WowOwow.com

Mackenzie Carpenter| Oct. 2, 2008

It's been pretty quiet at Early Returns today.  My esteemed colleague Tim McNulty is working the Biden/Palin debate shift so he won't be in until later to bring you all the good stuff from that historic encounter, but in the meantime I have to recount a slightly surreal experience I had today at the Pennsylvania Governor's Conference on Women.

I was there to cover a speech by Elizabeth Edwards, wife of the former senator and presidential candidate John Edwards.  Mrs. Edwards was going to speak about health care.  But she called in sick at the last minute and ended up making her speech by phone.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Before all of that transpired, I found myself in a cavernous media room where I was scheduled to interview one of my favorite writers, Julia Reed -- a fabulous down-to-earth cookbook author and food writer for Newsweek and Vogue.  She is one of the six women headliners at the conference, which is held every year and is expected to attract about 5,000 women at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center this year.

Anyway, Ms. Reed was seated in a chair in the middle of a mostly empty room (actually, scratch that -- any room with WTAE's Sally Wiggin in it is NEVER empty).  Next to her was gossip columnist Liz Smith, resplendent in bright yellow blazer, and next to HER, looking pale and ladylike, was etiquette expert Miss (Judith Martin) Manners. 

It was a lot for the brain to take in all at once. Liz Smith and Miss Manners:  is there some cognitive dissonance at work here? 

At any rate, after Sally Wiggin finished speaking with them, I was ushered over to talk to Ms. Reed. 

But before I could start, Miss Manners approached me to say hello.

Oh my God.  Suddenly, all my mother's admonitions started going off in my already overloaded brain. There were only a few of us in that room, and I had made a beeline to Julia Reed and had COMPLETELY IGNORED MISS MANNERS.

" I am SO sorry," I said, jumping up to shake her hand. "I am so rude, I--"

"Not at all," she laughed.  "It happens all the time."

I recovered my composure and then turned to Ms. Reed,who gave me a wonderful interview about her recently published book, "Ham Biscuits, Hostess Gowns and Other Southern Specialties: An Entertaining Life (with Recipes)"  Look for a story about it in the PG food section soon. 

When it was over, I looked up, and there was Liz Smith standing over me, smiling expectantly.

"Here's my card," she said.  "Get in touch with me any time."

Oh my God.  Liz Smith wants me to get in touch with HER?  About WHAT?  In case any gossip breaks out in Pittsburgh that she'll want to put in her column?

"Thank you so much, Ms. Smith," I said, peering at the card, which said www.WowOWow.com. 

"It stands  for Women on the Web," she said.  "It used to be a porn site, but we bought it up and now it's for us." 

("Us" would be a bunch of awfully high-powered women:  Lesley Stahl, Peggy Noonan, Liz Smith, Joni Evans, Mary Wells, Sheila Nevins, Joan Juliet Buck, Whoopi Goldberg, Julia Reed, Joan Ganz Cooney, Judith Martin, Candice Bergen, Lily Tomlin, Jane Wagner, and Marlo Thomas.They have all been friends forever and have been emailing each other a lot about things, and decided to go public with their musings.  You can read them on the wowowow.site).

Anyway, that was my surreal experience for the day.  Sorry to put it in a political blog, but because this all occurred at the Pennsylvania GOVERNOR'S conference for women I figured it was legit.