Celebrity Encounter #3 – For Book Lovers Only

So this one is really only for the book lovers among you, ‘cos it might not mean anything to you otherwise. But for those of you who are avid readers, keep reading. I have to save the celebrity name to the end. You know, to build suspense. Like a good writer would do.

About 16 years ago, when my son was just a baby, the three of us – husband, me, child – went to Arizona over Christmas. We wound up at a really cool non-working ranch outside of Tucson, where we stayed in an old ranch-hand cabin. There were a few cabins, but only one other was occupied, by a couple.

One day, on the property, we had a long chat with the couple. My husband split off to talk to the husband, and I spoke to the woman. She was charmed by Oskar, and told me they were away for the first time from their baby daughter, I think she was around a year or year and a half old at the time. They lived in Tucson, and this was a weekend getaway. We were going to visit the biosphere the next day (if you don’t know about the biosphere, it is so worth reading about – fascinating on so many levels – almost like a real-life version of Stephen King’s “Under the Dome” – except these scientists willingly agreed to live under their dome, I think for a year, and of course, sh*t happened). The woman, who clearly had some kind of science background or was just really frigging smart and self-taught or all of the above, told me all sorts of tales about all that had gone wrong with the original experiment.

We also talked for a long time about the truly bizarre gated communities that dotted the Arizona landscape. She told me about the koo-koo rules that existed in these places (like, you can’t even choose the colors of your walls inside your house, because someone looking in from outside might not like it), and the soaring rates of alcoholism, and the legions of “second wives,” who were generally much younger than their doddering golf-playing alcoholic husbands, who were basically singing “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan” every day.

It was a great, long, conversation. Eventually we said our goodbyes. The following day we were talking to the owners of the ranch, and I overheard the man say to my husband, “blah blah blah Kingsolver.”

Me: Excuse me? Did you just say “Kingsolver?”

Him: Yes. That was Barbara Kingsolver and her husband who were staying here.

!!!!! I just about fell over. I was, and am, a HUGE Kingsolver fan; “Poisonwood Bible”, anyone? “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle …” “The Lacuna …” “Prodigal Summer” … “Flight Behavior” …

At first I thought, “Dammit I wish I’d known!” This was immediately followed by, “Thank God I didn’t know!” I never, ever would have dared to talk to her, for two reasons: 1) It’s Barbara bloody Kingsolver!! She deserves a weekend away with her husband without having to talk to a devoted fan, and 2) I would have been completely tongue-tied and terrified of sounding like a moron.

This story went over very, very well at book club, let me tell you …