One night last summer I stayed up until dawn reading Black Heels to Tractor Wheels, Pioneer Woman’s love story with her Marlboro Man. I was hooked. I fell in love with her blog, photography and recipes. I was warned by my friend Erin that I would love her, hate her and want to be her.
Tonight she came to Portland! (She’s the one on the left, smiling.)
She’s just as sweet and cute as you’d expect and I am pretty sure that based on the hundreds of people who came to see her tonight she could start her own cult. I was forewarned about the possibility of being stampeded by housewives in the book store, yet still somehow felt unprepared. Maybe because I didn’t have a diaper bags packed with necessities for a serious camp out.
Pioneer Woman (aka Ree Drummond) was a little late arriving and the poor patient man who had to keep the crowd at bay, announced that she would be arriving soon, that she’d gotten into some traffic problems, her Jag broke down and so she was being helicoptered in. An unsure woman with a stroller in front of me, turned around and said, “Is he serious?” Hmmm….
I was making sure to keep on the outskirts of the crowd, though I was able to eventually find an empty ladder among the shelves, and snap the above photo while she did a Q&A session.
I stayed almost 2 hours until my poor feet and hungry tummy just couldn’t stand it any longer (and the place was still packed). Sorry PW, maybe we’ll meet some other time!