A couple of months ago, I found out that The Pioneer Woman was coming into town and would be doing a cookbook signing at a charming little bookstore in the city. In order to save my fingers from typing "The Pioneer Woman" over and over again, she'll be referred to as Ree from here on out (since we're on a 1st name basis and all). I was beyond excited about the prospect of meeting her. My sister was awesome enough to buy us both books and on that special night, I left home early and headed into the city to get those books signed.
When I arrived in the neighborhood, parking was obviously scarce. I circled the area a few times and finally found a space "only" 2 1/2 blocks away. Lucky me! As I walked up to the book store, I saw that the gallery a couple of doors down was positively PACKED. Totally lame of them to plan an even the same night that the book store had a signing. I scooted on to my destination where I learned that the billions of people pouring out of the gallery were there for the signing. Ree was actually in the gallery giving a speech prior to moving over to the store for the meet-and-sign. All of the people in the gallery had tickets which were given on a 1st-come-1st-serve basis. 26 people were given a ticket with a letter "A" on it, 26 with a letter "B" and so on. I arrived just after the last with the letter "Z" had been handed out. The only people that were guaranteed to meet her and get an autograph were those with the tickets in the first chunk of the alphabet. And from what I saw, none of those people with good tickets were giving them away. Totally selfish!
Moving on...I was in a line of people with books who didn't have tickets. I was only 5th or 6th in line so I decided to wait a little while and see how things panned out. While we were waiting, there was a sudden commotion and we turned to see Ree walking our way. I flipped my trusty camera on and held it up to get a picture of her. However, because of all the movement and peoples' heads being in the way, I couldn't get one. But I did get a blurry shot of her mother-in-law and sister-in-law, Missy (with some random lady's baby) from a distance:
Then, as we sat there all excited about the actual signing getting under way, I heard the bookstore gal say that IF Ree were to get through all of the alphabet, it would take at least 3-5 hours and that was only IF she was up for being there that long. I stood there a bit longer and then decided to let the dream go. Before I did so, I took a couple of quick shots of the throngs of people in front of the store and gallery:
And here's a poster on the railing in front of the gallery. Closest I'll ever get to meeting the woman herself, I suppose.
It may not have been a bust for all those lucky people who got tickets from the beginning of the alphabet, but for people like me who missed getting a ticket by a few minutes or got a ticket with a horrendous letter like "U", it was a super big bummer of a bust for sure! The one good thing that came out of this: I got to go to Toys R' Us sans kids and get a bit of Christmas shopping done.
3 comments:
I totally wish I'd been there so we could go hours early to stand in line and get the first "A" tickets. We would've heard her speech, gotten our books signed, and best of all, actually met her! Knowing Ree, though, she'll be extending us an invitation to visit her on her ranch soon. Then we can meet MM, too! :-)
If you get to bring a sister AND a friend with you to the ranch, "pick my, pick me."
I saw that she was coming to SLC so I put a bug in Kathryn's ear, to tell Stephanie that a signed "PW Cooks" would be a perfect present for me for Christmas. What was I thinking? That it would be a simple request to carry out or something?
I'd say the Christmas Shopping was a good trade off. Sorry you didn't get to meet her though, that would've been neat.
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