The Pioneer Woman

My sisters and I went to The Pioneer Woman's book signing. We decided to make a day of it and go shopping first. We traveled to Utica Square, ate lunch and shopped a little before going to the event. Utica Square still has real phone booths. We asked an unsuspecting stranger to take our picture, which she did. It was interesting trying to get in the booth and for the photographer to get the right angle to take our picture. But there were a lot of laughs, and we gave a lady from Dallas something to talk about when she got home. You know people from Texas think people from Oklahoma and Arkansas aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer anyway.

After the Utica Square adventure, we made our way on to Cain's Ballroom for the book signing. ( I won't mention how the GPS malfunctioned and we wandered around downtown until we saw a sign pointing to Cain's Ballroom.) Anyway, the doors were to open at 5:00 pm. We got there about 4:30. The line was already down the street and there was no place to park. There was a parking lot right across the street, but it wasn't open. Hmmm. We finally found a place to park about three blocks away.

Right at 5:00 the doors opened and so did the parking lot across the street. Seriously. When we went in, they gave everyone a slip of paper with a letter on it; A, B, C, etc. There were 100 of each of the letters. That determined when you would get your book signed. We got the letter B which meant we would be in the second group.

Once we got inside, they had a place to buy drinks and they were giving away samples of food from her cookbook. I loved the chocolate whatever it was. The cookies were good. The meatballs were okay. The sandwiches were horrible. I threw mine away. The meat was very fatty and barely cooked. I like my meat rare, but not rare rare. There was also a live band performing. However, there was only a few chairs and some bleachers. We sat on the bleachers.

The program was supposed to start at 6:00. It started about 6:20. She spoke for about 20-30 minutes. At 7:00, she started signing books. We each had two of her cookbooks to sign. There were people there with a LOT of books for her to sign, and I mean a LOT!  The lady behind us had a stroller full of them. Really! My sister made sure she was behind us.

We  got almost to the table (4 people in front of us) and Ree, The Pioneer Woman, decided she needed to take a break. NOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Hey, I know she needed a break, but take it in front of the lady with a stroller full of books. Not now!! But she did, and actually she wasn't gone long.

It was about 8:40 when we finally got through which meant we had stood in line for almost two hours. This, of course, was after standing in line outside waiting to get in. Then it was the walk back to the car in downtown Tulsa after dark. Interesting. I got home about 11:00 and was pooped!

I will say Ree Drummond is a very humble and gracious lady. She was probably still there at midnight signing books. I would estimate there were 400-500 people there. One person even had a dog.  (I'll pass up the chance to say everyone and his dog was there.) She was the same to everyone and made everyone feel like she was so glad to see them. Her husband, Ladd, and Cowboy Josh were there. They were signing books and taking pictures with people, too. They all seemed so pleased to be there and were trying to make it a great time for everyone.

The next morning at work I asked my sister if she was doing okay. She said she had a good time and made a lot of memories, but she never wanted to do it again. Ditto!

The Pioneer Woman

The Marlboro Man