Happy St. Swithin's Day!

So in spite of the fact that little of merit and much that could corrupt have appeared on this little blog, my boss actually likes it and misses it. And I live to please. After a 6 month hiatus, therefore, here you go, the return of Liz and Gianna. I, Liz, will still probably be the main source of insanity to appear here, but Gianna promises that occasionally she'll chip in and reveal which hotels have found her lost undergarments most recently.

What has happened in the last half-year, you wonder? For starters, Gianna and I won an award for sale repping which is proof that (almost) no one read this blog. Oh, and I added two states to my sales territory and am now exploring the wonders of Alabama and Louisiana. An aside, this morning I was perusing the various news websites and stumbled on an article ranking the states in order of most to least obese. Four of the five states I represent are in the Top 10, including Mississippi at #1! Woot!! I'm so proud. And don't worry, all those po-boys I've eaten in the 3 1/2 years I've had this job, I'm single-handedly, double-chin-edly, dragging Texas up to the Top 10 as well. So, some new states and roads to travel, with lots of driving and freaky roadside weirdness, such as this guy's interesting bumper decor:



I've perfected the drive-by photo snap:



and I've made snide jokes about this sign, because I really have the sense of humor of a 12 year old:



I've been busy. Heh. Grosse Tete....

Moving on. So, what is St. Swithin's Day and why should you care and what does it have to do with the book industry? Frankly, I don't think St. Swithin's Day has anything at all to do with the book business directly. From what I can tell, St. Swithin was a bishop in England(e) once upon a time who seemed to like the rain and his saintly "miracle" involved cursing the country with potentially nasty weather for 40 consecutive days each year because somebody decided to move his grave.


St. Swithin's Day, though, which happens to be July 15th, is the one day featured in David Nicholls's novel called--what else?--ONE DAY. I love this book. There's so much that could have misfired with it, from its clever conceit to the love plot, and I am a sceptical reader when it comes to clever things...and emotions. But when "clever" meets "engaging, flawed-but-likeable characters" and "cinematic storytelling," that book just might work. Since ONE DAY has burst onto the US bestseller lists as a Vintage Contemporaries paperback original, I guess I'm not the only one who found the magic in this book. So ONE DAY is the story of Dex and Emma, two British types who go on their first date on the night of their college graduation, July 15th, 1988. They don't become a couple that night--they are, after all, leaving school and heading their separate ways--but they do become friends. The novel then goes on to tell the story of their relationship, from friendship to falling out to reconnecting to love, over the course of 20 years. We only glimpse their lives, though, on July 15th of each year. It sounds like it could be super-cheesy, but David Nicholls has a knack for keeping the plot, characters, and one day concept from becoming trite. Dex and Emma are characters you want to know, for whom you root, and while reading ONE DAY I kept thinking, "This book would make a terrific movie." I typically hate romantic comedy-type things, but occasionally the right story produces an exceptional work. Think "When Harry Met Sally," or Nick Hornby's books, but with more soul and fewer hipster references. These characters seem like the people I knew in college, their struggles seem real, and the one day concept keeps the story fresh. And the movie of ONE DAY? It was destined for cinema. Anne Hathaway is set to star. READ THIS BOOK. TELL YOUR FRIENDS TO READ THIS BOOK. I promise it's really, really good.

Can You Sign It As "Liz, Will You Marry Me?"

Texas Book Festival 2009! A couple of weeks ago I rose at an unholy hour to drive the three hours to Austin in order to attend the annual Texas Book Festival, held every year on the Capitol grounds. I have a love/hate relationship with the Book Fest, going back to its creator (Laura Bush; sorry, not a fan) and the days when I worked it with a bookstore in the tents and it was invariably rainy, freezing, alternately stifling hot, and my favorite, tornadic. I also would prefer that the Texas organization chose to support Texas businesses in their book sales. Nonetheless, Texas Book Fest hosted over 200 authors this year, including some of my all time favorites. I've skipped the event in years past, but this year two of the four "If I Lived Near You, You'd Issue a Restraining Your On Me" authors were in attendance. I would have hit the road any hour hour to bask in their awesomeness.

I arrived at the Capitol at 9:50 am, just in time to hear Richard Russo kick off the festival by reading from his terrific novel THAT OLD CAPE MAGIC. Russo's event was large enough that the organizers had placed him in the sanctuary of the Methodist church that's next to the Capitol. The place was packed. I was supposed to meet my boss Valerie there, but there was no way I would find her in the crowd, so I took a seat in the back (close to the door in case my presence in a holy place peeved a heavenly entity into some divine retribution lightning strikes). Russo took the pulpit after a brief introduction and kicked off his reading with an apology; his selected reading contained choice words normally not uttered in a House of the Lord. Words that I would use...and one of the reasons I'm not a minister. Or nun. Anyway, he was great--hilarious, charming, a strong reader, and he held the crowd for a full hour as he read of the travails of a son negotiating his divorced college professor parents' strained relationships. If you haven't read this book, find it and buy it and read it. It's classic Russo--humane, funny, poignant--but at a third the page count of some of his tomes. This book is my rare exception to my "I hate beach chairs on book jackets" tenet.

After the Russo event, still unavailable to locate Valerie, I instead found Gianna in the bowels of the Capitol building, where she was waiting to hear Dan Chaon, author of the amazing AWAIT YOUR REPLY (previously mentioned on this half-assed blog). Gianna and I had eaten dinner with Dan a couple of nights before, the day his book was named one of the 10 Best of the Year by Publishers Weekly (well-deserved). Dan is the antithesis of the jerkwad author; he's a delightful dinner companion and reader, and the kind of guy with whom you just want to sit around and talk books. He was part of a panel at the Book Fest, and as the room filled to capacity I relinquished my seat and set off to find my lost boss instead, leaving Gianna after a brief hello. I did find Valerie, though, and we walked through the tents of exhibitors. Unlike just about every other year, the weather was perfect and the Festival was actually festive. I ran into more friends that Saturday than I've seen since, say, the days when I was in college and saw all of my friends (and enemies) every single day. We strolled, gossiped, and then ate lunch with one of Valerie's old friends. Then Valerie said good-bye and I went off to stalk authors.

Specifically, I drove to Austin to see two people: Colson Whitehead and Margaret Atwood. Recently Gianna sent me an email asking me what my five favorite books of the 2000's were. I sent her a list and she sent me hers in return. The common thread? JOHN HENRY DAYS by Colson Whitehead. Everyone should read this book. I love it. Anyway, because lunch took awhile, I missed his reading, but like any good stalker I knew where to catch him in the signing tent and I was fourth in line, camera ready. The line attendant asked me if I'd like for the author to personalize my book. I answered, half-jokingly, "Will he write, 'Will you marry me?'" The woman laughed nervously and walked on. On the one hand, I like making people uncomfortable. On the other, I do work for his publisher and should mind my manners. When I introduced myself as his sales rep, though, he was generous and thanked me for my work on his books. He didn't propose...perhaps because I think he's already married and because he probably didn't know he was supposed to...but I still love him.

And from the wondrous Mr. Whitehead's presence, I walked down to the Paramount Theater, a few blocks from the Capitol, because if I had to maim children, I would in order to see Margaret Atwood speak. I can't think of an author I more revere. She's a tremendous writer, she's crusty and funny, and she's from Canada. I love Canada. I collect her books as a chronicle of my life--where I was and what I was doing at the times I first read them. I sometimes pretend that she's my grandma. We get along swimmingly in my imagination. And I love Canada. Anyway, I was thirty minutes early for the event and here's what I saw when I arrived: (left)
I, apparently, am not the only Atwood fan out there. The theater, once we were allowed to enter, quickly filled to capacity, and in the dark the place bubbled with anticipation. Finally, there she was. My granny, my elder Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every literary way. The format of the program was a Q & A with a moderator, Ben Moser, who happens to be the son of the manager of Brazos Bookstore in Houston. Ben, who is the books editor for Harper's, held his own versus the feisty Atwood, and both had the crowd laughing and engaged in the perils of global destruction (the cautionary tale of Atwood's latest novel, the dystopian THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD). I was enthralled. People aren't supposed to take pictures inside the Paramount, so I only took seven. Having already read and sold the book, and already a follower of Atwood's blogging and Twittering (she's a big fan of organic coffee), there wasn't a whole lot that was said that I didn't already know, except for the people who were there. I found their reactions to this author's work surprising. For example, it never even occurred to me that their aren't happy endings in Atwood's novels. She made a point of saying that none of her books is Hamlet, in which only one person is alive at the end. I guess I never read books expecting a happy ending. I consider that desire for cheery resolution a bit immature and simplistic. The real world isn't like that (or at least, my version of the world). I'm regularly surprised by readers who want happy endings. I tend to dislike books that end this way. Anyway, after the stage portion of the event, Atwood moved to the balcony area of the theater and began to sign books. I somehow managed to end up four people from the end of the line, and therefore had a ton of time to kill by talking to the other people waiting...and waiting...and waiting. We waited for almost two hours. The staff members working the event after a long day of big authors (Buzz Aldrin was at that venue before Atwood), looked like they would tackle people for a cocktail. Finally, though, I was standing next to her, talking to her, bumbling before her. And she was taking down my name for the restraining order. I'm quite convinced that Canada will confiscate my passport the next time I attempt to cross that border. I'm willing to risk Canadian jail though. Mounties are cute in those uniforms, ay?

The Finest Eating Joint in Texas, Part 3

Oh god, that meal.

Let's start with something I forgot to mention during the appetizer course. Valerie, my boss, tried to order onion rings as one of our appetizers, but Trevor the waiter returned to tell us that The Big Texan was out of onion rings. I worked for a summer as a Sonic carhop--the third worst job I've ever had--and one of my responsibilities in the morning before the Sonic opened was to assist in the making of onion rings. As mentioned earlier, I still eat at Sonic, even after working in one for three months. I don't think I'll be returning to The Big Texan without coercive methods. Anyway, it's not hard to make an onion ring, and since the whole menu was swimming in batter, the issue must have been that either A) they were out of onions, or B) they were too lazy to hack up some onions and dip them in the vats of batter. The onion rings weren't the only missing items from the menu that night.

We ordered. Chris the Bottomless Stomach, who had already ordered the 32 oz beer, ordered the second largest steak on the menu, a 36 oz slab of cow, the "Houston Cut" ribeye, that made me feel nauseated at mere contemplation. Most of the others ordered cow products, though Gianna ordered a baked potato with everything but the bacon bits, her best option as the table's vegetarian. Not a cow eater, I narrowed my choices down to either the fried chicken strips for $15.25 or the fried shrimp with "Buck-a-Roo Cocktail Sauce" for $16.95. I thought that it was outrageous to charge over $15 for chicken strips, and I (wrongly) guessed that if they were willing to cute-ify the name of the dipping sauce that the shrimp were the better choice. On the other hand, Amarillo rests about 800 miles from an ocean. I asked Trevor if the shrimp were frozen, which I didn't really care about, but sometimes I watch Gordon Ramsey's "Kitchen Nightmares" show and he's always going on about fresh ingredients. Trevor basically guaranteed that the shrimp were from the deep freeze, but I humored the "how bad can they be?" thought and ordered them anyway, along with a salad and mashed potatoes. Valerie ordered a steak, mashed potatoes, and another side, and Alan, who had talked about ribs for ten minutes, ordered a rack.

Then we sat back and waited. We waited for the two people from our account to join us, as they had been delayed by an event. We waited for the food. Everyone continued to drink, except for Brenda who never received her margarita, and we heard detailed descriptions of the flights from Maryland (our logistics people) and Minnesota (Alan). Trevor somewhat regularly found his way to the table to bring more beer, but not the food. After about 45 minutes of waiting, the appetizer trays scraped clean, we heard a commotion downstairs. A waitress announced that someone was attempting the 72 oz steak challenge. A large man sat at a table in the middle of the first floor with a slab of cow smothering a plate. The waitress explained the rules; eat the whole steak, the baked potato, the salad, the rolls, and three shrimp in an hour and they are free. She didn't point out that if he failed he would pay almost $100 for the meal, or that a vomit bucket sat on the floor beside his table. People gathered around to wish him luck, and lots of people snapped pictures, and the freak show nature of the joint intensified. And back at our table, Valerie and Alan began to grow impatient for our food. The logistics team was still on East Coast time and we were all hungry. Plus, Chris the Stomach was already on his second 32 oz beer. We needed our food.

As Chris the Wannabe Kobayashi criticized steak guy's strategy for downing the massive cow hunk ("You have to eat 75% of it in the first 20 minutes, before your stomach realizes what's happening"), Valerie got up to track down Trevor and our dinners. As soon as she stood, naturally, he appeared with our entrees. He served most of the main courses. I can't speak about the quality of the food down on Gianna's side of the table, though I do know that Gianna's baked potato "with everything but the bacon bits" arrived as only a potato, nothing else, and she knew that it wasn't hot because Trevor picked up the foil-wrapped potato and set it down in front of her without the assistance of a hot mat. Or a plate. I repeat, she didn't receive a plate.

As for my end of the table, well, we weren't impressed by the quality. Valerie's steak was very cold, and Alan's ribs looked awful, with the sauce congealed across a grayish matter that was allegedly meat. Across from me, Kathy cut into her "medium well" steak, which was described on the menu as "no pink, cooked throughout," and blood pooled in her plate. She looked stricken and sent the plate back with Trevor to experience the phenomenon of fire. And then there were my shrimp. I could tell right away that something was off about my shrimp. It was that the top three were fried together as they obviously had been removed from the freezer, stuck together. The cook hadn't bothered to separate them before dropping them in the fryer, and then he hadn't bothered to hide the horror underneath the other shrimp. They were on top, like a prized nugget. Also, I've had good-though-frozen shrimp that were good quality. These little shrimp were obviously not high quality. They were pulverized flat to make them seem larger than the medium-to-small size they actually were. No shrimp exist like that in nature. The tasted pretty nasty, too.

About the time that people began sending their food back to the kitchen for heating/cooking, the two people joining us from our account arrived. They greeted everyone, sat down, and ordered drinks. Meanwhile, Chris the Cow Compactor had torn into the huge steak on his plate. I am very glad that I wasn't sitting next to him, because he's a nice and highly entertaining guy, but watching that cow consumption would have required a bucket for me too. As Chris ate, though, it quickly was obvious to all of us that he was putting the 72 oz challenger downstairs to shame. As Beefy T downstairs was giving up, Chris was mopping up his plate. And because I found my shrimp disgusting and my sides had yet to arrive, I was taking pictures. As the big guy packed up about 2/3 of his steak, Chris all but licked his plate. The waitress presented the challenger with an "I Surrender!" t-shirt, and people cheered the attempt, and I'm guessing that the guy was thinking that the shirt probably tasted better than his steak. If you look closely at the picture, he managed to eat ALL of his salad. Gianna screamed down to my end of the table, "Liz! Look! NO WEDDING RING!" She's constantly on the look out for a future Mr. Liz, and I probably don't show my gratitude properly. Anyway, if you look at the plate behind Chris's juicy remains, you'll notice huge cuts of onion. Guess that answers the onion ring question.

While we were making fun of the guy who failed to eat the 72 oz steak, Trevor stopped by and we quizzed him on the challenge. He told us that about 15 people attempted it each day, and that often it ends with the challenger using the puke bucket. Worse, they don't tell the regular diners that the contestant next to them might ruin the whole dining room's meal by retching four and a half pounds of cow into a metal bucket. I'm glad that we were sitting in the balcony.

In the meantime, we were still waiting on our sides, and after Valerie asked for the third time--I think she wanted SOMETHING to eat and was hoping that the mashed potatoes would compensate for the cold and congealed cow on her plate--the potatoes arrived. They were vile, and possibly the worst "food" on the table. The consistency of glue and adhering to the dishes (I flipped mine upside-down and tried to jar them loose, with no success), they were flavorless, luke-warm, and very, very bad. If you saw the movie The Matrix, and you remember the gross protein substance that Keanu and his pals ate for breakfast, imagine that glop after it has solidified. Those were our potatoes. And after still more pleading, we finally received our second sides, in my case a salad. Now, I normally treat salad as a necessary evil before the good parts of a meal, and I regularly state that I don't eat twigs and shrubs, but that salad was the best thing I ate that night. If only I hadn't waited almost three hours for it to arrive, I might have enjoyed the food portion of my Big Texan experience more. I should make clear that I had a blast taking in the absurdity of the entire scene, but the food was terrible and the service appalling. I don't blame Trevor--he seemed flustered and overwhelmed the whole time, and we found out that he'd only been working there for about two weeks. And it wasn't his fault that starving refugees would have hesitated to eat that food. On the whole, though, I couldn't believe that the restaurant was featured on the Food Network. Valerie, feeling obstinate, demanded that they serve us the dinner rolls we should have received about two hours earlier, and though I didn't eat one, the consensus at the table was that the rolls were good.

And then we ordered dessert. Chris-Who-Ate-Amarillo ordered a slice of cheesecake, and in an attempt to find some food over going back to the hotel hungry, Valerie, Alan, and I shared a piece of chocolate cake. A couple of other desserts were ordered for the other end of the table. Alan ordered black coffee, and Annette ordered decaf. A minute later, Trevor came back and announced that they were out of regular coffee. I lost it. I was laughing hysterically and Valerie questioned my mental state as I openly guffawed at the whole evening. Then she joined me laughing. What kind of a restaurant doesn't have coffee? And wouldn't you send someone to go buy some coffee before admitting that you're out to a table of 11 whose orders have been mangled from the time they sat down? How is this place still open?? When the desserts arrived, Alan immediately sent back our chocolate cake so that they could add the ice cream, whipped cream, nuts, and cherry that were shown in the picture on the dessert menu. They had sent out a slab of cake on a plate with no garnish, and for that matter, no clean utensils. As Trevor tried to hand us forks, he himself, pulled back his hand because he didn't think that the handful of utensils had been washed. And then we heard the laughter from the other end of the table. After a meal of oversized excess, Chris's slice of cheesecake was shockingly small, smaller than the fare at the Olive Garden down the road, smaller than the cheesecake sold in the Chick-Fil-A drive-thru.

God, what a meal.

We rode the hideous limos back to the hotel, and on the ride we figured out that Chris had eaten 36 ounces of cow, his salad, the cheesecake, and consumed a full gallon of beer, and he hadn't even used the restroom. Chris swore that on his next visit to Amarillo, he was tackling the 72 oz monster. I hope I'm not there. I would vomit.

The Finest Eating Joint in Texas, Part 2

...We entered the restaurant in all its magnificence. Even though we had a reservation, our table wasn't yet ready, so we perused the extremely classy gift shop. Want your own longhorns for your Cadillac? They're $400 at The Big Texan gift shop. Want a Frisbee that looks like a cow paddy? Check! The visiting warehouse people were impressively captivated by the Texas-sized array o' crap.

And in case you might believe that the crap was confined to the gift shop, let's talk about the interior of the restaurant. Here's what a patron encounters as soon as s/he enters the building: The stuffed bear, the slot machines, the random flag-type stuff shoved in already cluttered areas, the ad for Elvis Impersonator Night--classy. And lest you think that Smoky the Bear was the only taxidermied beast in The Big Texan, think again. I think that they might even stuff anyone who takes the 72 ounce steak challenge and then suffers a terminal coronary in the process, at which point they preserve the dead glutton, prop him against a wall, and proceed to neglect dusting him for about twenty years. The place was covered in carcasses and the carcasses were covered in dust. That elk on the wall? That's not chin hair. That's a dust-covered cobweb. And because Valerie reserved a table upstairs looking down on the main floor, we were eye level with the corpse of Bambi's mom for most of our time in the restaurant. Did I mention that Gianna is a vegetarian? I don't think that The Big Texan's decorating choices swayed her from that path.

As we sat down, nine of us from the publisher present, with the two people from our account running late but expected to join us shortly, we ordered a smattering of appetizers--fried jalepenos, fried mushrooms, and potato skins with brisket on them--and our cowboy-dressed waiter, Trevor, took our drink orders. Chris, the bottomless stomach, ordered a 36 ounce beer, and most of the members of our table likewise ordered beer in large steins. I don't know their thinking, but I wouldn't have been surprised to discover that they were hoping that alcohol would distract them from the roadkill all over the walls. Brenda (the children's book rep) and Gianna were sitting on the far end of the table from Valerie, Brenda's boss Alan, and me, and the folks from our operations/warehouse staff plus the two empty chairs for our guests were in between. I found out later that Brenda ordered a margarita, it being the official cocktail of Texas. I was worried about triggering a migraine, having not slept for about four days and feeling a little loopy already, so I ordered a Diet Coke. Now, I understand that some restaurants stupidly accept the Pepsi incentives for carrying their products over Coke products, but here's the thing: Diet Pepsi is NEVER a suitable alternative to Diet Coke. I know that some people are polite and will settle for Diet Pepsi, but no one ever prefers Diet Pepsi to Diet Coke. And I am not one of those polite people. I suggested to Trevor that he send one of the limos to pick up some Diet Cokes from a convenience store and I'd wait, but I think Trevor knew that with a party of eleven his gratuity was included in the bill and he didn't seem willing to go the extra mile (literally) to help a junky out. I settled for water, and I think the restaurant itself gasped in disbelief that a diner wasn't choosing a beer that came in a mug that was twice the size of my fish bowl (I once kept a beta named Elvis Fauntleroy IV, until I acquired Zorro the cat and Zorro liked to drink Elvis's water). I don't think I fit in with the Big Texan mystique.

...Next, the meal, or, "Sorry we're out of (blank)."

The Finest Eating Joint in Texas, Part 1

I am not a foodie. I'd just as soon eat at Sonic (bless the Sonic) as any place that features cloth napkins. Gianna, too, isn't snooty in her cuisine choices, and she's a vegetarian, so when we're on road trips together the restaurant choices are pretty low brow. Recently I drove from Houston to Austin, picked up my fellow rep, and then we drove to Amarillo, and three days later we reversed the trip--roughly 22 hours of driving total. On this four day trip that spanned the entire state of Texas, we ate at classy establishments like the Olive Garden in Abilene, the Subway in Amarillo, and we really splurged on lunch at the Taco Bell in Lubbock. My monthly credit card statement must appall my colleagues in New York, but we tend to go with fast over haute dining. I have as many saved phone numbers for various Macaroni Grills on my cell phone as I do members of the Sullivan clan, and generally I prefer the Macaroni Grill to my family. The car-side servers are more polite generally.

The exception to the quick, boring schlock upon which we regularly dine arises when that obligatory anomaly pops up--the work dinner. While in Amarillo, several members of the publishing universe we inhabit descended from our central offices and warehouse to discuss operations with our Amarillo account. One cannot stroll through the Rick Husband/Amarillo "International" Airport (they fly to Mexico) without seeing advertisements for The Big Texan, the home of the 72 ounce steak. One cannot drive from the airport to downtown Amarillo without passing the actual building in its yellow-rose-of-Texas color scheme and gaudy aesthetic offensiveness. The Food Network even featured the establishment in one of their programs that promotes oddity over quality (Man Vs. Food, I think). There's even a classic episode of one of my favorite TV shows ever, King of the Hill, in which 13 year old Bobby Hill eats a 72 ounce steak at a Big Texan-type restaurant to tweak his nose at his vegetarian ex-girlfriend. The Big Texan is an Amarillo and Texas landmark.

In spite of the alluring tackiness that would normally tempt someone with my love of absurdity (particularly because The Big Texan has a terrifically absurd gift shop), I had never stepped into the building. Gianna is a vegetarian, after all, and because of throat problems and general taste issues, I can't and won't swallow beef except in hamburger form. We'd never been there, and more tellingly, the people we called on in Amarillo never wanted to go there. However, one of our colleagues flying in for operations meetings last week desperately wanted to experience The Big Texan. Our boss Valerie, a great organizer and the type who can juggle personalities skillfully while indulging the crazy guy who wants huge slabs of cow, arranged for a group of us--eleven people in total--to dine at this Texas institution. She even arranged for the Big Texan limos to pick us up at our luxurious Hampton Inn accommodations. In case you were wondering, yes, there are longhorn antlers on the front of the limos. Guessing from all of the talk of alcohol consumption, I figured that I wasn't the only person feeling ambivalent about this dining experience. But I do love the spectacle and the ridiculous, and as we rode to the restaurant I snapped pictures.

A note about the limos--they weren't nice. They reeked, and the upholstery was missing from the side of one of them, and I'm pretty certain that our little party is the only group ever to ride in the limos and not ask to visit a strip club after our meal. I would bet that we're one of the few groups not to vomit in them. Moving on to dinner.

One of our visiting colleagues, a guy named Chris, is one of those high metabolism guys like the hotdog eating champion Kobayashi--wiry and twitchy with energy. I suspect that he may have driven his second grade teacher to the nervous hospital back in the day. Chris had talked big about eating the 72 ounce steak before boarding the plane from the East Coast to the Texas Panhandle, but after eating a big burger for lunch he chickened out. He, by the way, was the one who had seen The Big Texan on the Food Network and I mostly blame him for this excursion. Other people present included other warehouse/logistics staff/publishing supply geniuses Kathy, Annette, and Flo (sounds a bit like the names of phony receptionists on infomercials from my childhood, when every single person with a headset was named "Nancy"), children's rep Brenda and her boss Alan, Gianna, Valerie our boss, me, and two members of the book team from our account in Amarillo, Matthew and Sylvia.

We walked into the restaurant after fifteen minutes of inhaling the aromas of our pimpin' limos...

...more to come shortly...

Road Hazards

So my thought that I would update the blog from my vacation obviously went kaput. Sorry. The quick recap--eight days in California, four baseball games, one totally surreal version of the "Star Spangled Banner" from this guy: Grandpa Elliot, who wailed out that song for over five minutes, effectively icing the Dodgers' bats. It was awesome. For ballpark enthusiasts, PETCO Park in San Diego is ideal, but I was surprised by the experience at Angels Stadium in Anaheim. It's a great place to watch baseball...too bad that American League baseball is fairly strategically moronic. I did indeed visit Disneyland, and unlike my last trip to Disney World, I wasn't asked to leave any buildings at this version of the happiest place on earth. The most surprising experience of the whole trip involved elephant copulation at the San Diego Zoo, but attempting to keep this blog PG-13, I won't include the photos of the elephant with two trunks (wink, wink). Here's one of a giraffe with two heads instead. I did have a great vacation and escape from the hot hell of Texas in the summer.

Back at work, back to the adventures of selling books. As hopefully you are already aware, Kathy Griffin, comedic genius and fame whore, has a new book coming out this fall called Official Book Club Selection. Gianna managed to get tickets to Kathy's show in Austin and I joined her and a few booksellers at the performance. Why do I love Kathy Griffin? Reason #1: she'll make fun of Michael Jackson within two weeks of his death. She glided onto the stage in full moonwalk to start the show. Reason #2: In shameless and brilliant self-promotion, she handed out fans with the book jacket printed on them before the show started. Reason #3: she'll mock her aging, boxed wine-chugging, "Law & Order SUV" watching mother in front of millions of people. I make fun of Attila, my mother, all the time, but my audience never really exceeds the tens. I didn't even hesitate to drive the three hours to Austin for an 8 pm show, even knowing that I would have to drive back to Houston after the show because I needed to help with an event in Houston the next morning. I am a road warrior. I am also an insomniac. "Getting home at 1:30 in the morning isn't so bad," I thought. "I'm up anyway at that time so I might as well be driving," I thought. "It'll be a quick trip, there and back," I thought. Sigh.

I neglected that I am Liz, and part of the deal with fate when I was born was that nothing would ever be simple or hassle-free. After dropping off a bookseller at her house, I hit the road at 11:15, which would have placed me walking through my apartment door in Houston at 2 am. And then half a mile from that bookseller's house, my car suddenly sounded like a Harley Davidson in need of a tune-up and I struggled to steer or accelerate. I pulled over into the parking lot of the Victory Christian Center, the karmic oddity of the location not lost upon me, and jumped out to examine the exterior of my car. Flat tire. On the one hand, at least I was still in Austin and not somewhere between cities on the side of the road. On the other, it was 11:20 and I was in a vacant parking lot at one of the busiest intersections--I-35 and Hwy 183--in Austin and alone. Because I drive a Random House fleet vehicle, I have 24 hour roadside assistance, and I found my paperwork and started calling people. Three calls and Dave from Pop-a-Lock was on his way, but I had time to kill. I sat under a street light and tried to read manuscripts for the upcoming spring season on my Sony Reader, but was mostly distracted by shadows and cars and possible threats. My favorite, though, was when the sherriff's deputy drove by TWICE without stopping to see why some random woman was sitting in the parking lot of the Victory Christian Center at midnight. I felt well-protected.

Dave showed up and changed my tire. As soon as he turned over the flat it was obvious why my car sounded like a Harley--a metal shard was hanging out of the tire. Every time I drove over the metal bracket it dug into the pavement, making a terrible clatter. Dave the tire-changing guy was helpful and fast, and I was on the road again, but it was then 12:45 am and I still needed to drive 3 hours. I set off down the road, but about 20 minutes on down the road my cell phone rang. It was 1:07 in the morning?! It turned out to be a computerized survey to rate the quality of my roadside assistance. I'm driving, it's dark, I'm tired, and I'm trying to punch in numeric responses to the computer voices commands, but Eunice (my name for the generic compu-woman's voice) absolutely would not accept one of my answers, to the question of "What time did your assistance arrive?" I entered 11:45 pm, but Eunice snarkily informed me that time had not yet occurred. Thoughts of time warps entered my mind as I retyped it, then again, and then I thought about throwing my phone out the window. It took me far too long to realize that it was after midnight and thus a new day. I entered 12:01 am and thought that would be the end of the call. I was driving, after all, and should have been focused on the herd of deer on the side of the highway looking at my headlights. "What you like to take a short survey to rate overall satisfaction with the service provided?" ARGH! NO!

Home arrival time: 3:45 am. Number of times I heard a Taylor Swift song on the various radio stations between Austin and Houston while driving home: 8. Amount I dislike Taylor Swift: my loathing is like the sands of the Sahara. Number of expletives uttered on the trip home: possibly under 100, but not by much.

I solemnly swear to update this blog more frequently, or make Gianna throw in a piece about hiding from a tornado under an overpass or working an event with Buzz Aldrin. But more soon, I promise.

Breakfast Not Included

Last week I took my final trip of the selling season, and for the first time I actually remembered to grab my camera. Sure, I could have taken pictures of the scenic Texas Hill Country as Gianna and I drove out to Fredericksburg, or I could have photographed the wildlife, but really I love what makes a place unique (and even better if that diversity includes a bit of absurdity). Gianna and I were visiting a book distributor in Fredericksburg, Book Marketing Plus. We arrived in town about 20 minutes before our appointment, so instead of cruising the touristy areas of historic Fredericksburg with the peaches and the Germans, we wandered around the back roads and came upon this gem of a sign for accommodations. In this age of cost-cutting and recession, I'm a bit surprised that no one seemed to take advantage of this great offer. Sleep five for $39 a night and fully furnished? Is the "no breakfast" the problem? As we pulled forward to the property, though, we realized that "beautifully furnished" might be a bit of a stretch. Granted, we did not go inside (or even get out of the car), but Gianna kindly leaned out of the driver-side window and snapped a picture of the beautiful exterior. Even more impressive was the recreational area outside between what turned out to be two mobile homes. Never mind that mowing (scything?) wasn't part of the rigorous maintenance provided by the people living in the white house on the corner. I wonder how long that table has rested on its side? Decades?

As I mentioned before, I grew up in the boonies, and I confess that I have some low brow tastes. I'm not classy. I think that Tremors is one of the three best movies ever made. I asked for a Snuggie last Christmas and didn't get one, so I'll be asking for one again this year, in the maroon color because it looks most cultish. I prefer Sonic Drive-Ins to Ruth's Chris Steakhouses. Actually, I prefer Sonic to just about every restaurant there is. I even worked at Sonic as a carhop one summer during college. So I feel like I show a greater appreciation for rural treasures like the Bed & No Breakfast than I would if I'd grown up going to places like malls and libraries and museums and bookstores. For that same reason, though, places like the Bed & No Breakfast make me love the unique nature of independent business--you'll notice I haven't posted a single photo from the assorted Hampton Inns I frequent regularly. Sure, it's an eyesore that would destroy the property value of the house across the street (if there were a house across the street), but it's also adding character and depth to a town that has become such a tourist Mecca that it might as well be Branson with peaches. I guess I like the stuff that makes a town distinct, even if it is absurd. Do you think you'd have to give a vehicle description to the concierge when checking in at the Bed & No Breakfast?

I am officially on vacation this week. My sister and I are flying to California (if ever a state straddled the territory of majestic and absurd), and then working our way through the Major League Baseball stadiums there for a week. Like the mobile home-as-hotel accommodation, the baseball parks add character to towns. I stopped by one of my Houston bookstores last week and overheard a conversation between a customer and a bookseller about the Astros versus the Pirates. When the bookseller offered sympathy for the customer's support of the Pirates (who haven't posted a winning season in about 14 years), the righteous customer flew into a (good natured?) rant about how PNC Park in Pittsburgh is at least a "real" ballpark, as opposed to either the Astrodome or Minute Maid Park in Houston. I would have been all, "I have two words for you: World Series, so I'll take my ridiculous ballpark" but to his credit the bookseller didn't break into open taunting. He's right, though. The quality of the ballpark weighs into the appreciation of its location, and the Houston park sold corporate sponsorship of the foul poles, for crying out loud.

I am a big fan of the idea of bookstore tourism, too, and bookstores helping to define the character of a place. Is Oxford, Mississippi, the same place without Square Books occupying three buildings around the courthouse square? Isn't visiting the Tattered Cover one of those "must do" destinations when spending time in Denver? When my family took a vacation to Oregon several years ago, my father asked me what I would like to see. The only request I made was "Powell's." It seems to me that the successful bookstores are the ones that distinguish themselves in some way--as tourist destination, as cultivator of great book groups, as premier experts in a field, as passionate readers who know how to talk about books, as local leaders in community organization. Great bookstores add depth to their neighborhoods and towns.

My sister and I fly out tomorrow morning. I hope that I'll be able to update the blog a few times along the journey, as I drag her to bookstores and she drags me to the beach.