Kansas City, Here I Come

When I was in Indianapolis for work last month, I read on the Yarn Harlot’s blog that her new book tour was bringing her to Kansas City. I was very excited until I realized it was a Monday night, and there’d be no way I could take off work to go. Then it hit me that it was Columbus Day, and only recently my company added paid holidays to our benefits package, and Columbus Day was on the list. I called Robert and calmly suggested that “wouldn’t it be fun to go to KC on Columbus Day?” To give him credit, he was immediately suspicious of my motives, and when I told him why I wanted to go he was less than thrilled. But when I spoke to him next, he was very excited about spending the day in KC. That got my radar up, and he confessed that it was the last day of the Renaissance Festival. Compromise. That’s what marriage is all about.
So we headed up to KC yesterday morning, and had fun wandering around the festival. We watched some jousting, we heard wandering minstrels, we saw sword fights, we ate chicken and chips, and we saw a lot of, um, interesting people in interesting costumes. One of the vendors wanted to sell me a costume so I could look scandalous, but I resisted, much to Robert’s dismay. When it started drizzling, we spent some time driving around KC. We made a stop at Urban Arts & Crafts, ate at PF Chang’s, hung out at Barnes & Noble on the Plaza drinking frappuccinos from Starbucks, made a quick stop at The Studio where I “accidentally” bought some Koigu, and finally headed over to the book signing.
Rainy Day Books was very organized and we were there early enough to get good seats when the doors opened. I worked on Robert’s sock and met lots of Ravelers – apparently there was a Topeka contingent in the row behind me. And what a surprise to see Lisa, the LYSO of One City Market in Rogersville across the aisle! The time passed quickly, and finally Stephanie came out. She was entertaining as usual, and Robert enjoyed himself, too – even though he didn’t understand half of what she was saying! I’d ordered my Free Range Knitter book and tickets very early, so we were able to be near the front of the line for signing. I brought Stephanie a chocolate bar from Askinosie chocolate (what she referred to as the “breakfast of champions”), she said she liked my Hey, Teach! sweater (yay!), we chatted about an e-mail conversation we’d had in January 2007, and the best part was when Robert snapped a photo of us together and she said, “Here, hold The Sock.” This all took place in less than a minute (she had a lot of books to sign), but for that minute, she made me feel like I was the only person in the room with her. In that minute, she wasn’t the character “The Yarn Harlot” – she was just Stephanie – an author and a fellow knitter. And I found Stephanie to be utterly charming. It truly was a pleasure to meet her. (Oh, yeah, check out her blog post about the KC event – Robert and I are there on the the second row in the photo!)
It was a very long drive back to Springfield and I really should be getting some sleep now, except I’m finally officially packing for Rhinebeck. We leave on Thursday, and I’ve got my signed copy of Free Range Knitter in my carry on for the plane. Robert’s taking his laptop, so hopefully I’ll find time to post some photos, but in the meantime, I’ll be doing frequent updates on Twitter and Plurk, so follow me there if you want more “real time” updates.