 ...Continued from yesterday: My second author event of of the weekend - and of my career - took place the following day, Sunday, August 13, at the Gramercy Books Local Author Festival.
 ...located in Bexley, an urban Columbus "suburb" located inside the city. (I've always found it interesting that there are several "suburbs" of Columbus that are actually urban "island towns" surround by the city. I believe this peculiarity is mostly unique to Columbus, Ohio, having been an outcome of city planning back in the 1950's promoted by then mayor Jack Sensenbrenner, who wanted to ensure that Columbus wouldn't eventually lose its population base to suburban development. To this end Mayor Sensenbrenner allowed the city's water to serve only areas that were incorporated into the city. Some of the old suburbs, such as Bexley,  ...were exempted from this water rule and the city grew and expanded around them. But I digress). Anyway, the Gramercy Books Local Author Festival was an outdoor event that ran all weekend, my assigned day and time being Sunday 10 am to 1pm.  This time I was smart enough to leave behind the chocolate cupcakes and donuts (see yesterday's post) and stuck to give-aways of book marks, business cards, a synopsis and printed sample of pages from the book. (Paper freebies are the best, I've learned).  I shared my time slot with five other authors, with whom I also shared a long table under a canopy on the sidewalk outside the store.      All the authors were friendly and I chatted a bit with most of them, though I spent most of the time chatting with my table-neighbor, Brynette Turner, a sweet, lovely lady, here with her sweet, lovely daughter Carina, who is a psychologist for the Columbus public schools. 
 ...and erotica under her pen name Josie Carver.  Brynette explained to me that she writes under two names to distinguish the different genres, so that the readers who like their romance mild don't accidentally end up with the hot 'n spicy stuff, and vice versa. I asked Brynette how she chose her pen name and she explained that "Josie" was the name of her grandmother whom she adored, and "Carver" was the last name of her favorite middle-school teacher. "Wow," I joked, "your favorite grandmother must have been a real spit-fire!" "Oh, she was," Brynette laughed. It appeared to me that Brynette was doing a fair business that day with both her genres, as some of the other authors also appeared to be doing with their books.  In any case, our event drew lots of interest from the Bexley folks out for a stroll on this pleasant Sunday morning,     
 So for all that it was a lovely summer day, the atmosphere was friendly, lively, and festive, for all that I sold a few books,  ...for all that everybody seemed to be having a fine time, and I acted as if I, too, were having a fine time... For all that, in truth I found the whole event kind of excruciating. From start to finish, and even for a little while after it was over. (Sigh). Here's why I had such a dismal time at the jovial Gramercy Books Local Author Festival: Shortly after my book was released around the middle of June I stopped by Gramercy Books, thinking a small independent book store might be willing to have a look at my book. To my delight, the salesperson I talked to told me that I could leave a couple of copies at the store to sell on consignment, that they had a shelf just for the books of local authors. However my delight immediately deflated, (think Wha-wha),  ...when I realized that the store's policy for books sold on consignment was such that for each of my books that was sold, Gramercy Books would make $8.00 and I would lose $2.30. The store's manager had little interest in my problem which was, after all, my problem. The store's policy would not be changed, nor the store's share cut back so that a lowly unknown author such as myself might break even. "This is the only way you're going to get your book out there," the manager informed me. So I left a couple of copies of my book at the store, joylessly, and when I received an invitation to the Gramercy Books Local Author Festival first I said okay, then I said on second thought no thanks, then I said, aw, okay. And so I spent my time at the festival trying to get the passers-by to buy my book, and then feeling badly when someone did buy one, knowing that the more books I sold the more money I'd lose. I sold three books, but I guess it could have been worse. I could have sold four. 
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Here's an interesting fact that I didn't know but that I've learned from more seasoned fellow writers since the publication of my first book: Any author who wants to see his or her book sell - unless he or she has the good fortune to be a top name in a big major publishing house - must do the lion's share of the work in the marketing and promotion of his or her literary wares. To this end I attended two author events - as this sort of public presentation and promotion of one's opus is called - this past weekend. The first was the Mid-Ohio Indie Author Expo, which took place Saturday afternoon from 3 pm to 7 pm in the Columbus suburb of Urbancrest at the Vaughn E. Hairston YMCA,  ...the pleasant grounds of which were alive with families enjoying the beautiful day,   ...while inside we the authors set up our tables,    ...with the help of all the wonderful Expo volunteers,    ...under the supervision of the Expo's organizer, local author Alicia Wiggins.   When I asked Alicia how she came up with the idea for the Mid-Ohio Indie Author Expo she explained that self-published authors are often excluded from book fairs, so she wanted to give these authors, as well as authors published by small independent houses - such as Black Rose Writing, which published my book - a chance to present and promote their books to the public as well as give the public the opportunity to meet local authors. There were fourteen of us local writers at the Expo,            ...and one book cover artist,  ...as well as several vendors, who provided good eats,   ...and some beautiful, yummy desserts.  I, too, attempted to provide some desserts amidst the other freebies I was giving away: Book marks and cards advertising my blog,  ...a synopsis of my book, a couple of sample pages, Amazon reviews and a biography of myself.  The paper goods turned out to be a good idea. The chocolate cupcakes and donut holes I brought - in honor of the chocolate cake scene in chapter 18 and the scene in chapter 8 in which donuts serve a prelude to...well, something - not so much.  It wasn't that the Expo-goers didn't enjoy the treats. It was that on the ride in a hot car from Gahanna, where I live, to Urbancrest, where the Expo was, the chocolate icing - which had resembled pretty rosettes that morning when I iced them - had melted into a formless sticky mess atop each cupcake, 
 ...but on some of the merchandise as well.  But I tried to be philosophical about it. This sort of made me more like the characters in my book, to whom embarrassing things were always happening.  Or maybe this was cosmic payback to me for inflicting all those embarrassing things on my characters. Still, the visitors to my table ended up being fine with the sticky-iced cupcakes nor did they seem to notice the chocolate stains on my clothes. Or else - more likely - they were too polite to mention it. Anyway, after we were all set up and read to go,   ...some of us made the rounds of each others' tables and introduced ourselves, checked out each others' books, and wished each other well. 
At 3 pm the event officially began and Expo-goers began arriving soon thereafter, visiting the tables,   ..chatting with the authors,  
 ...including my donuts and cupcakes,  ...and buying books, signed by the authors. A number of the authors had brought support persons with them to the Expo, and I was happily surprised when Tommy stopped by for a support visit,  ...and I was again happily surprised a little later by a visit from Randy and Anusha who also stopped by for support and to buy a book (Okay, I did try to give them a book, but they insisted on buying one!).  There was a webcaster from Yourbookmybook, Miguel O Lopez, who was there covering the Expo and, as it turned out, I was chosen to be one of the featured authors interviewed for a webcast video. Here's the link to the video of my interview if anyone would like to see it who hasn't already seen it on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/patti.liszkay/posts/665075523703750?notif_t=like¬if_id=1502586879707040
 They let me sit positioned so that the chocolate on my shirt didn't show in the video.  It was an enjoyable afternoon of talking to many people, meeting other authors and sharing experiences, camaraderie, encouragement, and advice.
As for book sales: Well, I only sold four. And one of the books was to Randy and Anusha. I guess that's bookbiz.  And say what you want about Hillary Clinton, if she were President we likewise would not be worrying about a damn nuclear war. She'd most likely be spinning her wheels in a gridlock with a Republican Congress, but our former Secretary of State certainly wouldn't be needling crazy Kim Jong Un, making off-the-cuff ad-libs about plunging the world into a fiery Armageddon, or bragging that her arsenal was bigger than everybody else's. Because nuclear war never really was Hillary's thing. Donald Trump, on the other hand...well remember how much and how often he liked talking about nuclear weapons during his campaign? How often he said we needed more and better and bigger and newer nukes? And then there was that spine-chilling Donald Trump quote about nuclear weapons that was the tip-off: "If we had them why can't we use them?" Having a super-sized nuclear arsenal in his holster is Donald Trump's thing, as he made clear during his campaign and now, as President, he continues to drive home to the world.  And that which those of us who feared a Donald Trump Presidency most feared - that that he would lead us into a nuclear war - that fear now stares every American in the face. And over what? What? What? The smoking hostility that's threatening to pull us into World War III is really just a war between two bullies over their things. Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un are in a global thing-swinging contest.
 Who'll get bragging rights afterwards, when 60 million people in Southeast Asia and the United States have died in the war and the rest are slowly dying of radiation poisoning from the nuclear fallout? Who do you suppose will win the war of the things? Not us, for sure.  Reference: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2016/10/10/the-donald-shows-again-he-doesnt-understand-much-about-nukes/
 Within the last 24 hours: The news broke that U.S. intelligence has determined that North Korea has a miniature nuclear weapon that can fit inside its intercontinental ballistic missiles. Donald Trump threatened to unleash on North Korea "fire and fury like the world has never seen." North Korea threatened back to create an "enveloping fire" around the U.S. Territory of Guam. And U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, looking all benign and wise-old-grandfatherly,  ...summed up the situation by saying that actually this has been a "pretty good week" with North Korea and that "Americans should sleep well at night" because this was all just Donald Trump talking to Kim Jong Un in language he understands, that Kim Jong Un is feeling the pressure and that's why he's ratcheting up the rhetoric. North Korea immediately ratcheted back that Donald Trump's threat was "a load of nonsense," that only "absolute force" would work on someone so "bereft of all reason" as Trump, and that if threatened North Korea would turn the U.S. mainland into "a theater of nuclear war." But in the meantime their military is finalizing a plan to shoot four missiles off the coast of Guam in a week or two. And we're supposed to sleep well at night....because? Surely not because, as Donald Trump tweet-bragged a few hours ago, our nuclear arsenal is more powerful than ever since he became President. True, we have the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, about 5,000 bombs. North Korea, on the other hand, has only has 60 bombs. But it would only take about 50 to kill the planet. That's according to a terrifying documentary I saw on the subject called "Command and Control."  So once you get above 50 nuclear bombs in your arsenal it's kind of moot, anyway. Kind of like the vitamin pills you take that give you 6,000 % of your daily requirement when all you need is 100%. Look, the thing is, we all know what this sudden proliferation of hostility is really about,  Maybe right now what we need more than a chill Secretary of State is a trained child psychologist. References:
http://time.com/4879527/kim-jong-un-north-korea-missile-could-strike-entire-continental-u-s/ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/07/world/asia/north-korea-responds-sanctions-united-states.html?_r=0 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/north-korea-now-making-missile-ready-nuclear-weapons-us-analysts-say/2017/08/08/e14b882a-7b6b-11e7-9d08-b79f191668ed_story.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/09/us/politics/north-korea-nuclear-threat-rex-tillerson.html http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-09/donald-trump-says-us-weapons-more-powerful-than-ever/8791398 I'll start at the very beginning, as good a place as any to start. Back on June 16, while driving through Indiana on our way from Columbus to Chicago, Tom and I were involved in a bizarre auto accident involving an attack on our car by a rogue tire bouncing down the highway, probably some cousin of Robert, the ill-tempered tire starring in the existentialist horror flick "Rubber."  In my 6/18/2017 post I chronicled the tire-attack event that wrecked our car so that it had to be towed off to a garage, 
   ...where our car would stay for over a month having its undercarriage rebuilt. Meanwhile back in Columbus Tom and I decided to give being a one-car couple a go, sharing my little black Focus. The car-sharing worked pretty well for the most part, Tom and I coordinating our schedules, Tom sometimes taking the bus to where he needed to be, me sometimes walking to where I needed to be, dropping each other off and picking each other up, sometimes one of us depending on a friend for a lift. On July 20 I left Columbus for Los Angeles for a 10-day visit.
 A few miles from his father's assisted living facility Tom sat stopped in traffic just before the entrance to the parking lot of a strip mall. The vehicle in front of Tom was a monster pick-up truck with a Kentucky license plate whose driver apparently had meant to pull into, but over-shot, the strip-mall entrance. Intending to back up to the strip-mall entrance but unaware that there was a much shorter car stopped behind him, the driver of the truck plowed full-speed-reverse into Tom, pushing his car backwards several yards before the truck driver realized he'd hit something. Thankfully, Tom wasn't hurt and there was there was no car stopped behind his, otherwise there could have been quite a chain-wreck reaction, instead of just one wrecked Focus.   So now we had one wrecked car still under repair in in Indiana and one freshly-wrecked car in Cleveland. Tom had to rent a car in Cleveland to drive home to Columbus. Luckily, a few days after Tom returned home from Cleveland he received word from the garage in Indiana that our first car was repaired and ready for pick-up. Unluckily, I was still in Los Angeles and so couldn't drive with him to pick up our car. Luckily, Tom has a good, good friend who drove with him from Columbus to Indiana to get the car. So we now continue into our third month of being a one-car couple. And though it's starting to get a weence old, always having to plan who goes where when, it appears that this will be the status quo for us for some time to come. It hasn't yet been determined whether our Focus will be pronounced totaled so that we can collect our insurance money and go out and buy another car, or whether the insurance company will decide that the car can be fixed, the whole total vs.repair decision process being held up by the fact that it appears that the monster pick-up truck driver has no insurance, though he claims that he does and that the mistake is on the part of the insurance company. If it's determined that he has no insurance then we'll probably have to pay our insurance company's $1,000 deductible, whether our car ends up totaled or repaired. If our car is going to be repaired I expect we'll be in for another long wait. Whatever. In any case after two freaky car wrecks, Tom and I are both a little freaked about driving these days, Tom more so than myself, as he was behind the wheel both times. Me being of a medium superstitious nature, I can't shake that old augury that bad things come in threes and now I keep waiting for the third calamity to arrive. Do you think dropping an ice cream at the State Fair counts?
 In response to the other day's post on the Ohio State Fair my friend Karla posted the following on Facebook: Patti, what a wonderful trip down memory lane! Our family also took MANY trips to the Ohio State Fair. You included so many of our favorites here, only missing the Butter Cow and the delicious ice cream at the Dairy Barn. Busted. I should have known I couldn't get away with doing a piece on the Ohio State Fair without giving the Dairy Barn - and especially the Butter Cow sculpture, one of the iconic, not-to-be-missed highlights of the Fair - its due. Here's a good photo that I got off the internet,  ...unlike the bad one that I ended up taking - of this year's Butter Cow tableau. Anyway, after my friend pointed out my omission I contritely returned to that day's post and inserted the photos I took in the Dairy Barn, only two, taken in haste and decidedly substandard, the reason for which I'll get to shortly,
...so that my chronicle of the 2017 Ohio State Fair would not be lacking that important feature so near and dear to the hearts of we Fair-goers, who must marvel, not only that such a work could be created in butter, but that we live in a society so well-fed that we think nothing of using 2,000 pounds of butter for a piece of art. In truth, though, I didn't intentionally neglect - before I went back and rectified the oversight - to give a shout-out to the Dairy Barn. However I think I must have done it subconsciously. I think I must have been trying - subconsciously, of course, for, as I said, I would never intentionally snub the Ohio State Butter Cow sculpture - to suppress a certain event that happened that afternoon while I was in the Dairy Barn. It all began at the Dairy Barn ice cream counter, where, as pointed out by my friend in the above Facebook post, one can procure a delicious ice cream cone. Delicious, yes, and relatively inexpensive in comparison to the price of most State Fair edibles, or so-called edibles.  The price of an ice cream cone at the Dairy Barn was, I think, $3.50 for one scoop, and $6.00 for two scoops. But here's the thing: the portions are huge, "one scoop" in reality being three scoops smooshed together into one big scoop, as you might be able to perceive from this photo of Tom's scoop, already partially consumed in this shot,  ...so that one wonders how the scoopers could possibly pile any more ice cream atop the already over-packed cone. That question could have been doubly begged in regard to my cone, a "single" dip of Cashew Pecan; because while Tom's dip of strawberry, as was the case with most of the dips cradled in the cones I observed in the hands of the Dairy Barn patrons around me, was packed into a massive globe, my ice cream, for some reason, was constructed more in the shape of a tower, the three stories of Cashew Pecan sitting one on top of the other. (In a later moment, while pondering the how, why, how, why of what happened, in a flight of imagination I pictured one possibly disgruntled member of the army of hustling, bustling teen-agers behind the ice cream counter taking a moment from the non-stop activity to whisper to his co-worker while piling my cone to a most precarious height, "Want to bet this old lady drops this Cashew Pecan?" However, I ended up heeding the counsel of Tom, who sensibly advised me, "Don't blame the kid.") So anyway (now that you've already guessed the ending - the worst possible - of this story), upon receiving my cone it did occur to me that this Cashew Pecan high-rise did appear at risk of keeling over; still, I figured I could quickly lick it into shape. And I probably would have been able to, had I kept focused on the task at hand, which shouldn't have been that hard, considering how delicious - judging from the few corrective licks I ended up accomplishing - was the high-butterfat-content Dairy Barn ice cream involved. But, as is so often the case with myself, I got distracted by the sights around me, and was tugged by my relentless need to capture every interesting scene on the memory card of my camera. "Oh, let me get a shot the Butter Cow!" I cried as I dashed off from the ice cream stand towards the display. She's going to drop that ice cream, thought Tom. I must say in my defense, if the ice cream had been better balanced, I'm sure it would have had the wherewithal to stay stuck onto the cone; because, though yes, I had momentarily forgotten about the cone in my hand as I pulled out and focused my camera, the cone actually shifted only ever so slightly as I snapped the shot, a bad shot, it turned out, as I was aware of the ice cream tumbling from its cone even as I snapped.  My ice cream hit the floor and there was a moment of silence among the crowd around the Butter Cow, followed by a vast collective, "Awwwwwww," as the crowd realized that this poor elderly lady had dropped her ice cream. It was an excruciating moment. So excruciating that I lost sight of what should have been my next priority: getting a picture of it! Tom came hurrying over with a handful of napkins. "Oh, I don't need those," I said petulantly, "it didn't fall on me." "The floor," he said, "we've got to wipe up the floor!" Right. My next priority became to slink out of that place as quickly and invisibly as possible. It was only a few minutes later as we strode across the fairgrounds in a direction far as possible from the Dairy Barn, that Tom said, "Too bad you didn't get a shot of your ice cream on the floor of the Dairy Barn." "I know," I sighed, taking a lick of Tom's strawberry ice cream which he'd chivalrously shifted my way, "It's my biggest regret." Reference: https://ohiostatefair.com/butter-cow/  
 I love the State Fair. In the 38 years we've lived in Columbus I've haven't missed visiting the Fair more than two or three times. And yet I never grow tired of going to the State Fair, every year I find myself looking forward with the same anticipation to seeing the same old Fair sights I've been seeing every year for decades: The crowded fairgrounds,    ...the Type-2 Diabetes-On-A-Stick Fair food,       
 
 ...but so far I've managed to resist. 
 Then there are the animals, 
 ...and chicks, 
 ...pigs, 
 ...show horses, 
 There are the commercial buildings,  ...filled with vendors selling every kind of ware imaginable,      ...things new and used,   ...some stuff you wonder why anybody would buy.   And there are the bands that march around the fairgrounds throughout the day,  ...and the parades.  And yet in truth he State Fair's offerings are never exactly the same. There are always some variations and/or additions from year to year. For example, just when one would think that the creative genius of junk food had reached its pinnacle, this year they've now figured out more ways to fatten up bacon:   And in case you're wondering what chocolate-covered bacon looks like:   Another addition this year, just inside the fairgrounds entrance was a grand display of colossal farm machinery.  ...with their colossal price tags. 
 And I did notice quite a few more play activities for children than usual,          Of course the content of the exhibits changes from year to year. This year as part of their exhibit the Boy Scouts set up a game called Ga-Ga Ball that the children did in fact seem to go ga-ga over,  ...while the Girl Scouts displayed Haikus on hiking that they'd written.  This year the Ag/Hort building offered, as always, some beautiful and interesting displays and competition entries:           ...including this 516-pound super-squash. 
 ...while admiring the work of the butter sculptor's chosen interpretation for this year of the Butter Cow.  And this year on the stage of the Natural Resources Center appeared a new act, a country western band (most of whose members were from Ohio), called Nashville Crush,  ...who had some great vocal harmonies, banjo pickin' and fiddling going on, and who I'm sure I would have really enjoyed if I were a fan of contemporary country western. (Alas, I like only early classic country. But these guys were good musicians and entertainers). But at the other end of the fairgrounds is my perennially favorite State Fair spot, Cardinal Hall, the Creative/Heritage Crafts building, where every year one can find the latest artistic creations in, among other media, Brillo pads, 
   ... yummy-looking pies, cakes, cookies and candy,      ...and my favorite exhibit of them all, the cake art.            For the past couple of years I've harbored a fantasy daydream of someday taking all my loved ones to Hawaii. is, of course, a dream made of mist and air. But maybe starting today, while I'm still high on Fair love, I'll scale that that dream back to someday taking them all to the Ohio State Fair.   Making pizza used to be my thing. Years ago, when my kids were young and I was mostly a stay-at-home mom who mostly, well, stayed at home but had little inclination towards cleaning, my preferred household duties, next to childcare, were cooking and baking, though I was better at, or maybe just preferred, baking over cooking. In other words, my house was pretty messy back then, but boy, did it smell good! I was a cookie, cake, and pie-baking mom par excellence, though the general consensus was that my pièces de résistance were my yeast breads and sweet rolls.
...and I used to make bread a couple of times a week, the two below being everybody's favorites.    I also used to make these rolls from time to time, substituting for the blueberries canned sour cherries sweetened with sugar and cinnamon. One bite and you were in the Promised Land.  The other thing I was semi-known for in familial eating circles was my home-made pizza, which had a thick, delicious deep-dish crust, the recipe for which actually just came from my Betty Crocker cookbook.  I used to make pizza about every other week, for family get-togethers, or upon request, which, as I recall, was fairly often. I used to spend quite a bit of time kneading dough back in the day. But then the years went by, the kids grew up and switched to auto-pilot, as they were by the time of this photo of Tommy's high school graduation day with our pets of that era, the cat and the bunny,  ...I went back to work and began involving myself in various and sundry time-consuming activities, the bread- and roll-baking went by the wayside and for many years now the only pizza I've eaten has been store-made or home-made by someone other than myself. Until last week. while I was in Los Angeles and folks were hungry for pizza. As I scanned my brain for ideas as to where the best locality for procuring some pizza might be, the idea popped into my head of making a pizza for everyone. Of course it was too late in the day to start a yeast dough, but I thought I recalled seeing at the supermarket a canned Pillsbury-esque pizza dough in among the cans of refrigerated crescent rolls and buttermilk biscuits. Well, thought I, canned-crust pizza won't be in the same league as home-made deep-dish-deluxe-crust pizza, but...well, actually I was now feeling kind of intrigued as to what kind a pizza came out of a can. So I drove over to Ralph's to pick up the ingredients,  Then I made a canned-crust, Ragu-from-a-jar-sauce, cheese-from-a-bag pizza. OMG. It was awesome! The crust was thin but with the perfect fold-over consistency of a New York slice; in fact this pizza tasted better than many's the New York (I mean New York New York) slices I've had. Which caused me to ponder: All those years while I was kneading mountains of dough in a state of ignorant bliss, was the rest of the world whipping together this fantastic pre-fab pizza? As the thrill of my new pizza discovery was still fresh, the day after I arrived back home in Columbus I made a canned-crust pizza for lunch,  ...anxious to try out my discovery on Tom and find out if he, too, loved this new variation on a classic theme:    So anyway, on the chance that there still exists out there others as in the dark as I was on the joy of prefabricated pizza, let there be light:  Prefabricated Pizza Ingredients Cooking spray 1 can of refrigerated pizza crust About 1/3 of a 28-oz. jar of Ragu Traditional sauce Shredded parmesan cheese One 8 oz. bag of mozzarella cheese Oregano Method Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Spray a 17" cookie sheet with cooking spray.
  Bake at 425 degrees for 9-11 minutes.
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"Tropical Depression"
by Patti Liszkay Buy it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTPN7NYY Archives
June 2025
I am a traveler just visiting this planet and reporting various and sundry observations,
hopefully of interest to my fellow travelers. Categories |
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