Beatles Mania -- in Spanx!

I had a glimpse of what it must be like for pop stars and their crazed fans. Young girls crowding together just to get a glimpse of Paul or John. The screaming, the cheering, the clapping, the sheer amount of people.

This was a Christmas gift from Lydia.

She so innocently gave me a cookbook, but what came along next was, well, read for yourself...

You see, this wasn't just your run of the mill Betty Crocker cookbook. No, this was the first ever, first edition The Pioneer Woman cookbook.

The Pioneer Woman is a wonderful 'little' blog I read almost daily. She's a self-proclaimed accidental country girl who found herself living on a family-run cattle ranch in Oklahoma with her personal Marlboro Man and 4 punks of their own.

She writes of their ranch lives, cows, silly dogs, family, photography, real-people cooking, home schooling and just fun things. I enjoy it...and well, it seems so do A LOT of other people.
As part of the release of her first cookbook, her publishers have sent her on a book tour that PW herself has deemed the "Griswold (Drummond) Family Book Trip." And while winging their way across the country, they decided to stop in at a Dallas Borders.And that's where we went!

Lyd and I put the puppy out in the cold, bundled up and headed over around 5 p.m. to get the lay of the land before she showed up at 7 p.m. for the signing. We were doing so good. All early and everything. We went to the store, asked around and received 2 pink wrist bands, and were informed we'd be called by color groups. Awesome! Let's go eat.

We hit up a great pizza place right down the way and enjoyed a personal favorite of mine, pepperoni and black olive! So, after chatting and finishing up we headed back over, thought we might grab a coffee and see what we had to see.

What we had to see were LOTS and LOTS of ladies, babies, a few stray husbands and grandads...THIS STORE WAS PACKED!!!
Oh Lordy! What have we gotten into.

Around 6:30 they started calling color groups to line up! What, you mean we don't get to hear her talk or anything? NOPE!

There were 3 groups in front of us. Each consisting of about 100 people we were told. WHAT!? And there were at least 3 groups behind us that we knew about!! So on the shy side, there were 7 hundred crazy people in that store that night!

So, we began our wait. We were standing for quite a while till we decided that was just stupid. So we sat, and waited and waited. We were rewarded with a small treat seeing Ree, PW herself, and her two cute girls released from their holding sell in the back of the store.
After that...we waited...and waited.

Lyd and I talked, enjoyed some coffees and started meeting the people around us. Niccole and Jen were two cute friends who had come together. Sydney was in front of them and later joined by her sister Sarah...and their very tired and over stimulated children. There was a very kind grandpa behind me. And these were our friend for the next 4 HOURS!
Over the next 4-plus hours:
- We found Religion. See, right there...we were camped out here for most of our time. The line did NOT move for at least two hours...maybe God was teaching us patience -- in the religion section.- We learned names, names of children, proper cloth diaper care, birthing philosophies.
(I tuned out on several occasions to save my sanity.)
- Lyd and I looked at author names and tried to come up with good baby names. Somehow Erasmus and Attilla were nixed by my good friend.
- We took turns going to the bathroom.
- We got our coffee/hot chocolate and a delightful apple tart.
- I went with Jen and Niccole to cheat and get the PW girls to sign our books so we could insure getting a t-shirt.
(Those country kids just weren't ready for our wily city ways. Just kidding, they were delightful, gracious and having way too much fun not sitting in a line.)
- We almost had a riot on hand when a woman, a Plano principle of some sort, behind us almost lost it over more yellows getting in line before us. She didn't like the Borders employee's explanation that they got their arm bands first so they could do that. Really, don't you teach this stuff in school lady? Calm down! It's ok!
- We were bombarded with children up WAY past their bed time, given coke and not completely supervised. Ugh. Take deep breaths. It's ok. But really, isn't that what dads or baby sitters are for?
When we finally did start moving, we started moving at a good pace. Around 10:45 we were in site of the table. We felt so proud. We felt so accomplished.

It was almost our turn. I handed my book over, complete with my name post-it so she'd spell it right. We waited. We met, we said it was so nice to meet you. A girl came back, crowded in and asked another question...that's fine. But then the grandpa came up before we got our picture. NOOOO. We waited this long! We're getting a picture!!!

So, I politely asked if he could wait a sec, he did (he's a nice grandpa), the Borders guy snapped a pic...we said goodbye.
That was it! Our 2-second brush with fame!

Perhaps not quite what we were expecting, but it was definitely an experience we will both never forget.

We drove home giddy and a little drunk with exhaustion. I loaded up my pal with a Dr Pepper and said good bye. I came inside to my nice warm house knowing I have a great friend, a great husband for letting me do things like this, a signed cookbook, a t-shirt and a silly story to tell!

Off to pick a recipe!


**The Spanx refers to a comment Ree makes about herself on her many public appearances.