Yo, let’s spend this entire post talking about the decorations and people who came to eat pie and whatever else I decide is worth being chronicled. I’m admittedly still recovering from this day. It was a lot of socializing but it also kind of invigorated me in a way, too, and made me remember how much I love(d) having get togethers. Now I want to have a Christmas gathering at my house! Possibly! I think so!
First of all, I want to say that when we decided to bring back this “event” back in June, my plans were bigly. Oh, I was going to buy all new decorations! I was going to have games for the CHILDREN! I was going to have disposable cameras on all of the tables because that is something people sometimes do at wedding receptions and this is the closes to THAT I’ll ever get!
But then — roadtrips and rollercoasters, man. All summer long. A bitch had no room in her heart or mind to be caring about pie decor. I mean, we still had some stuff left from previous years, but things like the giant sequined PIE PARTY sign and the rustic burlap tablecloths have seen better days, son. Most of our DIY pie pedestals were still intact (though one broke AT THE PIE PARTY before I even had a chance to put it on the table) but man…I just really shit the bed with the aesthetics this time around.
I didn’t even had centerpieces!!!! Usually I have dumb fake flowers in autumnal colors sticking out of rando’ glass bottles from my idiot beverage collection.
One thing I did do that was new was create a stupid photo backdrop. It occurred to me on the way home from Party City that the backdrop I bought was DEFINITELY created with “gender” reveals in mind. But you know what? Fuck that antiquated bullshit! Pies can be pink and blue too. I mean, those are the first colors I think of when I think of…crust.
Corey, bless his heart, arrived early to help me decorate. I feel like every time I have a pie party, someone always asks if they can help and I’m like “Yeah come early and help me set up please” and then they come like 90 minutes into the damn thing. But Corey was reliable! And also, tall. Which is what I needed when it came to hanging shit.
I was SO PISSED when I opened the package for this damn baby shower fringe because it was in NINE PIECES. Corey and I spent approx. 2 minutes trying to figure out how to hang it before giving up and phoning a friend (aka Henry).
I dunno, I think it turned out OK in the end after Henry MacGyver’d it with twine and a SWITCHBLADE.
OK it wasn’t a switchblade, actually. Just a boxcutter I think. But then he left it open on one of the tables and people were starting to arrive so Corey and I were like WE HAVE TO CLOSE THIS BEFORE SOMEONE GETS HURT (that’s what you get for bringing a pie to a box-knife fight, etc etc etc). Then we were too scared (OK I was too scared and Corey just couldn’t figure out how to close it) so we had to call Henry over again to bail us out.
Did I mention that Margie and her daughter Jordan were the first guest to arrive and got to witness Corey and me, the Super Sibs, practically wrapping ourselves in twine while trying to hang decorations? Hope you enjoyed the show, Margie and Jordan!
I took the above picture with The Good Camera as a test shot and it came out fine but I didn’t feel like fucking around with lighting and settings once people arrived so I ended up just using my phone for the pie party people shots. :/
Test photo with the iPhone. It was fine!
I totally forgot that I made these “Eat Pie” buntings two pie parties ago and they haven’t gotten any easier to read. I made 3 of them for some reason?? OK Erin, calm down.
OK, I failed to get pictures of every single pie partyer in front of the dumb baby shower-y backdrop, but here are the ones I did take, starting with the Sibs: me, Amy, and Corey:
Amy’s husband Dick was also in attendance but he is the one taking this lovely photo!
Random fact of the day: I was adamant on having environmentally-friendly plates and forks, but Henry bought the smallest plates ever and people were legit outraged over this.
“They are literally dessert plates!” Henry cried defensively.
“YEAH BUT THIS IS A FUCKING PIE PARTY, WE NEED LARGE PLATES LIKE FOR A BUFFET!” I screamed back. Luckily, he had also thrown a pack of larger Dixie paper plates in the car in case we ran out of the others, so everyone just went straight for those ones. Whatever.
My work frenemy Glenn (not pictured: his wife and daughter, Amanda and Eve) and Chris, one of my oldest pals! We’ve known each other since kindergarten. Chris is the purveyor of a wonderful local honey company called Sonny Rose Ranch so if you’re in Pgh and need some honey, look for his products around town! He also makes an excellent hot honey, FYI! Anyway, Glenn and Chris know each other because they worked together at Macy’s a long time ago! Glenn tried to tell Chris that I’m the office bully but Chris did not believe him for a SECOND because he knows me to be the SWEETEST GIRL EVER.
Fun Fact of the Day #2: Henry had changed out of his “nice” shirt while he was loading everything into the car and then forgot to change back into it so instead of wearing a non-descript gray shirt to the pie party, he wore a gray shirt with the EVERFRESH JUICE LOGO on it and I was really angry about this even though no one comes to any of my events expecting Henry to be wearing a nice polo shirt and boat shoes.
Nate and Lori!!
More pie decor that I forgot about. Corey was super smitten with this one for some reason.
Fun Fact of the Day #3: The day after the pie party, Margie Jabbered me at work and thanked me, Henry and COREY for hosting such a lovely event. I texted Corey and to tell him he had somehow been promoted in people’s minds to cohost and he admitted that at one point during the day, after he had greeted the umpteenth person and taken their pie for them, he thought to himself, “Wait, what am I doing?” LOL!
Corey is a natural people-person. Hit him up if you want to buy a house and also walk away with like 87 inside jokes in the process!
Eric and Megan! They were on the tail end of action-packed wedding festivities for Megan’s brother, so the fact that they even showed up let alone were able to engage in conversations was amazing. Megan did look like she was falling asleep while holding a pie plate at one point though, don’t blame her!
Gayle and Jeffrey! Gayle brought one of Jeffrey’s photos of Pittsburgh to raffle off. I was the lucky bitch who got to pull the ticket from the can (actually we used the empty box that the Panda snacks came in lol) and it was Lauren! Congrats, Lauren!
Fun Fact #4 of the day: Gayle is actually the reason why the pie party was resurrected. She had texted me last spring and was like PLEASE CONSIDER and I was like OK I AM CONSIDERING and well, THE REST IS HISTORY.
So they say.
God, I hadn’t seen Gayle in quite some time so it was nice to see her familiar, friendly face, now framed by multi-colored fringe!
Henry and Wonka, talking about electrical / computer / welding stuff probably. It looks like there is no one there but before you get all hater hater talk talk, please note that this was in the final hour of the pie party after most of the pie eaters left and the last wave rolled in.
Lucas came with his daughter! Aside from several late shift happy hours back in the day when I actually went out after work, I don’t think I have ever actually seen Lucas at a non-work social event!? He casually mentioned at, well, CASUAL LUNCH the week before that he was coming with his daughter and I almost died. It took a decade, but I think a lot of work friends finally started to understand that the pie party was a real event and not some weird seance in the woods that I was luring people to.
Fun fact #5 (?) of the day: I think I only cut one slice of pie on my own all day and relied heavily on others for the rest. Here is Henry cutting a piece of the beastly big boy pie that came courtesy of Kara’s husband Chris.
Chooch being a test subject for the PIE BACKDROP before the party started. I needed to make sure my dumb phone was going to take ok pictures, etc. I barely saw him all day, as usual. This time, he called his friend Zakk right before the party started, but after we were already at the pavilion, and made him take the T to South Park and then was going to make him walk the 45 minutes to the pavilion. “Or I can send a random person to get you,” I overheard him saying, so I was like OMG just tell your dad to go get him!
Basically, Zakk is to Chooch as Janna is to me.
MARGIE refused to have an OFFISH PIE PARTY PIC taken so the only photographical evidence I have of her and her daughter’s attendance is this one, and also the back of Wendy who was there with her daughter Summer but left before I started forcing people to pose for me.
Fun fact #6 of the day: Wendy actually was supposed to only stay for like 30 minutes because she had to go all the way back home for Summer’s soccer game later that afternoon and she lives pretty far away and also her husband Shawn is the coach, but she ended up staying for well over an hour and I heard her tell at least 6 people, “I have to leave now” only to find her talking to someone else 15 minutes later.
This is so VERY VERY WENDY, and if you don’t know her, now it’s basically like you do!
Me & Debby I.!
Fun Fact #7 of the day: I babysit those children sometimes. They kept trying to get me to play with them and I was like, “I can’t right now, I’m playing with *my* friends!” HAHAHAHA. I truly don’t think that they realize I’m an adult. I said this to Henry tonight after another babysitting shift and he said, “No one really does.”
Kara and Theo! It’s been so long since I’ve seen either of them that Theo didn’t even remember me :( Kara wasn’t able to make it to the last Pie Party in 2017 and I think it was the first time she ever missed one and it was really sad, so I was stoked that she could make it to this one, but unstoked that I barely had a chance to talk to her. I literally cannot function at social things. Every time I try to flashback and hover on the ceiling of the pavilion to spy on myself, I feel like I was a blubbering mess the whole day. WHAT DID I EVEN SAY TO PEOPLE?? I can’t remember! I just made grunts and whinnies, I think.
The Robbins Gang, plus Haley’s mom, and Blake’s friend Artie and his son Asher.
Fun Fact #8 of the day: Artie was at the very first pie party in 2010! I had no idea who he was, but he arrived early with Blake and proceeded to climb into the rafters of the pavilion roof and throw pennies at me while I was trying to set up. That was legit my first memory of him. Now he’s an adult with a kid and he works with Henry! He’s Henry’s work son!
Also, Haley’s mom is motherfucking goals. LOOK AT HER! Sometimes, I actually mistake her for Haley, she is so ageless.
I love this photo of Corey cutting me a piece of the Earl Grey pie! I wish I had used my “good camera” more that day, ugh. Anyway, this picture is hilarious to me because when Corey was younger (like 13 or 14?), we went to a murder mystery dinner and Henry had to cut his pork chops. Now we’ve come full circle-ish!
YOU GUYS Todd actually showed up! After trolling me year and year after when I invited him to the pie party, this time he finally showed up! I think he genuinely misses his old team! Here I am with my frenemy GLENN, Nate, Lauren, and Todd!
I’m posting two versions because I love that Nate is laughing so hard in this one! Man, we were a great team. SIGH. ALSO I JUST REALIZED THAT NATE IS WEARING CROCS. This was a really huge and important discussion we had a few mths ago in our group chat at work where Nate was like, “I FEEL LIKE I NEED TO BUY CROCS BECAUSE OF THE SUMMER ACTIVITIES I WILL BE DOING WITH MY NIECE AND NEPHEW BUT I’M SCARED” and some of us were like DO NOT but as you can see, he crossed over to the Croc side. It’s fine. Nate is the type of person who can wear Crocs without letting them define him.
I think.
No, he is. It’s cool.
They’re not as cool as my Vans though.
Here’s Nate talking to Margie probably about his Crocs.
We collected more people! In this one, we added Gayle who used to be part of our work group, and Rachel, who used to be the supervisor of our group. Henry was getting tired of taking these pictures, I think. LOL oh well.
OMG OMG OMG along with Todd, the other surprise guest of the day was Aaron and his twins!! Aaron has also trolled me for years: “Oh yeah, SURE I’ll come to the ‘pie party’ tro lolololol.” This time, he said nothing when I sent out the invite on Insta and at work. So I was really surprised when I turned around at one point that day and he was there!
And he admitted the next day that it was actually fun!
Ethan and his girlfriend! I was so happy they came out for this! Ethan is like me in some ways and is very much like “Aw that’s cute that you thought to invite me to this thing that I was most definitely not be attending” but he ended up coming! I think maybe it was also because I was giving Sandy her GOODBYE gift (she left The Law Firm last June, still very sad about this) that day and it involved him.
(I made another one of the annoying Paint Gem pictures, with Ethan’s face as the focal point. I would post it here but it is several layers of inside jokes and I’m actually only on the sidelines of said jokes so you would really probably not give a shit at all, blog reader.)
Nate, Lauren, and Lori!
Jack, Jill, and Regina came later in the day!
Fun fact #9 of the day: Chooch’s interest in driving had a revival on this day for some reason and he started taking the practice permit test on his phone again. Regina and Rachel were SUPER INTO this and shouting out their guesses.
Jess and Wonka! They GOT MARRIED since the last time I saw them! I made some snide comment while Henry was in ear shot about how we are still just UNMARRIED and Jess tried to make me feel better by saying that nothing really changes by getting married, and then asked, “Do you even really want to get married?” and before I had a chance to answer, Wonka said, “Oh yeah. She does.”
EVERYONE KNOWS THIS BUT HENRY, SOMEHOW.
Fun fact of the day #10: I met Wonka in a local Pgh chatroom in 1999 and we are still friends somehow even though he is a Major Smart and I am le dumz0rz.
Sandy and Zoe! Not pictured: Ben and Elena because I think they had already started walking to the car when I screamed SANDY WAIT, lol.
Fun fact of the day #11: The first pie party is actually how Sandy and I went from co-workers to actual friends. She had heard some people talking about going to the pie party and she came to my desk and said, “I want to come to the pie party too” so we became Facebook friends and I sent her the Facebook event and the rest is history! I remember super vividly that she came straight from a flag football game and was still wearing a bandanna in her hair! She hated coming to South Park then, and she still hates it now, as the first thing she said to me that day was, “I hate driving to South Park SO MUCH.”
Fun Fact of the day #12: In Pittsburgh, depending on what side of The River you live on, you hate crossing the river to go anywhere on the other side. Sandy lives in the North Hills and has to come to the DREADED SOUTH HILLS for the pie party every time, so this is a testament of how great the pie party is, that she religiously chooses the anguish of crossing The River to come out for it!
Michele and her baby Mina! Not pictured: Michele’s husband and two other kids, and her visiting sister and her kids. Michele had actually emailed me a few days before the party and said that her sister was visiting from NY and asked if she could bring the whole crew, and I was like YES PLZ because at this time I was sincerely worried that barely anyone was going to show up!
Everyone is always welcome at the pie party!
Amber and Ellie! OMG this was my first time meeting Ellie and her laugh was CONTAGIOUS! I kept hearing it in the background and it was making me so happy!
Sadly, Amber left before Todd got there :(
Me, Janna, and Ivy!
Fun fact of the day #13: While Janna was peeing in the PORTAPOTTY, she had Kara holding Ivy’s leash. I guess Lily, Henry’s granddaughter, was riling Ivy up, because Ivy jumped and she and Lily bumped heads. Lili start crying hysterically, and everyone stopped and stared, and I happened to be standing right in the epicenter of it so I had to pretend like I was also concerned but honestly I had no idea what was going on. Kara kept saying really loud, “WHERE IS YOUR MOM, DOG?” and it was hilarious because the “between the lines” of that was, “THIS IS NOT MY DOG, I WAS JUST ASKED TO HOLD HER, I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE.”
It ended up being fine though. Blake and Haley were totally unbothered by it because it was obvious that Ivy didn’t actually bite her – there were no marks on Lily’s face – and that’s when it was determined that they probably just bumped faces. Honestly, the scariest part to me was Kara screaming when it happened, lol!
Also not pictured: two of Janna’s friends who came toward the end of the day! Kelly and Jen, I believe.
Fun Fact of the Day #14: This was the first time ever that Chooch drove, and I thought Margie was kidding when she said, “Why is your kid getting into the driver’s side of your car, Erin?” and I was like, “Oh ho ho he must just be effing around” and then HENRY GOT IN THE PASSENGER SIDE? He just let him drive around the parking lot a little bit, but it was scary, watching my car lurch forward, poor Jinki. :(
Yeah, more on that later, lol.
Overall, it was a really successful pie party! Hopefully we’ll do this again next year so those who couldn’t be there this time can hopefully make it next time – PIE OR DIE, YO!!