Pioneer Woman

This last Tuesday night I went to a booksigning by The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond. She was here in Dallas at Borders signing her new cookbook. I knew Allison really, really wanted this cookbook and had tried to get her to go with me. Of course with a couple of little girls and the fact that she would have to either get TJ to babysit or bring the girls with her and drive an hour and a half back home very late at night this was not going to happen. Oh, yeah, that does not include the waiting in line. It was a very nasty, rainy, cold evening. I did not want to go too early as I thought the rain might stop but it didn't. I left at 5pm and got there at 6. I pulled into the parking lot and there was not a parking place to be seen. Now, I knew that Ree was very popular, there is a link to her site here on the blog, but I was actually shocked at the amount of people there. You had to get a wristband when you came in. I was orange, there were four more colors ahead of me. That does not sound too bad till you find out that each color had 100 people in it. I do have to say that it took forever but that overall Borders did a good job. It was organized with the wristbands so there was no cutting in line. People even ordered pizza from the shop at the corner and it was like one big sit-in. Ree arrived at 7 pm to begin signing. It seemed like it was forever before our section even moved. Oh, yes, there were four more colors of wristbands after mine. That just roughly calculated was around 900 people. That did not count all the cute kids and babies that were unbelievably good for the amount of time spent sitting in the floor. One of the workers at Borders said they had sold 700 books and that did not even include the people like me who had bought their book before they came. So the people in my area decided that there had to be at least 850 people there. Ree was just as friendly and smiling at nearly midnight as she was at the beginning. She signed my book at 11:50, yeah I know when it was because I stood in line from 7 to 11:50. When I left after she signed the book she still had a line snaking through the store. I have no idea how long it took but the person at the end of the line must have been a faithful fan. The next day I was saying man I was tired, but I could not tell Allison why because the book was a surprise. I knew she did not think I was going to the signing and if I had even blogged it she would know. I gave her the book yesterday and she was very surprised. When I told her how long the line was she said she was not surprised. If you have never checked out Ree's blog it has something of interest for everyone and her recipes are absolutely yummy. Allison, you know I would not do this for anyone else. Wonder if she has another book coming out soon. I better rest up.