fairly upbeat, quite hopeful even. However, I must agree with K. While it's not a sad ending, it's not a particularly happy one, either. After all, how happy can it be if at the beginning of the book, you were human, and at the end of the book, you are still a mouse?

Rainy days and Sunday

It's been a good weekend, if rainy. We started with The Queen Friday night. Very very watchable. A good screenplay - just the right kind of talky. Good to have seen Borat one week followed by The Queen the next. Targetting The Good Shepherd which seems to have a cast of a thousand Oscar winners.

We opted to sleep in and just hang out Sunday morning. The second time this weekend since C's soccer training was rained out. It's the weather. What else is there to do on a rainy Sunday, after all? K and C are old enough to have a say in issues like when we'll go to mass, where we want to eat for lunch. They can be quite civilised when they choose to be, that is, if you can drag them from their books. C asked for more cheese. T replies, "I gave you some already." C pointed to his empty English muffin, retorting, "It's already a tepid memory." What a vocab. You have to laugh.

Yaya was on her day off, and she's decided to use the time to her advantage by taking a class at Holy Trinity College on Adam Road. She's currently enrolled for Basic Computer every Sunday from 1pm-4pm for the steal price of $10 a month for a 12-month course, organised for household helpers. Good for her.

The kids wisely get their Kumon worksheets out of the way. C, recently appointed Class Monitor, tries in vain to get away with doing just one, but we manage to convince him. He finishes both, but his time is on the slow side, at an average of 30 minutes each. Unlike K who gamely concentrates and manages to do one in 8 minutes and the other in 9 minutes. When she really wants to make good time, she tries to get one of us to race with her. Her idea of a race is having us give her a one-minute headstart. To my chagrin, I once raced her on one sworksheet, gave her a headstart and she finished in 7 minutes. I finished in 11. Scary. It pleases me that she's getting on in math and no longer seems intimidated by it.

Working on the story, but it's tough going. Woody Allen says he plots things in his mind before he writes, and then the writing goes very quickly, once the thinking work is finished. I tried to do the same, but it doesn't help when things start to change on the screen, veering away from the plan you thought was pretty much set. It's also weird when characters emerge more strongly than you had intended. We shall see, we shall see.

Procrastinated with the Sunday paper. Allowed myself to get peeved by Sumiko Tan's inane column in Life about her, her, herself and her unbelievably puerile little personal epiphanies. I don't mind reading about someone's personal life - in fact, I enjoy it - but I do mind it when the conclusion is something a pre-teen-aged girl could come to, with a lot less whiney reflection. It's terrifying what's passed off as human insight these days.

Then out we ventured for Pepper Lunch, some birthday gift shopping, a leisurely bookstore browse and later, coffee. Trying to get the kids to read better. K chose wisely - Roald Dahl. But C could not be budged from his Bionicle series. I felt a little better when I saw a kid reading the same book. He was at the very least, a fifth grader. At least, he's reading beyond his vocabulary. I shouldn't complain. Mass at 6pm, then dinner at Spizzas.

Now suffering Sunday night "I-don't-want-to-go-to-the-work" malaise. Fortunately, the sentiment is not shared by the members of my family.

Would Higgins marry Dolittle?

T and I took K to see her first broadway musical in a theatre - a West End tour production of My Fair Lady at the Esplanade. Funny. My first ever broadway show was, I believe, a Repertory Philippines production of Oliver at CCP. I believe I was eleven. Anyway, it was a rather lacklustre Eliza Dolittle, sadly - her vocal transitions from chest to headtones were all too apparent, as though there were two people, two distinctly different voices singing. Higgins was much better, but overall, it's hard to outdo Hepburn/Matlin and Rex Harrison. The big surprise was an argument with T about how Higgins doesn't really love Dolittle in a romantic way. That it isn't love, not really. And I was just flabbergasted.

"Of course it's a love story," I insisted.
T was equally adamant. "Higgins just wants her around for company, but very likely, he's..." and so K won't hear, he whispers, "gay".
"What?!?! No way."
"What," T continued, "You think that Higgins will eventually seduce Dolittle, and they'll eventually get married?" He laughs.

But I'd always thought that I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face was a love song. "Her smiles, her frowns, her ups, her downs are second nature to me, now. Like breathing out and breathing in. .. Of course, it's a love story. How can it not be?

We turn to K. "What do you think..." Always the little pleaser, she answers, "I think you're both right."

Happy Birthday T

It's tough when your birthday's in early January - you have party fatigue and you're in the midst of trying to stick to new year's resolutions. Still we managed a good day. The treat was getting away from the office and going off for lunch at Corduroy & Finch. Managed to get a scrumptious mango cake upon which I had the words written, Happy Birthday Daddy. It was K's idea to forego a family dinner (after all, she and C had already blown out the 4 big candles and the single small one!). "Go out to dinner," she said. "Pretend you don't have any kids!" They were quite happy to stay home for spaghetti. So we walked the kiddies to the playground so they could have a little run, and then we walked ourselves over to Spizza's for a surprisingly yummy Aglio Olio with pepperoncini and shrimp plus Gina pizza with anchovies and capers. And it was another pleasant evening walk back. As for a gift, I bought him an antique Chinese chess set with intricately carved wooden pieces.

Thrown for a loop

What would life be without these out-of-nowhere surprises? The challenge is about taking it all in stride, keeping your eye on the ball, continuing to do what you do best and remembering why you found yourself at this very spot in the first place.

After all, you're the one who asked for rich and spicy, right? Rich, spicy and strangely unexpected. Remember, it's all good.

Vanity Fair Error

I am not proud of my own perverse pleasure upon spotting an error in a magazine. As a magazine editor and even an ex-sub, I have only always worked with lean editorial teams, usually no more than ten people, and that's including art - most of whom, let's face it, don't really read copy anyway. We don't have fact-checkers. We don't have proofreaders. We wear different hats, trying to do everything, and very frequently, not succeeding. As a result, astounding mistakes can take place - and we all live in deadly fear of it. The occupational hazard is we are weirdly attuned to these errors in just about everything we read. Including other magazines.

Like today, on my day off, I was reading an old Vanity Fair - November 06 with George Clooney on the cover. The piece was by Gore Vidal - in Letter From Italy - in which he writes his memories of Federico Fellini during the years Vidal lived in Rome, working on his novel. On page 130, there occurs a paragraph that starts with the arresting sentence, "Suddenly, one day in 1971, there was Fred on the terrace of our Largo Argentina flat." It goes on for about three inches of space. And then it is followed on page 131, by the same exact paragraph.

These errors are amusing, making you blink for a few good seconds of befuddlement, wondering momentarily if it is you - some mental synapse. And then the print comes into focus. And you realise - it happens. Even in the most global of publishing institutions. A mistake.

And foolishly, you find it oddly reassuring and make a mental note to show you boss.

Finding Weeds

Although I am still in House Post Partum, we took a stab at the Showtime series for which Mary Louise Parker won a Golden Globe this year in her role of Nancy Botwin. Weeds is dark chocolate dark - even in its very premise. A suburban wife with two sons who copes with widowhood and impending poverty by selling pot to the neighborhood. The show is different, decisive and disturbing. First, there's the drugs, of course. Then there's the sex. The issues of parenting in these difficult times are dealt with. Just two episodes in, am not quite sure how I feel about it, but I'm compelled to keep watching.

Because Parker is so lovely to watch. So much is expressed in the mere parting of her lips. And then there's the talented Elizabeth Perkins (Remember her from BIG and ABOUT LAST NIGHT?) as her controlling friend, desperately trying to make her pre-teen daughter lose weight, while equally desperately trying to keep her teenage daughter from having sex with her boyfriend, who just happens to be Nancy's son, Silas. "Promise me," Perkins begs Parker, "Promise me they will not have sex under your roof." Parker answers, "I promise, as a mother." The kids end up having sex in the Botwin's guest room, which has a skylight. The precocious teenage nymphet argues, "At least, we're not technically under your roof!" There's the pothead CPA played by SNL's Kevin Nealon who tells Botwin she must put up a legitimate "front" for her real business of drug dealing. Parker says, "Can my front business eventually be my real business?" Nealon says, "Nah, small business is f**ked." Oh...I almost forgot...Botwin's teenage partner, a drug dealing poet. When Botwin warns him, "No selling to little kids!", he retorts in verse: "No grass on their field, no grass will I yield." But when she chastises him for a ten-year-old in the nieghborhood getting busted, he says, "I promise you. The kid swore he was 37!"

This is a show I just know my mother would hate. This is a show my friends in the US with, the ones with kids, would blanch at and squirm uneasily. Disturbing is one word. But it is also delightful. When the overwhelmed, distraught Botwin breaks down in the arms of her pot supplier, you can' t help but cry with her. And when she deliberately trips her son's bully, you cheer for her.

It's not House. But I like it.

January 3, 1993

The weather cooperated. I wore a dress with a floral print to the hotel and me and L and M spent a few minutes taking photos of the sign that read CHUA DE JESUS nuptials. I was not nervous. In fact, I remember being hungry most of the day. T and I spoke once. "See you later," he said, like it was completely normal and ordinary.

At the church, we sat on a bench that had no back. I had to sit up straight so as not to look slouchy. The Company sang for the ceremony - through all that picture-taking. Then the reception. J as emcee. L assisting. Niether got to eat much, I'm told. The pianist played "Our Love Is Here to Stay" which M sang with wistful pathos and a touch of nerve. My Dad looked a bit pale. I could tell my Mom thought the programme went on too long, but I did not care. T said his long list of thank you's like it was the Oscars. When the mike was handed to me, I babbled, then I caught a glimpse of her face. She mouthed the word "Goodnight" to me. I dutifully said good night.

In the hotel suite, there was a large fruit basket - Chinese pears, oranges, a mango and a generous bunch of grapes. We devoured it. When I slipped out of my wedding dress, petals and petals of flowers fell to the floor, from what the guests had tossed at the church.

That was fourteen years ago. It was a good day.

House again

Finished. 24 episodes all gobbled up at the average rate of three shows a night. I won't say the series is without flaw. There were little underdeveloped bits, like small portions of undercooked meat. Like the episode where Chase asks for a break, gets assigned to NICU and despite interrogation from House, we never really find out why in a satisfactory way. The Stacey storyline deftly played by the stunning Sela Ward ends way too abruptly - why not stretch that tension out a little? And Foreman's brain problems - how now brown cow? One show, he is struggling with it, and the next, he's all too easily back to his old self. But these are picky points that sound much worse than they actually are, when you consider the shows in their entirety. The overall flavour and texture is delicious in a very rich and complex way and these minor imperfections only serve to enhance the experience.

House is neat because it's about so much more than what it's actually about. I've said this before but it really and truly is about the human condition - and not solely in terms of disease. The other disadvantage is that, of course, you start worrying about the holiday leftovers in your fridge and whether they will give the family some kind of toxin, bacteria or fungus that will make them violently sick while causing their organ systems to shut down. Definite high points: the episode when Foreman becomes a patient - an admirable physical performance by Omar Epps. The whole Stacey storyline exploring the very real draw of rekindling old loves - irresistible. And that final episode of House's hallucinations.

I tend to get infatuated with TV series'. In the early nineties, I could not get enough of Ally McBeal. This year, I tried to see it again and ended up simply getting annoyed. I tried to get my Dad to watch House, and he ran off at the first sign of a little blood from a routine intubation. "It's my age. It's too real." "Wait," I tried to call him back, "That's just the details. That's not what the show is really about."I wonder if House will stand that test for me, the way SATC and The West Wing do. Sigh. In the meantime, work begins, deadlines loom like dark clouds on the horizon, and I suffer withdrawal symptoms.

While I'm happy that the kids are enjoying it so much (and not just for the appropriate value formation), The Cosby Show just doesn't cut it.

Looking Back

I would do a collage ala the Swingapore Sister, but as yet, I know not how... so I must content myself with the hum-drum primordial list of the high points of 2006.

1) C's first day of school
2) K and C's bowl-o-rama bday party
3) The de Jesus Bangkok Bash in February - Part II in September
4) Beautiful Bohol
5) Finding VMG or rather them finding me
6) K's first communion
7) Europe with the Tman
8) Bono
9) The Francis Xavier Choir
10) Itzak Perlman & John Williams

May every day of 2007 be as rich and sweet as gingerbread cookies