Month: April 2015

Climbing the stairway to heaven

by Allie P., posted in Life as I know it, Personal Favorites

I had been working in Hong Kong for a few weeks when my hubby joined me for a visit. Granted some free time, we decided to go exploring beyond the urban sprawl. I had already had my fill of skyscrapers, wall to wall people, and open air markets. I wanted to go some place quiet, someplace I could hear myself think. Luckily there were a number of options. Considering its association with a large communist state, Hong Kong is remarkably tolerant of religion and has a slew of temples and other houses of worship scattered across its territory. Located on the second largest island is a Buddhist temple that welcomes believers and tourists alike. It seemed like the perfect place for us to go.

big buddha base

The rainy season was threatening to begin at any moment. The skyline was marred with heavy cloud cover. This temple boasted a huge bronze statue high above the tree line, only you couldn’t see any of it from the ground below. From our vantage, the statue might not exist at all. Sure, plenty of people claimed it was there, but that could easily be some prank pulled on unsuspecting tourists. The only thing we could see was a staircase that continued into what seemed like infinity.

My legs hurt just looking at it (they still do), but we hadn’t come all this way to look at a staircase. We had to go up, and up, and up some more (Hong Kong takes their stair building seriously).

view from big buddhaAfter 500 burnt calories or so we were still only half-way up. The clouds hadn’t gotten any thinner either. I had already gotten what I wanted out of this experience. We were relatively alone on this staircase to nowhere. It was so quiet and peaceful at the landing. I was able to hear myself think, but that might not have been a good thing. I started wondering what was the point of getting to the top. We weren’t going to be able to see anything. Why bother? If we turned around now, at least gravity would make the way easier.

I started wondering what was the point of getting to the top. We weren’t going to be able to see anything. Why bother? If we turned around now, at least gravity would make the way easier.

Not party to my inner whiner, my hubby kept on going. Peace and quiet weren’t his goals, he wanted to see the giant statue. Occasionally it is a problem when our goals don’t line up, but this was one of those expectations. I might have another chance to come back on a day with better weather, but it was unlikely he would. It was now or never. I grit my teeth and continued after him. I’d make it to the top for his sake.

big buddha statue Hong KongThe wind picked up as we climbed higher. Suddenly the clouds parted, and there it was. The bronze statue was not one of those fat and happy Buddhas I was used to seeing in American Chinese restaurants. This version was not grinning from ear to ear, made to look like everything was some big joke. Instead, he appeared accepting, calm, and serene though still with a hint of a smile. His hand was raised up in greeting and welcome.

The wind died back down and the clouds rolled back in, but I had seen the statue. I knew it was there and it was closer than I expected. Those final flights of stairs didn’t seem quite as impossible anymore. I could do this.

The news recently has been quite disheartening, to the point that I am tempted to never turn the TV back on again as if that could in some way stop the events from happening. The damage in Nepal, catastrophic, the loss of life, tragic. Where do you even start rebuilding? How can you possibly mourn so many lost? Closer to home, there have been riots against a system that has so many broken parts that it can be fixed only through a massive undertaking. It seems like we are at the bottom of those stairs. We only can hope that if we work hard we may yet find a better future, but there is no guarantee that we will like the results. And yet, turning around is not an option. If we are to find the peace we seek, we must first take the first step.

DSCN5596

Shiver me timbers, another sweet trade

by Allie P., posted in Book Stuff and Publishing News, General Tips and Tricks, Life as I know it, Writing and Publishing Tips

Well fudge ripple ice cream, my first book has sold more copies than I anticipated.

image courtesy of flickr
image courtesy of flickr

Before you start sending me congratulations, I should add that I can’t claim credit for all of those sales. I was googling myself, as I randomly do whenever I want to ruin a perfectly good day. My ratings on Amazon, B&N, GoodReads, and various blog posts were all in the top results (exactly what I want), but then I saw something a little lower in the ranking that gave me a pause. An interested reader was trying to find my book (not just any book) in their library and was complaining that their library charged a monthly subscription fee for books.

Oh dear! A frustrated reader (exactly what I do not want). I obviously haven’t done a good enough job advertising where you can currently find a copy in ebook format.

My heart went out to this would-be-reader, but then I read other comments in the chain and my heart went out for a completely different reason. Another ‘helpful’ citizen of the world wide web posted an image of my cover along with a link to a site offering books at a discount, followed by the original commenter thanking the second for the suggestion. “I was able to download four books for less than five dollars!”

Now you might think I would be excited that someone else is helping me to sell my book, but here’s the thing – unless the other three books were fifty cents or less, it would have been hard to purchase my book as well as three others for that price. Not to say that isn’t out of the realm of possibilities, it’s just highly unlikely.

I looked at the link again. It seemed I had seen the name before, but where? Then it hit me. Several of the blogs I follow had recently posted a story about a site hosting pirated books being taken down on Facebook. It had the same name. I had been victimized and didn’t even know it (sometimes ignorance is bliss).

I started drafting this post. A short time later I attempted to go back to the forum site to take screen shots, only the link was no longer in the Google search results. It wasn’t in Bing’s or Yahoo’s search results either. Where did it go? (Son of a biscuit eater!)

Blackbeards flag
Avast yee!

Had I merely stumbled across a cached page? (Me binnacle!) Had the site read my cookies and blocked my IP address upon realization as to who I was? (Weigh anchor and back to pirate cove!) Was it possible that the site and its content was taken down exactly at the same moment as I came across it? (Now you are just being a drivelswigger.)

I went to my browser history and scanned the places I had visited. What had been listed as booklibrary was now showing as http://www.allpdfs.pw, a site, by the way, that will now send you a guide on chicken breeds if you click the download button (buyer beware) rather than sending a copy of my book.

If you’ve read down this far I assume you are at least slightly interested in what I have to say. Maybe you’ve already read my book (if so, thank you very much, your support means the world to me – especially on days like today). Maybe you haven’t (where does the time go?) Maybe you’d like to read my book one day but have thus far been put off by the price? While I personally feel the price is market fair, I know that everyone’s financial situation is different and that not everyone wants to pay full market price, especially not on a new author. I understand, but those sales dollars help me finance my next books (editors, cover artists, publicists, and distributors demand to get paid up front – the nerve of some people!)

So let’s make a deal.

Contact me. My details are all there on my About page. Let me know your situation and how you can help me with some grass-roots marketing. Create a pitch video I can use in an IndieGoGo or Kickstarter campaign. Go to your local library and ask them to stock my book (I’ve reached out to Overdrive, they just have to pay for a license). Suggest it for your book club. If you can find a way to help me, I’ll find a way to help you back. Together I am sure we can work out how to get you that free copy without going through the hassle of using sites more interested in stealing your identity than honoring copyright.

Places you can legitimately buy my ebook at the time of this post:

Once again, my thanks to Chris the Story Telling Ape’s blog for not only alerting me to several potential pirated sites as well as providing very detailed instructions as to how you can fight back. I may have joked around a little in this post, but that doesn’t mean I take this event or other threats to my business any less seriously. Nor should you.

To wait or not to wait, that is the question

by Allie P., posted in Life as I know it

The number 4 stares back at me on the computer screen.

It is my eldest son’s waitlist position for the school he is currently attending and the number meant he had only moved up one position in a month’s time. When I first learned that he was placed on a waitlist I thought there must be a mistake. I mean he is already a student there. Why wouldn’t there be a seat with his name on it? I called the school and was told I would have to talk to the county representative managing student assignment, which I did.

The county assured me they would look into the matter.

To be fair, everyone I have dealt with thus far has been extremely polite and considerate, my son’s placement is nothing personal. Which is the problem. The existing system is based on numbers whether they be data points or funding dollars, rather than students and their families.

The county school system lists a multitude of options. There are public schools operating on the traditional calendar, charter schools, magnet schools, and schools that have year round calendars. Thus far, the year round calendar has been a wonderful experience. We only had to plan for three weeks of additional care at a time and could space out our vacations accordingly minimizing the impact on our jobs. At the end of each three to five-week break, my son would be itching to get back to his friends and could actually still remember many of the lessons he learned before the end of the break.

Therefore I was annoyed to learn that the county had arbitrarily placed my son in a school operating on a traditional calendar with a three-month summer break, especially at a school not even fully constructed yet. I was invited to apply to transfer my son back to his existing school. Five minutes after the web portal was opened, I had uploaded my request. A counter at the bottom told me I was the ninth request of the morning.

At the time, I wasn’t too concerned he wouldn’t eventually get back in. I had done some reading on the selection criteria and everything seemed to indicate that his transfer request would only be a formality.WCPSS School Selection Criteria

I later learned that the site left off some small print. The county is trying to fill the new school and this guarantee was really just for rising fourth or fifth graders. My annoyance turned quickly to anger mixed with helplessness. I had to watch as my son’s eyes welled up as I told him he might not be with his friends next year and unless four other children are placed elsewhere, and couldn’t do a thing about it.

I try to make the best of any situation I can’t fully control. I am a firm believer that things work out the way they are supposed to, but I also believe you have to take a stand from time to time, which is why I am now struggling. It’s a lot harder to be easy going when it’s your child being affected. Should I continue to fight for where I think my son belongs because it makes the most sense for our family today? Or is this a sign that I need to embrace other changes?

red or blue pill
“You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” – from the Matrix, image courtesy of flickr

I am a fan of the show Mad Men, now in its last season. I will avoid spoilers for those who haven’t yet seen this week’s episode, but the entire episode was about the life not lived. It was purely coincidental that I watched it the night I learned that my son is now number four on the list. It is also coincidental that the number four is the least lucky number in the Chinese language. It is a good thing I am not overly superstitious…or is it?

But what if it isn’t coincidence? What if, like my son, I have been stuck on a waitlist, only unlike him, my number is being called? What if the universe has practically put up a neon sign and I’m just too illiterate to read it? If so, how long will the universe wait before moving on to the next in line?

“If you want something you’ve never had, you’ve got to do something you’ve never done” – Thomas Jefferson

But what do you do when you’d also like to keep the something you had?

Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet

by Allie P., posted in Life as I know it

When life throws you lemons, make lemonade. That is unless you are a multimillion dollar food conglomerate, in which case why are people throwing lemons your way? Can’t you pay for high-quality reusable shipping cartons to minimize the risk of bruising? But I digress.

Happy Lemon

This weekend ended much like any other weekend. The kids were tucked into bed dreaming dreams of firetrucks and / or monkeys while the hubby (who has now requested I refer to him as Lamont – my apologies to Lamonts) and I enjoyed a few hours of child-free television. Lamont was kind enough to pour me a lemonade. It wasn’t the fresh squeezed, homemade variety, but it would do. Ahh, I thought as I took a sip. Spring had finally arrived. I’d better enjoy the weather now as all too soon neon yellow pollen would fill the air and coat every surface in sight. I took another sip, savoring the sweet and sour taste.

I shifted from my spot on the couch. I couldn’t get comfortable. A weight seemed to press up against my lungs no matter which way I sat. It was almost like being pregnant without the hormones. I took another sip while I sought a position that would relieve the pressure.

No amount of movement seemed to work. My breath became more shallow, my skin more hot to the touch. I turned to Lamont and calmly said, “I can’t seem to breathe.”

“What do you mean you can’t breathe?!” (I have a long history of understating things with regards to my health.)

“Is my face red? My skin is on fire.”

I looked in the mirror. Sure enough, both cheeks were brilliant lobster red. Another red stain spread down the center of my chest.

“I think I might be allergic to something in the lemonade.” (I am also a master at stating the obvious. It really should be on my business cards.)

Up until this point, if you had asked me if I had any allergies I would have said yes, to bee stings (something else I learned from an unfortunate experience), but now I know my body is still able to learn new tricks. Yay!

Confused LemonWe read the juice label as I took a Benedryl. Ingredients listed were water, sugar, and lemon juice. All words I could pronounce. All ingredients I enjoy in other forms on a fairly regular basis. Definitely nothing I expected to trigger an allergic response. The product advertised that it was all natural. Was it possible that some bees were accidentally ground up (naturally of course) in the manufacturing process along with the lemons?

The next morning (thank you Benedryl) I fired up the computer to see if anyone else might have written about a similar complaint. I learned my reaction is considered rare (lucky me!), but I also learned a few things about the juice manufacturing process that aren’t exactly advertised. Being the great moderately acceptable parent that I am, I feel it is important to practice sharing (even if it is a little off my usual topics).

For example, I learned that as part of the preserving process all chemical that give a naturally squeezed juice its flavor are removed leaving behind a tasteless liquid that no one would buy. The manufacturers then put in flavor and scent packets to give the juice back its, umm… err… juiciness depending on the tastes of a specific market. They don’t have to declare the specific make-up of these packets on the labels because they are supposed to be based on derivatives of the base ingredients (It’s a Fruit Loop-hole). A little citrus by-product here, a pitch of black magic rind there. Voila! Bon Appetit!

lemonscaryThese flavor packets can change depending on where the fruit is harvested and when and can be created by third party designers. Therefore not only do I still not know exactly what it was that caused the reaction, I also have no idea whether this was a one-off reaction or if more products could affect me in a similar fashion. Breakfast could become my own version of Russian Roulette! (Don’t ever leave me, coffee…)

You aren’t supposed to judge a book by its cover (except for mine because my cover is awesome), but I didn’t realize you weren’t to judge a product by its label too (up until now I thought that was the point of the thing). Maybe one of these days I’ll learn a lesson the easy way. Here’s to truth in advertising!