My Birthday, Kel, and THE Pioneer Woman

Yep, I turned 42 this past week. Big yay. I think I experienced my first ever twinge of birthday-resentment because I really didn't find the card from Debra making fun of old people HALF as funny as I would have before. Or if I had picked it out for someone else.




Rock n Roll Bands for Folks Your Age:



The Grateful we're not Dead



Earth, Wind, and Fiber




Crosby, Stills, Nash, and not so Young




But the birthday turned out to be a good one, a very good one.




A few months back, I found out my very favorite blogger was publishing a cookbook and she was going to go on a book tour. She had a few stops in the Midwest and, by golly, one of them was St Louis! And the date was my birthday! Cool!




I asked my friend Kelly, the one who initially got me hooked on ThePioneerWoman.com, if she'd be interested in going with me to see PW, or P-Dub as we sometimes call her, and she said yes, and she arranged childcare for that night right then and there. I knew she was serious.




I mentioned to Gary that I might like to go do something special on my birthday--without him and the kids. Ouch?




But he was fine with it and it was officially on the calendar: Meet PW in STL




In the meantime, her cookbook was released and even hit the NY Times Best Seller list. I took the kids into Borders for Jack to buy a book he'd be waiting for. We had a 40% off coupon. I spotted Pioneer Woman's book right by the front door on the new releases wall and it was beautiful. I glanced through it and wanted it right then! But it was $27.99 and I knew I could get it on Amazon for $15 less. But if Jack would give up his 40% off coupon and skip getting his book, then it could be mine that very day. But no, Lego Star Wars, The Complete Dictionary won. Because it is highly important that the kids know everything there is to know about Sith Apprentices.




Kelly and I planned to order our cookbooks together from Amazon, and then not only would we be saving some bucks, we would even get free shipping. Except by the time I put the order in, the free shipping would have gotten the books here on the very day of the signing, and UPS doesn't come until after 5 p.m. to our house, and that was just cutting it too close. So we each came up with a 30% off coupon for Borders and shelled out the bucks. It was so worth it. We had our very own copies! In our possession! To put under our pillows at night or whatever.

The day finally came and Kelly came by to get me at 6 pm., but Gary wasn't yet home from work and I couldn't leave the kids. But that was OK since I couldn't decide on just what clothes I should wear to meet my favorite country-club-raised/turned L.A. vegan girl/turned cattle rancher wife. Finally, I settled on something and found UPS had dropped off some shoes I had ordered. OK, what could be more special than wearing brand new shoes to meet my blogger idol? Except Jack had made a comment about something involving "looking like a grandma would wear" {no offense to my two wonderful and hip Moms}, but I admit it planted a small seed of doubt as to if these were kinda too 'old school marm', and, remember, I was feeling a little sensitive about the whole old age thing. But I went for it, despite the heel height and despite I had read that people were standing 5-6 hours to meet PW. [Turned out the shoes were great!]




Gary got home and Kelly and I took off. She works very near the place we were headed downtown St. Louis, so she was a natural at driving us to just the right place. The venue had been changed from a small independent book store to a huge cathedral because of PW's days-earlier book tour stops involving huge crowds and incredible waits. Let me tell ya, the girl is getting so popular!





As we walked up to the cathedral, Kel and I simultaneously spied a black Suburban with a man in cowboy boots with two young boys in boots parked in front of the church--that must be Marlboro Man, Pioneer Woman's studly cowboy husband! That was Kel's dream, to see MM in person, even though yes, she is a happily married woman, a mom to two boys. I was pretty excited myself. This was the first leg of the book tour that he'd been along with PW, so it was a lucky break!









The cathedral, a little unusual of a setting?, was nearly full, but we found two seats alongside the wall, and surely those weren't open because of the big pillar ahead to the right? No, I had faith that PW would be talking at the mic of which I had a perfect view. As we're sitting and chatting and oh so excited that this night finally came, right alongside us walks MM and his two boys (the two daughters weren't along on this trip). Kelly secretly aimed her brand new phone at the manly man in his black leather, but couldn't figure out how to take a picture. Darn. Oh well, as it turned out, he gave her many more chances since he walked back and forth past us several times. The picture she finally got: a close up of his arm in motion!


Grr, complicated new phones.

I thought whipping out my pink camera would just be too obvious. I might look kinda stalkerish.




At last, the Question and Answer session started and we heard PW's voice. And it turned out that perfectly located microphone I had a great view of was for the people from the audience to ask her questions. So no, I had no view of her, but, hey, I could hear her voice. Kelly graciously traded seats with me after a short time, so through the hour or so of Q and A, we traded seats back and forth. We might have possibly annoyed the people behind us.





Finally, the Q and A was over and it was time to actually get in line with our books and meet her! Except half the church, at least 500 people, were ahead of us. And some of them brought not just one, but numerous copies of her book to be signed. Ugh, this could be a long night. But at least I was with a good friend and we had no problem chatting it up the whole time. And we watched PW's two young sons, the punks as she calls them, climb onto the balcony-pulpit-probably-something-quite-holy thing (P.S. I'm not Catholic). That made me love her even more. Yesss! Her boys behave just like mine.




They started letting those seated at the first pews form a line and then announced for the next ones to go, two rows of pews at a time. A couple of hours passed, at least we were sitting, and then we were finally to be called up next! Woo-hoo, finally! But then instead of announcing "the next two rows may get in line" (us!), they opened it up to everyone and said the remainder of the crowd may now get in line. Well, here Kel and I were at the farthest side and by the time we politely weaved our way over to get in line (totally fighting my internal drive to just run and push, a la George Costanza saving himself from a fire at the kid birthday party), only a handful of people were behind us. We were basically the end of the line. For a moment, it crossed my mind that I didn't want to wait any longer, maybe we should just call it a night, but that thought instantly disappeared when I remembered how excited I was to finally meet her. And Kel was game for whatever time it took, even though she had to work in the morning.



And now I realize that was a pretty close brush with old-lady-thinking on my part, right there along with "We better get home before dark."



Our long wait in line was actually fun as PW's son, 6 or 7 years old, came up to us holding his Sharpie marker and signed our book. What a cutie in his little Wranglers! I asked him if he was tired of all this book business and he just said, matter-of-fact, "no." I asked him if he thought it was cool to be famous? And he just looked at me, and matter-of-fact, said, "I'm not." He signed, actually printed, his name and moved on. And then the wait to get to PW just seeemed to get miraculously shorter when we realized MM was standing at a mid-way point in the long line, and signing! Oh man, we could actually talk to him! If we could. We each decided which page we wanted him to sign and held our finger to mark the page, hoping it wouldn't get a damp hump from our sweaty hands. The excitement was just so great!





The people ahead of us had their picture taken with him, so before he got to us, I told Kelly I would take hers. She said no! ?? I have to say, later after we had the chance to chat with him and I asked something totally dimwit about him owning Donny Osmond boots, I was so kicking myself that I didn't get a picture of him at all. Next time, Kel, warning: I will not be taking no for an answer.



Finally we reached PW's table and there she was in her red-haired gloriousness wearing a purple velvet jacket and looking so pretty and smart. Kel took my camera for me and snapped a picture as I posed near PW, trying not to be too near her, you know; I didn't want to look like too obsessive of a fan.



PW signed my book, and Lord knows, I know she had to be tired after all the traveling and hotel stays and just all the autographs she had signed that night since by now it was after 11 p.m. But she was so warm and friendly that I went out on a limb and pushed what I thought might have been the limit and asked if she could take a second more to sign the Charlie page for my kids. And I asked her to write something like an arf and make a paw print like Charlie the basset hound himself had signed it himself. And she did it. It's like we were connected, one mom to another.




When I got home and downloaded from my camera, this was the picture I found Kel had took of my magical moment!

And I thought.....What?!! Where am I?! Her exquisite purple velvet jacket... where? what the..?? My moment!? Oh, Kel, girl, we are gonna have to talk! My camera is not that complex!


Oh, and then I spotted these below. Turns out, as I found out today, Kel thought that PW just had an interesting sitting style, plus, we would have definitely wanted to know if she was wearing her Lucchese cowboy boots or the black pumps or just what. We are just that kind of fan.

Now: So, sorry, Kel, I take all that back. You did great.

Look, see? See?!

I think here my hand is on its way to cover my wide open mouth. I think here my hands are saying OMG!
There's the Charlie page. Arf!



Kel got hers signed, too, and I am not sure how her conversation went since I seeemd to have been floating in my own world, but I do know she told PW that I had chosen to spend my birthday getting to meet her. That Kel's such a giving friend!




And an added bonus, we each got a free T-shirt that we weren't even expecting. It's very hip and body-hugging and says Pioneer Woman in a fancy font with an elegant swirl motif on the front and a little Book Tour '09 on the back, which will have to stretch over my right hip. As soon as we got into Kel's car, I whipped off my own shirt and put it on. Can't say I have had it on again since I think it's gonna take a minor-to-major body overhaul to make me brave enough to wear it in public, but maybe underneath a sweater? Maybe a grandma-ish cardigan?

So that is the story of the night of my 42nd birthday. Many thanks to Kel and PW! I was such a happy girl.

You all should check her out. http://thepioneerwoman.com/ Her recipes are great. Her humor is so me. And her story Black Heels to Tractor Wheels will totally suck you in. And you'll totally see what's so great about MM.