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!!

After a five year hiatus, I was finally worn enough by some fanatical pie-eaters and agreed to bring back the BELOVED PIE PARTY. The last one we had was in 2017 and was just really disappointing – we had a very shitty turn out and I 100% blame the fact that I left Facebook and you know, out of sight, out of mind. My invitation just didn’t have the reach that it did in years past when I was creating stupid Facebook Events for it.

This time, I posted about it on Instagram, personally texted people who aren’t on Insta, and sent a group email at work. In the beginning, my “interest check” on Insta seemed to really kick up a lot of excitement but I would say only about 1/3 of the people who said they were coming actually showed up. Somehow, even though the weather forecast was showing all day rain and storms, we had a really great turnout! I haven’t done an official headcount yet, but I want to say there were about 50 people overall. Of course, this was over the span of 6 hours. I didn’t have high expectations for this, so I was actually pleasantly pleased at the turnout, and there were some surprise appearances too!

And guess what, you guys? The weather was actually DELIGHTFUL. There was a very small window toward the end of the day where we experienced a downpour, but I swear it only lasted about 5 or 10 minutes. I will divulge all the details in another post, but I wanted to share pictures of some of the pies today, because we all know that’s what the people want.

Some of these photos are courtesy of my brother Corey since I was too distracted to take many of my own. :/

Megan and my sister Amy are definitely tied for most creative (edible) pie. Megan brought a Root Beer Float pie that was soooo refreshing! I have never heard of a root beer float pie before, leave it to Megan to find that recipe!

And Amy made a PAW PAW pie! If you don’t know, paw paws are fruits that are regional to the Ohio area. They have a big festival that I’ve always wanted to go to but never have. Thank god Amy and her husband Dick went or we wouldn’t have been treated this to! I have never actually had an actual paw paw before but I had seen a comparison between them and cherimoya, and if you know me at all, you will know that those bitches are one of my favorite fruits ever even though they look absolutely DISGUSTING. Literally like wet, white flesh with huge black seeds – it just looks like you’re eating the end game of a high school science class dissection. I can’t really explain it any other way but I have to really set aside my texture phobias in order to enjoy a fresh cherimoya. So I can confirm that the paw paw *does* taste similar based on the flavor of this pie! It’s kind of like a mild pineapple / mango flavor, without really giving off tropical vibes. If that makes sense. The texture of the pie was similar to the guts of a pecan pie. I really enjoyed this!

It was extra funny/exciting because a few weeks ago, there was a discussion about weird fruits in the Support Group Chat, which as you might remember, I am not a member of the support team anymore, though they do invite me to their chat every Friday as the “Special Guest” where I proceed to do little else than annoy Glenn. Anyway, this wasn’t a Friday but Amber quickly added me since it was in my wheelhouse. Wendi* had name-dropped paw paws which OF COURSE none of the fruit pleibs knew anything about but I did, since I am the resident weird fruit authority. Anyway, I thought it was crazy that someone actually a brought a paw paw pie!

*(Wendis a newer member of the team and so awesome! I aggressively invited her to the pie party at our recent in-office Casual Lunch. She said she had to visit her grandma that day and I practically lunged across the table and shouted, “BRING YOUR GRANDMA!” Clearly this was not something she wanted to do because neither Wendi nor her grandma showed up on Sunday but to be fair, Casual Lunch was the first time she ever met me IN REAL LIFE so that was probably a lot to digest for the time being. We did chat about the day after the pie party though and she said she definitely wants to come next year now that she knows it’s not a trap, j/k she didn’t say that last part but I’m just guessing that’s what she was thinking.)

I’m not sure who brought the lemon meringue pie but thank you, kind soul, because Chooch obsessed over it for days and insisted that out of all the leftover pies, this was the one that HAD to come home with us. I think he even caught Henry offering it to Janna at the end of the day and quickly swooped in. I was Pie Party 2022 days old when I learned that my son’s favorite pie is lemon meringue. Literally have never witnessed him ordering this at any restaurant ever but maybe it’s something WESLEY’S MOM used to bake for him when he would go to their house to play. UGH WESLEY’S MOM.

I am so pissed about this because I originally had it spelled correctly but then it got smudged and when I re-wrote it, I FUCKING SPELLED IT WRONG. FML.

Anyway, I don’t want to be like, “Hello, it is my pie party and my pie was the winner,” but everyone was like freaking out over this pie so I think it was the winner?? I mean, we don’t judge. It’s not a contest. Also, it wasn’t actually my pie – Henry baked it. HOWEVER, it was my idea AND I had him change the recipe and use a shortbread crust instead of regular crust because you know, tea and BISCUITS or whatever.

I only had a tiny slice and can’t even remember anything about it other than it was good, but all day people were like EARL GREY this and that and I was like OK I guess “Henry’s pie” was a success but I had to keep interjecting myself into convos to alert people to the fact that I found the recipe and the shortbread crust, WHICH REALLY TOOK IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL, was also my creative design.

Corey apparently posted about this on Facebook because my friend Lisa, a seasoned pie party attendee who now lives in Idaho, texted me on Friday and was like WHAT IS THIS I HEAR ABOUT AN EARL GREY PIE?? Her interest was piqued and she decided she wanted to attempt it for the her game night the next day so I had to be a recipe relayer between Henry and her and that was pretty annoying because she would ask me specific questions about the recipe and then Henry would have some answer I didn’t understand and it just went on like that until the last text I got from her said “Hard part is done!” whatever that means. I should probably ask her today how it turned out….

Haley made a shoofly pie (which as you know is a pie type that I am also obsessed with thanks to my strong ties to the Amish world) and broccoli and cheese hand pies so she won the award for “something no one else brought” because those hand pies were a great idea and it’s always so great to have some savory offerings on the table too, like Sandy’s famous corn and tomato pie which she brings every year and I think pie party OGs would revolt if she ever stopped! Kara’s husband also made a savory vegan BBQ seitan mac & cheese casserole pie which was a great addition to the lonely vegan section (it was hers and Henry’s three pies, and then literally not a single one of my vegan friends came, oh well;  thought animal-free options would bring the Vs to the park, but I guess I need to find new ways to lure them).

I *think* that pumpkin pie up there was brought by Haley’s mom; regardless of who carried it in, it was delicious! Aside from Debby’s baby pumpkin streusel bites below, I think that was the only pumpkin pie variety of the whole entire day which is actually crazy to me!

OMG these were both so good. I’m so glad Debby came with this tray of delicate little one-bites. The lemon blueberry ones had a ladylock-like crust!! Also, Corey wrote the tags and it took 4 people to tell him how to spell streusel. The pie party is more than just pie, it’s also about learning.

Henry made three other pies. A vegan banoffee pie which he is STILL angry about because he followed the recipe to a T and it turned out “FINE” but it was not what he was expecting and he keeps threatening to “comment on that video!!” I mean, I agree with him though because the whole point of the video was that it was a 5-ingredient recipe but then in the actual recipe portion, there is a SIXTH INGREDIENT!? I dunno, it was ok but just *really* rich. It was a bit too much. I know the bananas were like part of the name or whatever, but I think I would have liked it better without them.

Anyway, Henry let me decorate this one! I was watching him pipe the whipped cream around the edges and said, “OOH CAN I WRITE SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE” and he got real tense and asked, “Like what?”

“I dunno,” I shrugged. “ERIN RULZ.” Because obviously I knew the whole time.

Henry sighed and mumbled, “Whatever.”

I think this is a big reason why no one was trying the banoffee pie, because they assumed I might have baked the entire thing, lol.

The sad vegan section. Henry’s third vegan pie back there was a carrot pie and it was so delicious but no one really tried it! I kind of wonder if people were afraid of the vegan tag or if they though it was reserved for the imaginary vegans? In any case, we got to take half of it home with us and I enjoyed it throughout the week. If you don’t believe me, you can ask the scale in my bedroom.

The fourth and only non-vegan Henry made was ALSO MY IDEA. I really wanted to incorporate my beloved G-Dragon into the festivities somehow and OBVIOULSY the best way to accomplish that was a dragonfruit pie. There are actually quite a few recipes out there for this! They all call for regular dragonfruit, but I made Henry use a fire dragonfruit, since they are such a deep, bright shade of fuschia which is also a hair color GD has sported numerous times over the years. I made the GD and peaceminusone flower cut-outs from regular dragonfruit. Anyway, this was another hit! It was demolished halfway through the party so sorry to the people who came for the last half.

I was really nervous though because Henry’s granddaughter Lily kept taking my GD doll and calling him a girl and I was like “OK HE IS A MAN NAMED G-DRAGON CAN I PLEASE HAVE HIM BACK NOW OMG.” It was just a bad scene. Apparently, several people witnessed this and made fun of me about it later but COME ON, MY GD DOLL IS NOT A TOY, THANK YOU.

My work friends were neither surprised nor confused about this pie. They are fully aware of my childish obsessions.

Um I dunno who brought this pie but it was BEAUTIFUL!

I think that about does it for pie pictures, sadly. I can also tell you that two more shoofly pies arrived later, we had three key lime pies in total (!), someone brought an apple sour cream pie that I couldn’t stop eating, and there were pies galore with every type of berry you could imagine. It was such a great spread but HOO BOY am I all pie’d out.

Oh! The winner for most creative pie overall was Nate, who brought this set of Chinese dominoes:

Chooch very quickly swooped in and claimed this.

*I searched the word “seven” in every language looking for one that starts with “p.” Congratulations, now you know how to say “seven” in filipino! My dedication to alliteration is alliterastupid. 

Also, I originally had this titled as the eighth pie party because I can’t count.

Pie People:

• Scott & Maya
• Gayle & Jeffrey
• Chris & Monica
• Sandy, Ben, Elena, & Zoe
• Janna
• Lori
• Sue
• BARB
• Wendy & Summer
• Andrew & Karen
• Blake, Haley, & Calvin
• Haley’s mom
• Robbie, Nikki, Eli, & Levi
• Maggie, Ivan, Annabelle, & Lila
• Amber, Steve, Teddy
• Valerie & Dustin

This is the first time Kara missed a pie party! But she was running in the Chicago marathon so I guess that’s an acceptable excuse. 

Ok guys. You know the drill by now. We rented a pavilion, people brought pies, people ate pies. After seven years, there’s not much deviation to the formula. This will mostly be photos because I remembered to bring the good camera.

This year was exciting though because we had some new blood! Maya & Scott were here from Nashville (I liked to tell people that the pie party was THE ONLY reason they traveled here, though they did say it was the reason they picked that particular weekend to check out Pittsburgh as potential new digs), Henry’s co-worker Andrew and his wife Karen came, and Valerie brought her husband Dustin who I was excited to finally meet! And this was Lori’s first pie party too, because she couldn’t make it to last year’s pig-out.

I wanted to go bare-bones this year, because I honestly didn’t want to have one at first but then some of my friends talked me into it. Originally it was going to be bomb shelter themed, with just some old newspapers thrown down for tableclothes and some scattered slices of Velveeta for tablescape decor. But in the end even that was too much. We left the table bare-boned, no succulents to meet & greet, no mason jars of crayons to assist with doodling on the tables.

We did decorate the actual pie table though and thankfully Scott and Maya were there to help me because oh what a shocker, Henry ditched me again to go and fetch so forgotten item at the store. He does this every year and now I’m beginning to wonder if it’s intentional?!

I enjoyed this time with Scott and Maya though because Chooch wasn’t there to interrupt constantly – I have things to say too!

Also, Scott is super tall and excelled at hanging things from the rafters.

Obviously, my contribution was something Korean. Choco Pies 4 lyfe. (Surprisingly, every single kid at the pie party took one bite and then slowly handed the rest their moms. I’m offended!

I saved the “BABY” balloons from Blake and Haley’s baby shower because I figured I’d find a use for it again one day. October 6th, 2017 was that day! Mmm. Pie, baby!

(Every time I looked at it, I kept hearing Joey Tribbiani yelling it with zeal.)

Remember when I joked that the theme was “pies that Trump hates?” Maggie won the whole entire event with her ImPEACH 45 pie. Maggie’s Pie for President!

Twins!

I was sad that Amber1 and her twin sister couldn’t make it because I wanted there to be two sets of twins at the pie party just so I could say, “Yeah well MY pie party had TWO sets of twins, how many did YOURS have?” and then that person would be like, “None because wtf is a pie party, that sounds dumb.”

YEAH WELL FUCK YOU IMAGINARY PERSON I’M COMPETING WITH!

I think this was a picture of Henry staring adoringly at all of his grandbabies and kids, all under one pavilion roof covered with the graffiti of high school lovers.

(They must have painted it recently, actually, because there seemed to be less adolescent devotion up above our heads than usual.)

Lori literally made a cherry pi. So good!

There were so many savory pies this year! Sandy made a delicious corn and tomato pie, Andrew made some kind of chicken pot pie thing (the first pot pie ever, if you can believe that!), Blake & Haley went above and beyond with this super-hearty butternut squash, goat cheese, pine nut concoction that ate like an entire Thanksgiving meal in one slice. I can’t even explain how filling that sucker was! Henry conceded to my begging and made a kimchi quiche which even the pickier people enjoyed! It had a quinoa crust, which I thought was interesting.

You guys. I’m so excited to tell you — I’m betrothed to a pie! I never want to be without it.

Chooch had Sandy’s kids and Blake playing some dumb game with rocks. It had something to do with The Kingdom of the Unobtainium Rock? Who cares.

Except those guys cared and played it for like a solid hour until Blake got carried away and tried to hide one of the rocks in the rafters, which caused Sandy’s kids to try to climb to retrieve it, so I had to be a mom for once in my life and yell at Blake to get the goddamn rock for them.

Maya’s first pie party!

Janna brought a Mexican chocolate mousse. We did not build a wall around it though. Mexico is cool.

Anyway, this mousse brought the heat! It was delicious.

Pie party or not, his face always looks like this.

Here’s Monica holding Calvin, freshly pulled from the oven.

This was taken sometime after I told Chris she had a spider in her hair, landing me above Chooch on Monica’s list of least favorite people. I’m a really awesome friend!

My favorite part of the pie party is how welcoming my friends were to Scott and Maya. Here’s hoping they move here and can join us for more pie in the future! My least favorite part of the pie party was when I was on hug-giving auto-pilot and misread Lori’s body language when she was saying goodbye and started to make a hug motion with my arms, then quickly dropped them down to my side when I noticed she was slightly recoiling, and then the next day she texted me to  tell me that this was her favorite part of the whole pie party and that was sad I wasn’t at work because she wanted to tell everyone about it and embarrass me and I died a little but. I have a NO HUMAN CONTACT reputation to uphold, but the stupid pie party always ruins that because there are always people there who demand to be hugged upon departure and I have trained myself to leave my body for a bit in order to get through this.

I am so awkward, it hurts sometimes.

On that note: it’s hard to believe the 7th pie party is in the books! 7 parties-worth of hugs. OMG.

Henry and I were going to take a break this year and hope that the season would slip by quietly without anyone noticing we didn’t have a pie party…

…but then friends started asking me as early as July if we were having one this year. I held firm on my decision but after the eighth person asked, Henry and I had an emergency meeting, which means I paused Running Man and said, “People want a pie party, do you want to have one?”

He was like “whatever you want to do” because duh. So I guess we’re having one!

The one downside to not being on Facebook anymore is that it makes party-planning a bit tricky. What did we do we before Facebook events??

Oh yeah: Evites.

I don’t know hardly anyone’s email address though.

Most of my pals are on Instagram so I hoped that posting this rough Photoshopped invitation would suffice but I’ve still been approaching people directly too because I have no way of knowing if anyone has seen it if they don’t heart it or flat out tell me they’re coming. So I have a feeling this pavilion is going to be super-empty.

If you’ve never been to the pie party before, it goes like this: you either bake or buy a pie, bring it to the designated pavilion, put it down with the other pies, grab a plate and go to pie-town. You don’t need to worry about bringing enough pie to feed everyone, because people come and go all day — we have yet to run out of pie!

It’s literally an all-you-can-eat pie buffet. Bring some beverages and enjoy the (hopefully brisk & sunny) autumn day! I won’t make you play weird social ice-breaker games or anything. I’m too busy keeping tabs on THE PIE.

What else can I tell you…oh! Themes. My friend Maggie just asked me the other day if there will be a theme. I never enforce themes because most people seem to ignore me and go rogue, so it’s a basic creative free-for-all. Although, I did jokingly respond with, “I don’t know….pies that Trump hates?” which got us excitedly throwing options out there like a varying flesh-toned Equality Pie and one that’s rainbow-filled, a glass ceiling creme brulee pie, perhaps a delicious dotard custard? Barb is bringing a Covfefe Pie, so that one’s off-limits.

I mean, I GUESS if you swing the other way, you could bring a pie with a popsicle stick wall around it, or a KFC chicken pot pie with a dusting of Cheetos on top. Can’t promise anyone will eat it though.

I’m pushing Henry to bake some Korean pies. We’ll see what he comes up with. I have an idea for Korean pie-pops but after our tense foray into mini pies at the 2015 pie party, I think Henry may have thrown out the little pie-mold maker thing.

Above, please find a sampling of pies we’ve had in the past. Everything from savory to exotic to mini to tarts. Personally, I loved the cupcake pie that Henry made a few years back but it was critiques harshly by some.

So, if you’re reading this, we’re friends (whether IRL or through The Computer), you live in/near Pittsburgh, and you love pie, please consider coming to this thing! It’s also dog and kid friendly. There’s a playground next to the pavilion and my kid is like KIND OF ok at watching younger kids now, and he also doesn’t run around with sticks anymore so it’ll be safe. 

Probably. 

Here is a very basic and not flashy or pretty map that Henry made to help people get to the pavilion but it probably won’t help because most people get lost no matter what – South Park has that effect on people. 

According to some of my friends, this was the BEST PIE PARTY YET, so LOL if you missed it.

Just kidding. That was rude. And my new thing is trying not to be rude.

But it really was a mighty fine display of people and pies and I couldn’t be happier. Let’s peruse some pictures of these particular people and pies, perchance.

PIE PEOPLE:

• Judy
• My mom (!!!) and her friend Debbie
• John, Jen, Gavin and Abby
• Blake & Haley
• Alisa and Cara
• Kara, Harland & Theo
• Lisa, Matt, Matt’s dad Mike, & Gigi
• Erin, Brian & Padraig
• Lauren & Tony (and their dog, Charlie!!)
• Chris & Monica
•  BARB
• Rocky, Angela & Ryder
• Brad (and his dog Tucker!)
• Sandy, Ben, Elena & Zoe
• Maggie, Ivan, Lila & Annabelle
• Glenn, Amanda, & Eve
• Chris & Rebecca
• Felicia, her mom Donna (my old Girl Scout leader!!), and Lila
• Amanda, Adam, Alia, and Annika
• Brian, Cathy & Clara
• Debbie S.
• Gayle & Jeffrey
• Rob, Nancy & Nancy’s mom
• Valerie and Brian
• Amber2 & Teddy

I think I got everyone. If I missed you and you’re reading this, obviously it’s because you don’t rate. JUST KIDDING. This is one of the downsides of waiting two weeks to recap the damn thing. But the upside is that I get to write in my blog while watching HOCKEY because HOCKEY SEASON IS IN FULL EFFECT.

OK, back to the pie, though. There were so many delicious pies! It’s a good thing we don’t actually do any judging because there’s no way I could pick a winner.

We made that weird sweet potato thing which Henry fucked up and it came out sooooo dense and not very sweet at all which is a shame because it was beautiful-looking. The second pie he made was Nesselrode, which no one would consider because the name was so horrible but my god, it was fantastic. It was made with like, pecan puree? I can’t remember. But it was sweet and creamy and this is the stuff broads should be wrestling in, not jello.

Sandy brought a tomato & corn pie that was so good, I want to use some cheesy adjective that Dick van Dyke would jovially exclaim if Disney presented a theatrical release of the pie party.

(Sandy, why don’t you slide that recipe into my DMs? Or you can just give it to me at work on Monday like a normal person.)

(And then I’ll give it to Henry because LOL recipes.)

Rob also brought a savory pie! Spinach and cheese. Savory pies are often the unsung heroes of the pie party because you can only eat so much sugar before your body starts to crave a vegetable.

Or salt.

Or cheese.

Speaking of vegetables, though….

John & Jen brought two pies made with vegetables from their kids’ garden: a chocolate ghost pepper pie and a carrot pie, which was sweet not savory. Holy shit, both pies were great but the ghost pepper experience was lit AF. It was just the right amount of heat, right at the end, just when you think you’re home safe…

And Lauren brought a key lime pie with a jalapeno twist, which was also delightfully fiery!

I was so into this year’s accidental spicy theme!

Kara made a pineapple cream pie which she was afraid wasn’t going to be exotic enough—Kara, you’re crazy. That pie should be the official dessert of Hawaii. And she worked so hard mixing up the whipped topping!

(FYI THE PENS JUST SCORED.)

Everyone LOLd when Glenn showed up. I’m friends with his wife Amanda on Instagram so I made sure she had the details because apparently he never tells her about the pie party!? They brought a pumpkin cheesecake thing that all these people kept raving about and I’m sad because I was too busy trying to socialize like an authentic human and by the time I went back to get some, it was all gone. UNLIKE THE NESSELRODE.

Fun fact: Glenn used to work with my high school buddy Chris, who also came out for his first ever pie party! AND Chris is a beekeeper so he brought an amazing apple pie with brie and fresh honey from his bees! I’m posting his own Instagram picture here because I wasn’t able to snap my own photo before it was mauled:

LOOK HOW ADORABLE!! And it tasted fantastic.

So Chris is a beekeeper and so is Lisa’s father-in-law who was also there, and Glenn is a WASHED-UP beekeeper! So many bee experts under one pavilion!

I don’t have a picture of this one, but Maggie brought a mango pie which definitely was a star of the exotic pie theme. I’ve never had a mango pie before and now I want one all the time! I just had a quick side-bar with Henry about this one and he said, “Yeah it was good” but he used a tone that had actual life and emotion to it (the opposite of hope he did earlier today when I asked him if he thought the new Joyce Manor album is great) so that’s how you know it was a good pie and he wasn’t just trying to tell me what I wanted to hear so that he could go back to half-watching the Pens game and pretending he’s an NHL coach.

I think Lisa was revealing some foolproof weight-loss secret. I mean, that’s the only thing that would have me so enrapt. Plus, look at Henry smirking.

Lisa’s amazing lemon blueberry thing (one of my favorite flavor combos!) and her father-in-law’s pecan pie chilling in the background. I was super nervous to meet her FIL Mike, who was visiting from Colorado, because Lisa told me that he’s been reading my blog and I always feel embarrassed when that happens. And I know, “Then Erin, why have you been writing on the Internet since 2001?” I guess the short answer is that I pretend it’s because the only people who read this are the ones I made up in my mind.

You know, “you guys.”

Duh.

It was really cool to meet him, though, even though he made a joke that went right over my dumb blond head, and when I mentioned it to Lisa a week later, she said, “Oh, so THAT’S why he mentioned that he thought you were going to be so smart in real life, but was disappointed to find out you’re kind of dumb.”

UGH, LISA.

And then when I won at Beer Math last week, she was like, “Aw, I’m going to have to tell my father-in-law that you actually are smart sometimes.” THANKS, LISA!

Speaking of Lisa, my favorite part of the pie party migt have been when she told Monica and me that we have really pretty eyes and Monica was like, “AW THANKS’ and I was like, “Really? It took you 20 years to tell me that?”

Alisa might troll Chooch harder than anyone and I love her so much for it. Here she is antagonizing him over a heated game of Pokemon. (Also, Cara brought these really cute apple tarts and I didn’t get one because as usual, I’m snoozin’ and losin’. You can see them on the bottom of the pie tier below!)

Felicia and her mom Donna took this challenge very seriously and brought a fancy tray of mini mouthgasms, a/k/a Canadian Buttertarts.

“Excuse me, did you say Canadian buttertarts?” Monica asked, popping up from under the table, fist to her mouth in an effort to plug her hysteric enthusiasm.

Monica is really into these things, I learned!

And she and Felicia both, in tandem, attempted to show me the proper way to eat it.

“You need to hold it over the wrapper,” Felicia said.

“No really you need to eat that shit over top of something,” Monica tried in vain to warn me.

But I stubbornly chucked the wrapper in the trash and took a big bite.

“You’re gonna get it all over—-oh, OK. There it is,” Monica sighed, as the liquid-y butter innards gushed all the way down my chin, onto my arm, probably into my hair.

“We tried to tell you,” Felicia said as I fled in search of napkins or wet wipes or a babbling brook in which to dunk my whole person.

“You’re an idiot,” Henry said as he cleaned me up.

Henry would probably make a really great preschool teacher.

Or at least, the preschool teacher’s creepy helper.

Monica’s practicing her hitchhiking skills for the next time she feels trapped in public with Chooch and Chris isn’t ready to leave yet. Also, Monica has the best shirts and Chris has the best hair. And so does Lauren, who sits in front of me at work and taunts me with her ability to french braid her own hair!!! Ugh!

By the way, Monica was on pie duty this year and made Butterscotch M&Ms and Cookie Dough pie, which tasted super fattening and delicious and I probably got the name wrong because I had to ask her at least 7 times during the course of the day to remind me again what it was.

So I’m just going to rename it:  Lots of Chocolatey Things In a Pie.

Ugh it was fantastical. Like Neil Patrick Harris in a pie.

I’m drinking some kind of pumpkin beer while I write this.

LOL Gayle! She brought these adorbs S’mores tarts and I was so happy to be able to use the pie tier twice at one party! I’m glad I decided to bring it.

Gayle’s tarts were serious business. She even brought a lighter to torch the marshmallows. When Brian reached for one, I was like, “WAIT DON’T EAT IT YET WE HAVE TO GET GAYLE” and there was this big To Do with the lighter and the wind  kept blowing it out and finally Brian was like, “OK look, I’m fine with cold marshmallows. NO REALLY GO AWAY.”

I love putting my party guests in uncomfortable situations with people they don’t know!

Chooch is not so low-key obsessed with my friend Rocky because one time I made an offhand remark that some YouTuber Chooch likes reminded me of Rocky. Anyway, Chooch had all these pink balloons that he insisted on blowing up before people arrived (he kept one aside and named him Bobby which was funny and sad at the same time), so naturally at some point, two balloons found their way up Chooch’s shirt and Rocky apparently said “Nice rack” to him, which sent Chooch running over to tell me, “MOMMY ROCKY RECALDINI TOLD ME I HAVE A NICE RACK!”

Like, calm down son. You’re acting like you just received an autographed headshot of some Sky TV personality you were obsessed with in 1991 which totally wasn’t something that I personally sent away for, but just a random example that means nothing.

I invited Barb because I like to hear her run down the list of Erin Rachelle Kelly superlatives that she has scrawled on a Starbucks pumpkin spice latte (holla!)* receipt in her pocket from 2011. I like to believe she adds to it constantly, and that there are like 18 of them stapled together into a little flipbook called Erin is the Best.

*(INSIDE BARB JOKE. Except that it’s not really an inside joke because I’ve shared it here before and really it’s just that she came into the office one day with a PSL fresh from Starbucks and straight up sang, “Pumpkin spice latte, holla!” which was funny because you know, Barb said it. And then she promptly sat down to tweet about it on her phone in the “blinged-out” case.)

Man, I miss Barb.

And I miss Debbie, too! She and Barb took care of me and soothed the hysteria I often felt from being out and about in the real world. Now who do I have? WENDY?! UGH. She makes me do things for myself!

LOL j/k – Gayle is still available to make sure I don’t stick forks in the toaster and accidentally strangle myself with the phone cord.

LOLOLOL Glenn and Henry! Glenn said something to Henry that was disparaging about me, something about being sorry Henry has to deal with me, and Henry was all, “LOL, at least you get paid to deal with her.” Or something terrible like that. WOW why don’t you guys just start a stupid Boys Only club in a treehouse and make dumb patches that look stupid and I don’t want one anyway!

Amanda thanked me for giving Glenn a hard time at work, and I can’t even take all the credit because many other people are mean to Glenn too, but I will say things got a lot easier for him after Natalie and Barb left.

Meanwhile, Brian was saying something about having to chase his little girl all around to make sure she didn’t fall into peril, and Kara said, “Oh just wait. By next year, you can just set her loose on the playground with the other kids and not have to deal with it.”

Brian said he turned around to look at the playground just as Chooch was riding a log.

That’s my kid.

I feel like Blake probably had something to do with the appearance of the log though.

I AIN’T.

I somehow didn’t get any pictures of Kara at the last pie party so I was on the prowl this time. Also, I should consider running a million races like Kara does so that I can eat a ton of pie without feeling like I was cast for the gluttony scene in Se7en.

I wish I had written down all the pies. I know that Erin brought a really unique and wonderful Girl Scout cookie pie (I wonder if my old Girl Scout leader Donna had a piece!?!?). My mom brought a frozen Cold Brew pie, adorned with chocolate espresso beans. I don’t think anyone has ever brought a frozen pie before! NO WAIT I think Amber1 brought a frozen pink lemonade pie one year?! God, so many pies, you guys. Who can keep track!?

Valerie brought a chocolate peanut butter from the Pie Place which I barely even cared about because I was just so excited to see her face! I’ve known her from all the way back in the LiveJournal days and when I met Kara, I learned that they were “real life” friends so we all went to lunch once in 2008, and it was actually my first time going to Zenith, so now I equate Valerie with cool bathrooms and good vegetarian food.

Anyway, I haven’t seen her since then so this was a big deal for me and I nearly pushed people out of the way so I could greet her.

Also, I made her try the Nesselrode pie and she agreed that it was really good. “You should have named it something else, though,” she said. Ugh, I know, but it’s named after some man named Nesselrode for some reason that my eyes skipped over because I get bored easily but I read enough to know that it sounded weird and that probably no one else was going to bring a Nesselrode.

No one else brought a Nesselrode.

Even if it had a better name, it still looked like a unappetizing  gray blob so probably no one would eat it unless I was aggressively slipping it into their plate. It’s a good thing I’m not this pie’s PR person.

Rocky and Angela brought a banana cream pie which I always forget how much I love a good banana cream until I’m elbow-deep in one and it’s all over my face and I’m sobbing because why do I have no self-control.

Look at this carnage!!

Also, Sandy: remember when Maggie lost her mind and screamed at Elena for no reason and Elena was completely unfazed but you and I jumped? #scaryMaggie

Brian made fun of Dance Gavin Dance but THAT’S OK. I will probably still invite him to the next pie party. Cathy and Clara are more than welcome, at the very least!

(Also, Cathy makes horror movie cookies, you guys. She is someone I need in my life.)

Judy tried brie for the first time and her taste buds apparently revolted harder than most rational, intelligent, self-respecting women when shown a picture of Donald Trump. Brian and Monica witnessed this with me.

Sorry Judy, I’ll tell Chris V. to bring Kraft Singles next time!

Guys. We love Blake’s girlfriend Haley. Like, a lot. And I think Chooch has met his match with her! She dishes it right back to him and it’s amazing.

Amber2 came right as the party was winding down because she was waiting for Teddy to wake up from his nap, so she was probably thinking, “Wow this is the worst pie party yet!” I’m really glad she made it though and I was so happy to see her that I actually CUT HER A SLICE OF BRAD’S APPLE CRUMBLE PIE ALL ON MY OWN! I mean, it was a struggle and she probably could have done it herself more efficiently while holding her kid and standing on a unicycle, but at least I made an effort OK.

I wish I had had the forethought to force everyone to have their picture taken under the pie portal.

There was the most vivid rainbow that appeared as we (lol “we”) were cleaning up. This picture does no justice whatsoever, but I can honestly say that it’s the brightest rainbow I’ve ever seen, and then Kara pointed out that it was actually so big and bright that it was starting to repeat the last several colors! AND THEN WE NOTICED THAT IT WAS A DOUBLE RAINBOW ON TOP OF THAT. What a great ending to a satisfying day of pies and good people.

HOPE TO SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!

I spent the whole hockey game writing this. You’re welcome. Well, maybe not YOU, but someone is welcome.

I haven’t done one of my Goofus & Gallant-inspired comic things on here in YEARS, probably not since the time Henry broke my foot with a bowling ball. I still liked Jonny Craig when that happened, that’s how I know it’s been a long time.

But this morning, I was  thinking about how appalled Chris was after the pie party when she and Monica hung back to help us clean up and she got to experience first hand what Henry deals with. We were stripping the pie table of all of the burlap sheets that I use for table cloths, and they were covered with confetti. Chris was all, “SERIOUSLY YOU’RE JUST SHAKING THAT ALL OVER THE GROUND?! WHAT THE HELL?!?!” I couldn’t stop laughing about it, and it inspired me to make a new Goofus & Gallant. (If you’re cool as fuck, you might remember those comics from Highlights for Children.)

I just wasted entirely too  much time making these. Now I have to go watch Dance Gavin Dance videos. Speaking of, there’s a Warped Tour edition Goofus & Gallant here if you’re interested!

People kept wondering on Sunday how many Pie Parties there have been so far, but no one guessed SIX. Which is the answer. Six.

Six!

How has this not gotten old yet?

Commemorative buttons for those who have been to all six!

I’ll be honest though: I didn’t want to have one this year. You know how you get sometimes, all beaten down by life and you’d rather just wallow in your tear-filled pit of despair but then you remember that being around your peeps makes you happy.

Plus, you know: pie.

So much pie!

This year, I decided to have a theme, so I picked “Exotic.” Give people some type of gyrating star to shoot for, you know? And if anyone opted to just bring a supermarket apple pie, they could always give it a stripper name. Like Brandylynne.

Or Candy.

Candy Apple Pie.

OMG.

Of course, I found some pies for Henry to make which involved hard-to-obtain ingredients. He left the house at like 6am on Saturday in his attempt to find some kind of Asian purple sweet potato. God only knows how many parking lots he wept in before finally finding one.

But the other pie called for matcha (I mean, it was a Matcha Cream pie, so….) but he was all, “I REFUSE TO PAY $18 FOR MATCHA WHEN I ONLY NEED THREE TABLESPOONS.”

Wow. Slow your fucking roll, Hank.

I interrupted his pie-baking several times on Saturday because I was being a emotional vampire and needed hugs to stay alive. He acted like he was so put-out by this, but obliged every time. It was funny because he was wearing AN APRON.

Lol, Henry.

And then we got to have pizza for dinner because fuck if he was cooking after spending all day in the kitchen.

I took this picture before Henry dusted off the sign, which was coated with Trudy (our mannequin/Xmas tree) residue, i.e. green metallic spray paint dust.

After baking, I had Henry make a small pie marquee for the table but he ran of time so we just threw a strand of battery-operated lights on it for the time being. Next year, it’ll be better!

But this is what I mean — having a pie party seems really no-frills and low-stress but then I have to throw in a million elements after I get a “vision” and you know how my “visions” can be: what do you mean you can’t turn this basic park pavilion into a fucking SWISS CHALET BUFFETED BY EDELWEISS, HENRY YOU DICK?!

And speaking of pavilions! There are two that we use exclusively for pie parties and Chooch’s birthday parties, and both of them were already rented. Along with 80% of the other park pavilions. What the hell?! No one ever has park parties in October! Then I had a fleeting vision of every person in this town who hates me (oh, there are a few) having their own competing pie parties at the same time and I got so sad and then paranoid and then really fucking murderous.

But on the way there, we passed our main pavilion (the bae of all pavilions, if you will) and realized that it was being used for some asshole’s first birthday.

So, not a competing pie party.

Henry’s mom came with us and helped with set-up. I use that term loosely but she did more than, say, Janna who promises to help decorate every year and then comes 2 hours after the party starts, so….

Henry left to go get beverage and I decided I would use the portajohn while it was still fresh from Henry’s thorough cleansing. Right as I was about to come out, I heard a male voice and started to panic. Like, was some woodsman tying up Judy and Chooch, getting them ready to roast on the crappy grill that comes as a courtesy with the pavilions? Should I just stay inside the portajohn and pray that he doesn’t know there’s a third thick-thighed entree waiting in the wings?

Instead, I came leaping out awkwardly, like I was going to kick a bitch in the throat if I had to, and that’s when I saw some man doing pull-ups on one of the pavilion rafters, while Judy counted for him.

THE FUCK.

When he was done, Judy lasciviously asked, “What’s the encore?”

“I just keep moving,” he laughed in between pants, toweling off his older gentleman sweat and thanking her for letting him invade our pavilion before jogging off into the horizon.

Wow.

Where did he come from, beneath the moist autumnal sod? A 1993 episode of Bodies In Motion with Gilad?

I’d have offered him so pie but he didn’t seem like the type to let that garbage near his perfectly curated, sweaty, glistening temple. 

SORRY. I think The memory of Judy’s lust intoxicated me for a second there. That guy was old as shit. 

While I fluffed the burlap on the pie table for the 87th time, Judy and Chooch argued to the death over a violent game of Perquacky, which I guess is like Boggle. We bought it at Goodwill specifically for the  pie party because I like to give people shit to do while eating pie, you know? That’s why I use craft paper in lieu of tablecloths and slap down a mason jar of mismatched crayons and markers on each picnic table.  So if you end up sitting with strangers, play hangman or something. JUST PLEASE DON’T LEAVE.

Most of last year’s decorations were salvageable! So that was more time available for me to make my pie party playlist which I will post here because it’s full of Phil Collins and you know, Dance Gavin Dance. You should know that this is the first year we remembered to bring a speaker thingie so that I could play music. Usually the soundtrack is just screaming kids and the ping of Henry sprouting new gray hairs.

LOL. There is no rhyme or reason to this mix. There never is with me.

People started rolling in at exactly 1pm, which I was thankful for because nothing makes a girl feel like a looooooser than when everyone is late to her party. (The pie party has a real relaxed revolving door feel to it though; people come and go all afternoon. THERE IS NO AGENDA OR SCHEDULE OF PARTY GAMES.)

In the next installment, I’ll show you pictures of pies and the people who ate the pies. Very complicated stuff. Blogging about it takes thought, a (chalk) outline, and a certain amount of alcohol. You wouldn’t understand.

Here’s a picture of Drew from Saturday. She just wanted to help with the decorations, you guys. (She was more help than my SON.)

Pie Eaters:

• Chris and Monica
• Angie and Sammy ;)
• Kelly, Zac, and Judy
• Steph and Kian
• Sam + one of her friends and her dad
• Kara, Harland, and Theo
• Robbie & Nikki
• Elizabeth and Rachel
• Patty and Tim
• Jackie and Tim
• John, Jennifer, Hailey, Abby and Gavin
• Gayle, Lily, and Faithann
• Maggie, Ivan, Annabelle and Lila
• Amber and Brian
• Erin and Brian
• Amber and Teddy ;)
• Meggan, Olivia, and Sophia
• Alex, Kelly, and Finn
• Elaina, Lena and Evey
• Alisa-and-Cara-4ever
• Rob and Nancy
• Sandy, Ben, Elena, and Zoe
• Janna
• Shawn, Jess, and Anais
• Sean
• Wendy, Shawn and Summer ;)
• Lisa, Matt, and Gigi

OK, trying to not be too cheesy (quichey if we’re keeping with a pie theme?) here, but maybe my favorite thing about the pie party MIGHT be the people. I know, it’s crazy to think about. There are actually some people I like! The entire afternoon was like a perfect pie filled with all the various berries in my life: work berries, childhood berries, Internet berries, family berries…this is like a rejected inspirational poster. I need to watch Faces of Death a few times and then come back and finish writing this because I’m clearly losing my identity.

My  favorite thing to do is take pictures at my parties when people aren’t prepared because I love the somber faces juxtaposed with background festivities.

In this picture, I like to imagine that Gayle’s granddaughter is including “I dunno, some strange party for pies?” in a Snapchat story.

(I still don’t like Snapchat.)

My favorite part of the pie party, and this made Henry roll his eyes and groan, was when Tim came over and asked me how Riot Fest was. I must have lit up like a red light district in Amsterdam because no one ever wants me to talk about Riot Fest, let alone broaches the subject on their own! THANK YOU, TIM.

Sigh. Riot Fest.

I miss you.

I just reunited with Angie a week ago, and I was so stoked that she arrived near the beginning of the party and stay for most of the afternoon! And her dog Sammy was freaking adorable. Chooch “won” him in a bet but Sammy was like, “Nope, I go nowhere with the pink-haired kid.” Smart dog! And in the background of the picture, you can see Nikki and Robbie, Judy, and then at the next table, Rob and Nancy. I have known Rob on the Internet for at least nine years, back in the LiveJournal days. We’ve definitely gotten to know each other better through Facebook though, and I was happy that he and his wife finally made it to a pie party! They brought an apple pie pizza, and you know how I love unconventional and creative pies!

Alisa announced their arrival by slapping my ass when I was fluffing the pie table (looks matter to me, OK? I’m just naturally a very vain person); it scared the fuck out of me and I experienced a split second of anger because I couldn’t imagine who…but then it was just Cara and Alisa and I felt relieved. I don’t see these two broads nearly enough and every time there’s a party happening so I can’t talk to them as much as I would like, which is why we’re going to go out soon, RIGHT GUYS?

Also, if you’re ever in the market for a tutu or other kid accessories, you might want to check out Alisa’s Totally2TooCute Facebook page!

Here we have Gayle demonstrating how everyone looks at me at work. (Except BARB – she only ever looked at me with dire reverence, adoration, and awe.)

(Except for one time when she was in a mean mood and got snippy with me when I said I didn’t want to be in charge of the fall food fest we were having that month at work and her biting words made me cry so I went into Wendy’s office and said, “Why is Barb being such a BITCH today!?” and then Barb found out she upset me and began repenting, much like Gayle when she forgot my last birthday.)

I hate it when Henry to talks to people and I don’t know what’s being said!

Tim and Jackie looking adorable with Bambi Sickafoose. This was my first time meeting Tim and he has some strong Henry-esque qualities, one being that he was able to endure a table full of girls talking about boys and dating, while still quietly enjoying his pie.

When Wendy arrived, every person from The Law Firm dropped their forks and engulfed her because BABY SUMMER > pie.

In a shocking twist, Henry wore a shirt in a color not invented by a 2-year-old mixing together all the paints in a $5 watercolor palette. Also, I know for a fact that in this picture, Henry was talking to Sandy and Alex about the Pittsburgh Blogger Cookie Exchange they both roped me into joining by pointing out that it’s not like I’m going to be baking any of the cookies anyway, and I was like, “Good point guys, sure, I’ll join!” and then my next conversation was with Henry, letting him know that he will need to make 6 dozen cookies at some point in December.

6 dozen totally doesn’t seem like a lot.

“Yeah, but you’re going to pick some ridiculous cookie that costs a fortune to make, I know it,” Henry grumbled. This is probably very likely to happen. Stay tuned, I guess?

Monica thinks she ruined this picture of Chris and Amber²‘s baby Teddy, but I think she adds a certain je ne sais quoi to it.

Kara, Elizabeth, and Sandy’s backs are all in this photo and I’m angry with myself because there is not one picture of their faces from that day. I’m not as good as shoving my camera in people’s grills as I used to be.

SEAN CAME TO THE PIE PARTY! I haven’t seen him in a hot minute, and all the Law Firm people were stoked on his appearance.  Here he is posing with Amber¹ and her boyfriend Brian who I just met for the first time and already like him a lot because Amber taught him how to gush over me and we all know those are the kind of people I like best. FAN ME WITH YOUR INVISIBLE PALMS, PEOPLE.

This is the scene where Angie uses Connect Four to teach my nine-year-old how to gamble.

I love everything about this picture, but mostly that the FAMOUS CHERRY PIE is nearly devoured in the forefront. That pie.

That goddamn pie.

…………………….

Anyway. Now that I’ve changed into a dry shirt, the girl all the way to the right in the photo arrived earlier in the day with her dad and I was thinking to myself, “OMG some random people FINALLY took my Instagram and Twitter invitations seriously and showed up! This is fucking fantastic! The pie party is famous! I hope they don’t have chainsaws behind their backs!”

But no, it was just a friend of Henry’s niece Sam, who wasn’t there yet.  Her dad was extremely friendly and started asking me all of these questions about the pie party.

“So, is this for a fundraiser?”

“No…”

“Are you selling the pies?”

“No…” (BUT MAYBE!? I could use some extra concert ticket cash….)

“So…it’s just for people to eat pie?”

“…yes?”

“Oh wow, that is an excellent idea!”

He was literally DELIGHTED about this. It was pretty adorable. I told him he was welcome to grab a plate, but he said he was going to come back. That’s what they all say. And actually, they usually do now that I think about it. I had a Cure party once, I think it was in 2000, when the Cure was nominated for a Grammy (they lost, because fuck the Grammy’s) and I invited some guy who was walking past my house. He said he had to go and buy cigarettes but that he would come back.

AND HE DID.

I have no idea what his name even was, but I have a picture of him in one of my photo albums. So, it happened.

Anyway, much like Cigarette Boy, Sam’s Friend’s Dad came back later, with a pumpkin pie! Holy shit, pie is like the best social device ever.

Henry never sword fights this gently with me.

Ladies and gentlemen, Wendy’s pink shoes.

Wendy and Teddy and Leopold. If you don’t know who Leopold is, then just go away. Go. I don’t want to know you.

Robbie and Nikki, baker of the truly amaze blackberry cream cheese jalapeno baby pies. Also, super cute couple! They came to visit us a few weeks ago and while we sat around drinking fancy beer that I could kind of swallow without too much of a grimace, I realized that in some ways, their relationship has the dynamics of a young Henry and Erin. The good dynamics though, don’t worry. Otherwise, what an insult!

Look at this adorable family! I’m so glad that Matt and Lisa managed to swing by toward the end of the day, because it was Gigi’s birthday and we all sang happy birthday to her! (Well, technically I lip-synced because I hate singing Happy Birthday.)

It always makes me so happy to see so many of my favorite people from different areas of my life colliding under the pretense of pie. I know so many of my friends have really busy lives, and the fact that they make an effort to stop by for these things doesn’t go unnoticed by me. For instance, I had no idea that my good old friend Shawn (a/k/a Wonka) was planning on making the treacherous trek to the Vortex in the South, otherwise known as South Park.  He brought his girlfriend Jess and his daughter Anais, who was wearing the cutest cat sweatshirt ever and I want one in my dumb size.

Also, Chooch has been hanging out a lot recently with these twins he’s known since first grade. They come to all of his birthday parties, but then over the summer, their mom started contacting me to set up play dates, and you guys, after being a parent for nine years, this is the first time I have ever associated with a school mom! I mean, in a positive manner, that is. (Catholic School clusterfuck, never forget.) I have been very tentative about this because I am so afraid of other moms not liking me and then not wanting their kids to hang out with Chooch. (I’m not kidding, the shit that went down at that Catholic school gave me a real tight complex.) But, I invited Meggan and the girls to the pie party and they came and I was happy to get to talk a little bit with her!

This was a pretty huge deal for me. I even told her that she was the first mom I became friends with on Facebook and she was pretty surprised.

I think I’m getting better at this parenting thing.

Nine years in.

The Budding Bromance. I was so happy that Wendy brought her husband Shawn with her because Henry needs friends. Shawn is really good at building things and I kind of want them to start a We Can Make Shit For You business together but then when would Henry have time to make the shit that I want him to make?

So, just forget it.

I kept trying to snag a photo of them together, but Henry’s not (always) stupid and foiled my mission every time.

Jess and Angie, a new friendship forged while eating pie! If that’s not heartwarming then you truly are a sociopath.

But you can still come to the next pie party! I don’t discriminate.

Monica always wears the most apropos t-shirts. Also, one of my favorite moments was when Chooch screamed, “Chris! Monica tried to stab me with a knife!” Those two are the poster children for Frenemies, so much so that when Chooch found out he’s invited to Chris and Monica’s wedding, he mumbled, “Does Monica know? I’m surprised she let that happen.”

I think they should do a comedy together. Something like Curly Sue. I could see them joining forces and being shrewd scam artists, with lots of hilarious bickering in between. And probably someone dies at the end.

And what’s a pie party without missing children? Some kids are just too good at hide and seek. Don’t worry, everyone was found at the end of the day.

I don’t think a single one of us managed to avoid falling into a deep pie coma that day.

WHO’S EXCITED FOR THE NEXT ONE?!

After taking last year off, the pie party returned triumphantly to celebrate its fifth year. I thought that was a pretty big deal and wanted to make buttons to commemorate the occasion, but as usual I got side-tracked and Henry failed to build me a button-making factory, or at the very least, produce a button maker for me. I might still do it though. BUTTONS FOR EVERYONE.

You can wear it next to your Poor Henry button.

We didn’t get our usual pavilion, and at first I was sad about that but this one ended up being better. It was smaller, but when you figure people are coming and going all afternoon, plus all the kids are on the playground, we don’t really need all the space that our usual pavilion offers. So I only cried about it for a few minutes and then moved on with my day.

When we arrived at the park on Sunday, there was a family already there, making themselves at home. The dad was grilling next to the pavilion while the mom was pushing the kids on the swings. How quaint! Now get the fuck out. We rolled up and started pulling all of our shit out of the car and piling it on the tables, so the dad was like, “OK, I see where this is going” and moved all of their darling picnic accessories out of the pavilion and to a picnic table down by the playground. It’s a free country, so we let them nervously eat their All American lunch while Chooch slowly swung himself on a swing across from them, wearing a hoodie and black sunglasses and looking like he probably had a switchblade in his pocket.

When Robbie and his girlfriend Nikki arrived with their adorable and ridiculously delicious black raspberry cream cheese jalapeno mini-pies, Nikki said that she was making a sign for them but Robbie stopped her and said, “Erin will have signs there, trust me.” AND DID I. I found my Pie Party 5 notes after the fact and forget that I had originally wanted to carve the pie names into apples (lol) but instead I printed out mini versions of my Cherry’s Eyes painting, which had become the unofficial logo of this year’s party, and then I taped them to colorful mini Popsicle sticks. HELPFUL HINT: those things bled into the pies. It’s been three days though and I’m still alive. Hopefully you are, too.

For our “outside the box” pie entry, Henry made sweet potato whoopie pies with maple marshmallow buttercream. They were OK. He could definitely work on some gentler assemblage, that’s for sure. Also, he almost didn’t make them.

Everyone was like, “What makes this Romanian?” and I was like, “It’s great at gymnastics? I don’t know! Ask a gypsy!” It’s no secret (lol) that I’m obsessed with Romania so I knew I needed something at the pie party to represent my inexplicable affinity.

Our third representation was a rosemary pear pie with cheddar crust. I don’t think I liked it but I can’t remember.

I was about to brag about blowing up the P I E balloons but then I remembered that it was actually Chooch, being helpful for once. So never mind. I strung them up, though!

Since this is our fifth tango with pie worshiping, you might think that we have the wrinkles all ironed out. And surprisingly, you would be mostly correct! I have learned from my mistakes, that’s for sure.

One big mistake I usually make every year is asking someone to come early to help me decorate. This never works. No matter what, said person (usually Janna) doesn’t arrive until an hour after the party starts so instead of just doing it myself, I’m “just doing it myself” while also being extremely bitter and angry. This year I only planned as much as I could handle on my own, and it worked out well. I finished decorating and laying out my succulents with little to no sweat dotting my brows like salt-buttons and I was still in a relatively OK mood by the time I finished!

(There was one minor explosion, and that was when the staple gun ran out of staples and I assumed there were no more staples so I started Hulking around in a fury until Henry calmly filled the staple gun with more staples because, would you look at that, he came prepared for once!)

Another is relying too much on my phone to take pictures. This year, Henry conveniently left my portable charger thing at home so my phone was pretty much at 5% all afternoon, leaving me no choice but to use my actual camera. (And we even remembered to charge the battery!) I made a pointed effort to play around with the settings before anyone arrived to compensate for the frustrating pavilion lighting. #fauxtographer

Probably the biggest mistake I made the last time was being too ambitious, and by that I mean I put too much on Henry’s plate, baking-wise, and he was one angry motherfucker. I had him make two pies, two different types of mini-pies, three different types of pie pops, and apple pie flavored popcorn. Because it was the fourth pie party and I wanted him to do pie four ways. Get it?

It was a pretty big fail.  We were both so stressed out and tired that we could barely enjoy ourselves at the party. It always starts out as such a fun idea when it’s in my head! I love the planning stages, but when it’s time to start making it a tangible thing, it’s like TEARS MURDER BLOOD HEAR TATTACK.

This year, I went easy on Henry, and myself. I mean, yeah, I still gave him three things to make and when I came home from a haunted trail at 9:30 on Pie Party Eve and noticed that Henry hadn’t made the whoopie pies in my absence, I might have raised the roof a bit, and not because I was dancing to old school R&B jams. I never pass up an opportunity to remind Henry that my fingernails are deep in his balls, so he got to bakin’.

I made that bunting myself. I really hate crafting.

The key to proficiently pork out on pie is PORTION. I like to fill a plate with thin slivers of many types of pie so that it essentially equals one slice. That way I get to hopefully sample everything. LOL, who am I kidding? There are no rules. Just grab a plate and stuff your face and do your best to convince yourself that you’re not going to feel like you’re in gastro hell later.

This year, we had several savory pies! Kelly brought a taco pie, Patty brought two zucchini pies, and Elizabeth cooked up a vegetarian chili pie—major hat tip to her for that one. It was wonderful and helped me avoid an early sugar crash. Sandy brought not-pie which consisted of a veggie platter and chips. Salt is such a great counterbalance to pie! Especially when most of us were foregoing lunch in favor of turning our bodies into pie trashcans.

Amber¹ made a delightful S’mores pie which I have never had before and it was a big hit! Gayle brought apple pie, apple donuts, and apple cider from the Apple Castle apple festival! She’s still sucking up to me for MISSING MY BIRTHDAY. (Her self-assigned penance has been to give me an unbirthday gift every 30th since July. This arrangement has been working out well for me.) Kara brought a shoofly pie that she bought from a real Amish man at a farmer’s market last Friday and I didn’t manage to snag a piece! I hate myself.

We had pumpkin pie, an apple pie pizza from Rob, French silk, chocolate peanut butter, pecan, pistachio pie, Angie’s ricotta pie (light and lemony!)…so many pies.

Carnage of Crust.

But! If I had to play favorites, there are two that make me salivate just at the sheer thought, and those are Chris and Monica’s ground cherry pie and Maggie’s cherry pie. Two completely different, totally winning cherry pies.

I may have mentioned to Maggie a few weeks ago that cherry pie is the most under-represented pie in pie parties of yesteryear, and it’s also my favorite type of fruit pie. I got Gayle to cut me a piece because right place, right time, and I was really happy to find that it was still warm! It was perfection. Not too tart and the crust was all buttery and grandma-approved. When Maggie told me it was her first attempt at a cherry pie, I was like STFU liar! But no, it’s true: Maggie was a powerful pie princess in a past life who heroically brought war-torn countries together with her baking prowess. So my only question is why doesn’t she bake us for us at work more often?!

And Chris and Monica’s ground cherry pie, good lord. Have you ever had a ground cherry? I only first heard of them last summer when one of my co-workers brought some in from the farmers market and said to me, “I heard you like weird fruit.” And how! So, ground cherries are yellowish-green and bigger than an average blueberry but smaller than a grape. They’re wrapped individually in husks and have a very mild flavor. At first, I was like, “These ground cherries are bomb!” But then I started to taste something familiar in them and it eventually dawned on me that they had a faint tomato flavor. I’m not a big fan of tomatoes on their own so I started to feel turned off by these not-cherries.

Until Chronica turned them into a sweet ass, bitchin’ pie. AND THE RECIPE WAS MENNONITE! I was so stoked to have Mennonite shit AND Amish shit at my pie party!  You guys know how open-minded I am about that stuff. If you ever see Chronica, give them a high five for ground cherry skills.

The pie table is always completely jacked by the end of the day. I was bitching to Henry about how nice and pretty it looks until everyone starts plopping their pies down and then we forget to bring the little rustic buckets I use to put the forks in, so there’s an ugly bag of plastic forks junking shit up, and then Henry doesn’t care about paper plate aesthetics and brought leftover Halloween plates and super ugly, generic white plates with an ugly blue design that completely clashed with the autumnal tones of the burlap, leaves, and pie stands, but no! No, I’m not going to get all stressed out over this. I’m going to hand Sandy an ugly plate when we run out of the others and make some tight-lipped comment about how Henry ruins everything and then I’m going to move on from that moment of rage and instead of storming off into the woods and punching a tree until bark is protruding from my knuckles, I’m going to have another piece of pie.

OR IS IT PEACE OF PIE.

At some point on Saturday, in between gluing sequins on my Pie Party sign and shadow dancing around Baker Henry in the kitchen, I had the greatest idea of all time. I was upstairs when it came to me, and so I screamed for Henry to hurry his ass up to our room. He loves when I do that because sometimes it’s an actual emergency just often enough for him to fall for it every time.

“What?!” he asked, panting and mildly concerned.

“Greatest idea ever,” I began, and he immediately regretted falling victim to my wolf cries. “In addition to the pie party….SUCCULENT MEET N’ GREET.” I paused for a beat, smiling and waiting for him to crumble to the floor under the weight of my brilliance.

Instead, he just stood there, arms akimbo, that patronizing smirk plastered across his dumb bearded face.

Good thing I’ve never been one to look to my BEAU for validation. Speaking of BEAU, Bo Brady probably would have supported Hope in her decision to have a succulent meet n greet.

No, you’re right. That’s definitely false. Bo thought Hope was silly and frivolous. Oh, until she was about to marry LARRY WELCH, that is.

(OMG remember when Henry was my Bo Brady?)

Later that night, we were getting ready for bed and I was still yammering on about my succulent meet n’ greet. “This is just really exciting, I’m really excited about this, and I think it’s just full of excitement, so much excite,” the words spewing out in an auctioneer’s cadence. Henry must have been delirious from baking all day and night, because he just stared at me with an amused look on his face, and that is unlike him. The looks he gives me are typically basted with disgust, contempt, and frustration. Occasionally rage, but Henry is pretty laid back so one must really give him a series of forceful shoves for the anger to really shine through.

“They’ve never gone anywhere before!” I reminded Henry.

“Well, they’re plants, so….” he muttered.

Sunday morning, while Henry was filling the car with unnecessary, boring items like forks and plates, I was carefully considering which of my succulents to bring with us. I couldn’t bring some of my faves, like Bae and Panne and Suzy Banyon, because their pots are too fragile and breakable.

“I really want to bring Johnny Maplebitch with us, but I’m worried because there will be kids there…” I murmured mostly to myself, staring at that beautiful beast on my coffee table.

“Well, you could change his name for the day,” Chooch suggested. “Like, maybe….Johnny Mapledick?” he shrugged, completely serious about this.

“Yeah, good one, Chooch,” Henry sighed, stomping past us with more unessential pie party things, like pie.

I ended up bringing him in the end, because I don’t believe in succulent censorship.

I placed them all gently inside a carrying case while Henry was wasting time rounding up the beverage and making sure Chooch was dressed and not in danger. A little help would have been nice, but knowing Henry and his meathands, he probably would have just jammed my babes into the car all recklessly, like they’re not his real children.

Of course they’re not.

They’re the Devil’s.

I lined all of the picnic tables in the pavilion with craft paper and then had all of the succulents introduce themselves and say a little thing about pie. Because it was a pie party.

I TIE THINGS TOGETHER. It’s what I do.

Chris and Monica asked me what vasterbotten pie is and I shrugged. “I’unno. I just googled ‘swedish pies’ and then didn’t get much farther than that.” So then Chris googled it and actually read about vasterbotten, and now we’re obsessed with vasterbotten pie because it’s basically just cooked Swedish cheese and I hope that Chris and Monica are currently reorganizing their wedding menu as I type this.

Henry always rolls his eyes when I bring up Phil Angie.

Leopold is the succulent I found in Savannah! I brought him so it was like having Octavia there in spirit. <3

And I had to bring Stefano so Monica could meet him in person, since she is the one who named him. (Also, two Days of Our Lives references in one blog post! And I haven’t even watched Days since 2005! <—sadly.)

Bambi had to give a shout-out to her favorite show, Twin Peaks. HOLLA.

I named this one after my favorite gymnastics coach of all time, BELA KAROLYI. He was happy to bring some Romanian flavor to the party. Isn’t he handsome?

Henry frowned at this one.

Some people seemed very eager to meet the succulents! Other people were like, “Why.” Henry was like, “This is why you don’t have friends.”

Anyway, if you couldn’t be there on Sunday, I hope you enjoyed this virtual meet and greet!

   
Today is the pie party and our streak of perfect fall weather while gorging on filled pastries is holding strong! It is absolutely gorgeous today and I can’t wait to see everyone (and their pies)!

Currently I’m taking some time to decompress in the cemetery while Chooch is down the street at piano and Henry is at home probably staring at a wall and drooling. He baked his ass off yesterday and probably wishes he was “napping” in this beautiful sleep shack right now:

 Hope everyone has a wonderful Sunday and I will have a bite of pie for each of my far away friends who can’t be here today!

   
(I should have held the pie party in the cemetery. I’m an idiot.)

 Now if you’ll excuse me? I have some geese to mock and a unicyclist to gawk at. 

Alternately titled: Alliteration is Annoying.

You know what my favorite part of the Pie Party is? I mean, besides pretending to be invincible from saddlebag-inducing calories all day. Getting to hang out with my peoples! I’m not nearly as social as I once was in the yesteryears, but I still have a little bit of the hostess bug in my system, so I enjoy putting together a nice event for my friends to crash. And people seem to really love the whole “WHAT KIND OF PIE SHOULD I BAKE/BRING!?” part, which is awesome. Especially when dudes roll up with a pie in their hands like it’s your basic 6-pack.

I literally started having pie parties because I wanted to eat pie and I wanted my friends to bring me those pies. And they did! I had no idea it would have grown into what it is now though. And it’s even reunited me with some old high school friends too, which makes me believe that pie is the answer to all of the problems. Vote for pie.

The tables were pretty much piled with pie within the first 45 minutes. Sweet, glorious motherfucking pie. All kinds of pie, too! Pies with fruit, cream, chocolate and even savory pies like Kelly’s taco pie and spinach pie, and Patty and Tim’s veggie quiche. I loved that there were non-sweet options because while I love the fuck out of pie, I always forget to eat lunch beforehand and end up being That Person who is craving a sandwich at the pie party.

From what I hear, the taco pie was a hit, but I wouldn’t know because of that whole no meat clause in my diet. (Read: I’m still too stubborn to eat meat 17 years after my parents told me I’d never last as a vegetarian.)

My ex-work nemesis BRAD, along with Gayle and her crew. Gayle brought me a hostess gift! Brad did not.

I didn’t know Sean was planning on coming! So that was a nice surprise.

I became tragically ill after eating my first plate of pies. I guess my body isn’t used to all of the sugar anymore, so I wound up with an immediate headache. (This could have also had something to do with the ridiculous amount of stress I put myself under before the party even started. What good is a pie party if I can’t even enjoy myself!?)

That chemical pie up there was made by Kara and it was extremely confusing yet pleasurable to the mouth. It tastes just like an apple pie but it is MADE OUT OF RITZ CRACKERS WHAT. I guess this is something that originated during the Depression when apples were too expensive, but my feeble mind can barely comprehend the fact that someone was able to invent that back when there was no Internet. Henry was annoyed that I didn’t label it “mock apple pie” because I guess some people were deterred by the whole “chemical” thing. I wish I had a slice of that right now.

Kaitlin’s crack pie was the clear crowd favorite for the second year in a row, but Bridget’s Snickers apple pie was definitely a close second. I was able to snag a tiny morsel toward the end of the party after the tylenol my cousin Danielle gave me kicked in, and I can attest that it was definitely the kind of pie my fatter self would have eaten the FUCK out of.

My new work friend Chris and her girlfriend Monica (who is also my friend now too, thanks Facebook!) made this Yoda caramel pear pie which I didn’t get to try and I am so fucking pissed because the first (and only) pie I ever made (kind of)on my own was a pear pie!

Bridget’s Snickers apple pie thing! I had to steal this photo from her Facebook because I didn’t get a picture on Sunday. I really wish that was sitting in front of me right now instead of this severed nun’s head that Marcy just brought over to me.

Janna schmoozing with Jeremy when she was supposed to be helping me!!!

Apparently, everyone also really liked the pumpkin creme pie that Janna brought so I was quick to point out that it was FROM EAT N PARK. Nice try, Janna Child, but I saw the bag it came in.

I’m just kidding—lots of people bring bakery pies! There aren’t really any rules for the pie party. Just, you know, bring a pie.

Here is a photo of people pleasantly pillaging pie. Sandy looks like she might even be singing about it.

Dogs are also invited to the pie party. And I mean actual dogs, not ugly women.

Danielle just always wears gray now to make it easier for Corey.

OMG! Remember two pie parties ago when I learned that my brother Corey is color blind?! Well, at this pie party, I learned that he sucks at Solitaire. But! He was one of only two people who enjoyed the cupcake pie, so at least he doesn’t suck at having good taste in pies? (I don’t care if anyone loved or hated Henry’s other pie, because that one was his idea and this is all about me. But my pies never shine, goddammit!)

TWINS! Amber1 (on the right) brought a pink lemonade pie!

The Law Firm Table. God only knows what good gossip I missed out on by earning my social butterfly wings. :(

Laura and Mike brought a maple cream apple pie! MAPLE. IN AN APPLE PIE. I managed to plunge of forkful of it down my gullet before the end of the party and it was amazing.

There three tiny babies at this year’s pie party, all of which I admired from afar. Not Wendy though, she got all up in their grills.

OMG two of my friends from high school came this year! I hadn’t seen Cara since 1997, and I actually just had breakfast with Alisa a few weeks ago, so this was only the second time I’ve seen her since 1997. They brought little baby apple raspberry pies which were a hit (and were all snatched up before I could get Henry to put them with the invisible pile of leftovers he was pretending to take home). My favorite part was when Henry would walk by and Cara, Alisa and I would all look at him at the same time and he would be all, “What? What?” and then we would just laugh.

Alisa was really proud of her drawings, particularly her saggy boob-like glasses:

I couldn’t believe she left without ripping this off as a souvenir, so then I thought it would be REALLY NICE of me to mail it to her so her kids could hang it up on the fridge, but stupid Henry had already thrown it out. What an art-hating douchebag. What’s next, Henry—signing petitions to get art classes out of public schools? Melting down our crayons for marital aids? Sorry to tell you Henry, but THAT IS CONSIDERED ART IN PRISON.

I sat next to Kara and Theo for awhile because Kara is pretty good at not baby-bombing my lap or giving me face-noogies with diapered butts. While I still have baby-phobia, it was pretty cool that there were three new babies there, unable to eat pie. In addition to Theo, Sandy brought her new baby Zoe, and my Internet friend Alex brought his little baby Finn! So all of the babies got to look at each other and not do anything. And no one forced one into my arms! I got to admire from several feet away, which is how I best handle these situations. I guess deep down I have this fear that I am going to cradle a baby in my arms at which time they will be able to sense with immediate certainty that I have the devil within and then they will begin to buck and shriek and everyone will turn to look at me and I hate it when people look at me.

Anyway, I do not have photos of Alex (THIS TIME) but it was really exciting that he came to eat pie because I have never met him in real life before! You may remember him as my guest-poster while I was on vacation last June and also the mastermind behind the April Fool’s Day Pittsburgh Blogger Thingie for which I wrote this Top 5 list about things I like to do in Pittsburgh. Anyway, I invited him via Twitter and was super stoked when he posted a picture on Instagram while baking a pie, because that meant that there was a 50/50 chance he was actually going to show up! Apparently, I missed his tweet telling me that they were lost, but he and his family still managed to show up! Which is amazing because whenever I’m lost, I give up after 5 minutes and go home. If I can find my way home. That’s the only complaint about the pie party every year, is that South Park is such a fucking vortex that most people end up driving around aimlessly looking for the pavilion. My co-worker Jill even wound up going to the park office for directions.

Too bad Henry won’t buy me a house with a sprawling backyard. BLAME HENRY, PIE PARTY IV EDITION.

Anyway, after Alex and his family left, Henry’s mom asked me how I know him.

“The Internet,” I said nonchalantly. “This was actually the first time I met him.”

“Did he bring a pie?” she asked me slowly.

“Yeah, the pecan pie,” I answered.

“I ATE A PIECE OF THAT!” she cried like she was expecting to fold in half and collapse into a poisoned flesh-heap. I promised her that I didn’t think Alex had baked hemlock into his pie, but if he did, I would surely contact the Twitter Police and they’d take him to some iJail and we’d follow the trial on Instagram.

There’s a water pump thing next to the pavilion and the kids pretty much spend most of their time at every pie party screaming at each other in kid-code and doing May Day dances around the pump all afternoon. Usually, other parents are keeping an eye out in case someone fashions a shiv out of a pie server and retaliates after their stuffed bunny gets tossed into the woods (I may or may not have my own child in mind here), so I can continue being 100% ignorant to the fact that my kid has stripped off his shoes, socks and shirts and is running around, drenched in sweat, speckled with dirt and leaves, and baring his ass crack. Supposedly, Chooch and his crew took bottles of water over to the slide and turned it into a waterslide, and it was probably a good thing that I was ignoring all of this because I have been told after the fact that when grown-ups would go over and tell them to please be careful, they would respond with, “We are invincible.” However, Kara told me that Chooch and the older kids were really good around Harland, Rachel and Elena, at least, and did not try to get them to climb any trees or stab adults in a cornfield.

Henry and I were talking about how no one cried this year, and then we realized it was because there were no poorly-parented bad seeds in the mix. The safe word of last year’s pie party was “MOMMMMMMMMY!!!!!!!” It was four hours of tattle-telling and crying and I wanted to run away. Ugh, kids.

My pretty mason jars.

The table looked so pretty in the beginning, but after about five minutes it prety much looked like this all day. Ugh, just looking at this picture makes me want to rewind to Sunday so I can eat more. I totally missed out.

Obligatory Pie People Count:

• Janna
• Jeremy
• Elizabeth, Mike and Rachel
• Sandy, Ben, Elena and Zoe
• Kara, Harland and Theo
• Kelly, Sam, Steph, Kian and Zac
• Judy
• Kaitlin
• Corey and Danielle
• (Cousin) Danielle, Ean and Corey
• Cara and Alisa
• Wendy
• Brad
• Bridget
• John, Jenn, Hailey, Gavin and Abby
• Sue
• Barb
• Amber1 and Ashley
• Sean and Kylie
• Chris and Monica
• Nate and April
• Mike and Laura
• Patty and Tim
• Gayle, Jeff and Tami
• Debbie and Colton
• Alex, Kelly and Finn
• Jill

Thank god there always seem to be people there at the end to help Henry clean up and dole out leftovers, while I sit in a pie-coma, holding a fork.

I was never really able to bounce back after my inaugural pie plate gave me diabetes, but toward the end of the party, I remembered that there were savory pies, so I had a slice of spinach and the veggie quiche, which were both AMAZING and made me feel a lot better. Thanks for thinking out of the box, Kelly and Patty! So then I was able to take small samples of other pies while Henry was trying to wrap things up, like the cheesecake Wendy brought from the farmer’s market; Jill’s raspberry & chocolate ganache, which tasted like something that would earn a bitch an apron on Master Chef; Bridget’s Snickers apple pie thing, GOOD GOD Snickers should honestly find a way to put that into candy bar-form; and Laura’s maple cream apple pie which was fantastic because I’m obsessed with maple things still! I tried to get Henry to taste it but he said he doesn’t like maple!? I feel like maybe I just recently learned this but forgot because nothing he tells me is really all that interesting, unless it’s a story about him taking steroids and then Hulk-smashing a handicapped lady at a Ted Nugent concert.

Finally, at around 6:45, I headed down the street to Hundred Acres Manor with Laura, Mike, and my cousins Danielle, Corey and Ean, because what better way to end the pie party than by running through a haunted house while inhaling chainsaw fumes and synthetic fog? I was in such a hurry that it just now occurred to me that I don’t think I said goodbye to Henry’s family, and I now for certain that I didn’t say goodbye to Henry or Chooch. I rule at social couth.

****

When I got home that night, I felt a lot better and was suddenly really hungry again (literally, all I ate all day was cream of wheat and pretty much the equivalent of two slices of pie) so I started to look around for the leftovers but HENRY DID NOT TAKE ANYTHING HOME. Nothing! Not a single fucking piece of any pie. I wanted to kill him!

“Yeah, but if I had brought leftovers into the house, you would have bitched about me wanting to make you fat,” Henry argued. Touché, motherfucker. Touché.

Were you at the pie party? Did you have a good time? What is your all-time favorite pie? TELL ME! Because I clearly didn’t get my fill on Sunday.

Alternately titled: Henry & Erin’s Many Pie-related Break-Ups

I’m pretty laid back in a lot of different scenarios—well, mostly the ones that involve sleeping or watching TV—but when it comes to hosting parties, I am TYPE FUCKING A. I’ve always really enjoyed having parties, and one of the reasons I love the pie party is that it gives me a reason to have a party in the park instead of my shack-house. At the pie party, I don’t have to worry about my cat Willie pissing on someone’s purse, which some people might consider a party foul. (Ha-ha, do people even say that anymore? I didn’t think so.)

The first pie party was pretty simple. Henry baked one pie. We threw some fake leaves and paper tablecloths down on the tables. I had name tag stickers to label the pies. Only four of my work friends came, 10-15 of my outside-of-work friends, and Henry’s entire family. But every year, it’s gotten bigger. I wasn’t even going to have one this year, but people started asking me “When is the pie party going to happen?” a few months ago, and apparently Henry wanted to have another one, too, so I conceded. At first, I wasn’t into it AT ALL. But then, I suddenly got inspired to have the BEST PIE PARTY EVER because maybe this would be the last one.

So I started scribbling down ideas during downtime at work and on the trolley. I scoured the Internet for weird pie recipes while pretending to listen to Henry talk about his day. And then I decided that since it was the fourth pie party, I wanted to do pie four ways. I kept trying to tell people about it because I was so excited, but no one really seemed too stoked on the idea, especially when I got to the “pie-flavored popcorn” part. But I don’t care. Henry carried out all of my ideas and we had pie four ways after breaking up four ways. (Don’t worry—we’re together again. Barely.)

The main pies were Salted Honey Lavender (Henry’s pick):

And the Cupcake Pie, of which I can say for sure that I am a fan. Basically, after Henry broke up all of the mini cupcakes, he poured some sort of custard mixture on it and when it baked, the custard bound everything together and kept the cupcakes moist, while the frosting melted and hardened into these perfectly-crunchy pockets of SUGAR OMG SUGAR. And then it was topped with more frosting. I liked it, but trust me–no one was banging down our door for the recipe, haha.

(I put the sprinkles on it!!!)

Then there was the neglected caramel apple pie popcorn made with homemade Mexican caramel! Oh shit, that caramel was amazing, you guys. I think it’s called cajeta and it is made with GOAT MILK. I don’t know why I was so excited about this fucking caramel. It was actually on my list of things that I was going to attempt to make myself, but that plan was met with some skepticism from people who know me a little too well, so I moved that to Henry’s To Do list. Which consisted of basically everything and the poor man was literally in the kitchen all weekend up until it was time to go to the pavilion to set up, which was supposed to be my job, but it’s hard to do when Henry forgets to bring 75% of the things I need and ends up having to drive to the nearest craft store (FORESHADOWING) and my helper (JANNA!!!) doesn’t get there until literally 5 minutes before the party starts, and it’s 82 degrees and humid in OCTOBER and I’m already sweating my makeup off and I can’t wait for people to arrive and start hugging me.

Um, anyway. The popcorn had pieces of leftover pie pop pie crust in it and I thought it was really good but I eventually had to walk around with the pie pan and force people to eat it. No love for pie-flavored popcorn.

The third type of pie Henry churned out was an array of mini pies in pumpkin, cherry bourbon and Gorgonzola fig which were my favorites but he ran out of fig after only making about eight of them, ugh. I was super excited to use the three-tiered pedestal for those.

I’m totally obsessed with these fucking pie pedestals, you guys. “We” worked so hard on them! I know I will find a billion different things to use them for during the Pie Party Off Season.

And then there were the pie pops, which honest to god were nearly the demise of Henry and me. After my failed attempt at baking a few weeks ago, I bought a pie pop maker on eBay thinking that if I had a machine, I could do it. Because my track record at operating machines is so stellar?

Guess what? Totally not any easier. I tried to help Henry make some Friday night when I came home from work but it was complete bullshit and, to cut out about 45 minutes of obscenities from the story, I threw a total fit and then sulked on the couch. So then I was convinced that the pie pops weren’t going to happen but my puppy dog Henry diligently churned them out the next night while Chooch and I were busy gallivanting around town with Janna and Laura.

Henry knows what’s up. (But then I came home and was mad that he made some without the pie pop maker so we had a huge fight and broke up.)

Sunday morning, Henry made glazes for the pie pops because I thought the crust wasn’t flavorful enough and then he taught me how to drizzle it on. And I succeeded!

I DID THAT DRIZZLE, YOU GUYS.

The pumpkins got all banged up en route to the park, so I was pissed about that, and then I was pissed that the free-form pie pops that Henry made were too top-heavy and barely stayed propped up in their pumpkin-display. They probably tasted like shit, but they sure looked pretty. So whatever.

If you were at the Pie Party on Sunday, you may not recognize the child in the above picture. But that is indeed a shirted-version of my son, Chooch, before he abandoned half his clothes in favor of wilderness chic. His only task was to fill my gold glitter mason jars with crayons, which he took very seriously by turning into this OCD crazy person who had to make sure each jar held the exact same number of crayons and then when he lost count at one point, he dumped all of them out and started over.

The idea was to use craft paper as tablecloths and put crayons on all of the tables, but HENRY only bought one roll which covered like, three tables. And then he brought a staple gun that only had ONE STAPLE in it, so we had no way to keep the paper on the tables. He already had to go back to the craft store anyway, because months ago, I bought several pieces of burlap to lay down on the pie table, and he swore that they were in the car, but only three pieces were there!!! THAT WAS NOT ENOUGH BURLAP! I NEEDED MORE PIECES OF BURLAP EVEN THOUGH NO ONE WAS GOING TO NOTICE BUT ME!!!!!

Another break-up in the books.

Anyway, Henry left to go to the craft store for burlap and tacks and also pick up some cases of water and ice, so Chooch and I pretty much just sat there, swinging our legs and being super bored with nothing to do. And then Henry came back and I said, “Oh good, give me the burlap” and he shouted, “DAMMIT” because of course he forgot the burlap. I was going to make him leave again but then people started showing up and that’s when we realized we didn’t have FORKS. So that took my mind off the burlap. Luckily, Kara had just arrived in time to save Henry from being disemboweled by my simmering glare because she had a bag of plastic utensils leftover in her car from Harland’s birthday party a few weeks ago, bless her goddamn party supply-hoarding heart.

And then Elizabeth came bearing thingies of coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts (and also her husband Mike and daughter Rachel) and I was like, “If I weren’t so socially awkward I would hug you” but instead I mumbled something about being stressed out and wanting to kill Henry. Elizabeth asked if I needed help and I kind of remember saying yes but not giving her anything to do. But god, that coffee was very appreciated. Thank you, Elizabeth!

It’s a fucking pie party. Nothing is happening other than people eating pie. I’m not walking down any fucking aisles, last time I checked, but I still get so stressed out that I’m almost (almost!) unable to enjoy myself. Luckily, I get distracted once people start showing up and eventually stop caring that half of the last pie table is un-burlapped.

A small crowd had assembled within a half hour and it finally occurred to me that no one was eating pie. “You didn’t tell them to,” Henry pointed out. So I stood up and said, “You can eat pie now” and then everyone did. I was unhappy with the plates Henry bought, but then too many people were there by the time I noticed so I guess that’s a fight we’ll have to save for another time.

At one point, I saw Henry flinch but I couldn’t tell if it was from my icy glare or the cupcake pie against his teeth.

I think I delegated too many pies to Henry, but he seems to be managing. So far, he has the two main pies baked and cooling. I tried to help him by assembling the chalkboard tags for the pies, but even that was too extreme for me. I hate crafting so bad, I can barely even muster the words to explain it. Even gluing is too much for me.

At one point, I walked in the kitchen to get something and Henry straight growled at me. Pie Baking Henry is scary. And also negligent. Chooch and I have literally been left to our own devices all day. We realized eventually that Henry hadn’t fed us yet!!!! So I had to order pizza all on my own, but thank god for online ordering. However, it’s still delivered by a human being, so I screamed like I always do when anyone knocks on the door and ran upstairs. Chooch, who has been dancing to Never Shout Never all day in his tightie whities, followed suit, so Henry had to drop the oven mitts and open the door. He was so angry about it too and pretty much dropped the pizza down on the dining room table and stalked back into the kitchen. It was like watching a horror movie that wasn’t supposed to be funny but totally made us laugh anyway.

So Chooch and I were quietly eating our pizza when I caught him smearing pizza grease all over his nude torso. “Ew! Why are you doing that?” I cried.

“Because Daddy didn’t give me a napkin,” Chooch replied with a shrug.

We are so doomed.

And then a few minutes later, Chooch said, “Remember when Daddy called us retards?”

Yes, son. Mommy remembers and wishes Daddy hadn’t used that word!

Meanwhile, Henry made a cupcake pie, which is either going to be fucking disgusting or a tongue orgasm. Basically, he poured some kind of custard concoction over this and then baked it. I mean, it smells wonderful! So we’ll see if anyone tries to discreetly upchuck their inaugural bite into a napkin.

Now Henry is popping popcorn for the pie-flavored popcorn that we’re making. HAHAHA don’t you love my insistence on plural pronouns. It was my idea at least.

Chooch and I are going to a haunted hayride tonight with Janna and Laura so Henry will be able to continue his baking marathon in peace. Maybe he can crank some Nugent on Spotify and bake in his underroos. If it gets the job done, what do I care?

Hope you’re having an exceptional Saturday, pie-eaters! And if you’re a Pittsburgh person, hope to see you at the pie party tomorrow! FOURTH ANNUAL, HOLLA.

III. The Pies

As an added twist for 2012, and because I thought I suddenly had free time, I had this great idea to have a contest and have crap awarded to what I deemed as the BEST PIE, and possibly other categories like “Most Creative,” “I Thought This Would Taste Like Shit, But It Was Delicious” and “Most Likely To Please Jonny Craig” (see also: “Best Use of Ginger &/or hypodermic needles). But then guess what? October happened and before I knew it, I forgot to enroll in a metal-working class so I had no awards to present. Not only that, but I barely had a chance to try many of the pies and leaving the awarding up to the people wasn’t a good idea either, considering some of the pies were already devoured by the time the bulk of the pie eaters got there. John and Jennifer bring a chocolate cream every year, and every year I blink and it’s gone. I honestly thought it perished in a table-tipping accident, because I couldn’t comprehend the fact that it was polished off THAT QUICKLY.

There was basically every kind of fruit pie you could dream of. Various pumpkin pies (Amber¹ made a lovely pumpkin spice variety!), cream pies, bakery pies (everyone raved over Brad’s red raspberry from the Pie Place), a cheese and tomato pie that Pete and Seri made in honor of some FANTASTIC girl who loves grilled cheese with tomato, and even two cakes that were purchased in error but happily eaten.

Kaitlin pretty much blew anyone’s chances of winning my imaginary award out of the park when she arrived with her Crack Pie. The entire pie table was a diabetic’s deathbed, but Kaitlin’s pie alone was molten Kevorkian in a tin pan. HOLY FUCKING SHIT that was a bomb pie, and you know it must be true when I use the word “bomb” because I normally wouldn’t say something so dated unless my mind was under the influence of Kaitlin’s magical baking prowess.

GOOD PIE MAKES ME SAY EMBARRASSING THINGS, OK? This is a legit psychological condition. Look it up. That’s what the Internet is for.

The crack pie was just this:  an oozing puddle of silken sugar in an oatmeal-crusted vessel of weight gain, preparing to launch straight to the nearest pair of thighs. But why stop there?! Let’s add a perfectly uniform coating of powdered sugar on the top of all the other sugar. It was a fucking sugar totem pole!

That sounds BOMB right?!

It was my favorite pie of the day. Obviously.

(Shameless Friend Promotion: if you live in the Western PA area, you can order Kaitlin’s amazing desserts! And even if you don’t live around here, you should like her Facebook page anyway because she’s amazing and needs to make this her full-time job.)

Barb trying to absorb some of Kaitlin’s baking brilliance.

And God forbid I should let Henry choose his own pies to bake. Instead, I decided to make up my own pies. The one was in honor of the season premiere of the Walking Dead. It was a pistachio cream (which he made last year) with the addition of cherry coulis in the middle and poured over the top for a disgustingly beautiful blood effect. It was appropriately named Zombie Pie and it was a flop, because as usual it was unseasonably warm, and anything above 60 degrees is apparently the equivalent to Hell’s oven for a cream pie.

Who knew?

So within minutes of arrival, it was reduced to a pie tin full of coagulated slop.

I thought it tasted good, and that’s all that matters anyway, right? Right!?

ZOMBIE PIE YOU GUYS. Zombie Pie.

:(

The other pie I concocted in my head was a Crunchberry Pie. In 2008, we had a cereal-themed game night (back when I used to entertain, big cry-baby sigh) which required all of my guests to bring some sort of cereal-infused snack. I made up a Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch cookie, which Henry kept saying would never work, but I made that son-of-bitch try and try again until we had the perfect batch of ridiculously amazing peanut butter cookies topped with a Cap’n Crunch crumble. Holy shit those were some good fucking cookies.

Reminded of those cookies, I was adamant that he formulate a recipe for Cap’n Crunch crust. And for the filling, I was dead set on the use of lingonberries, even though I don’t know what that is. Then I saw somewhere that they’re similar to cranberries, so lucky for Henry, I canceled his flight to Scandinavia and allowed him to go with raspberries instead.  Prices of ingredients is not something that I think about when making this shit up. And when Henry tries to fight me on it, I’m like, “Can’t you just go pick some raspberries somewhere then?” which opens the door for a Boring Henry Lecture™about fruit seasons. Why stop with an out-of-season fruit?! Let’s increase the cost by adding Chambord to it!

He topped it with homemade whipped cream (he’s such a snob about whipped cream and I’m like, “Seriously dude, you really need to start going to the strip club or something, STAT”), and it was the sleeper hit of the Third Coming of Crust. If Kaitlin’s Crack Pie was Jesus on the Cross, then the Crunchberry was definitely one of those other suckers crucified with him, preferably the one who had the bigger speaking part.

(The Penitent Thief. I looked it up.)

(What? I’m just keeping with the theme, you guys!)

Probably mouthing off about his goddamn whipped cream. Look, he doesn’t have much else going for him.

The unofficial vote had it tied with Kaitlin’s Crack Pie, so Henry feels like he’s finally arrived on the scene. Too bad I invented the pie, motherfucker. I spent the next several days correcting everyone at work who mistakenly referred to it as “Henry’s raspberry pie.”

It’s OK. People are allowed to make mistakes. No one knows I’m writing a cookbook, so I’ll let it slide for now.

IV. The Pains

There were so many kids there! As Henry pointed out later, “I’ve never seen a group of kids so unable to get along.” It was actually just the boys – the few girls that were there were like little dreams.

If I heard Chooch scream, “MOMMY!” one more time, or ANY kid scream, “MOMMY!” one more time, I was about to fill my arms with pies and take it into the woods to eat alone. How hard is it to STFU and go down a fucking slide? Jesus Christ! Chooch was so freaking whiny, I couldn’t stand it. Can’t you see the grown-ups are trying to drink wine and eat some pie, son?!

My tactic was ignoring it and pretending nothing Lord of the Flies-ish was happening over yonder. Thank god other parents were more willing to except their roles in life and stepped in to supervise. I remember going over to the water pump at one point to fill up a bottle so the wind would stop knocking it over. Seri’s kids were over there, making a muddy mess of the ground, and I said in a very disinterested tone, “Do you really think that’s a good idea?” and then walked away before they could answer.

What? Kara was nearby, so I knew she had shit handled.

 No child bled at all that day, and to me, that spells success.

[Ed.Note: The children were actually fine. But…you know me and children.]

V. AAA

One of the pie patrons whose presence I was most excited about was my co-worker Catherine. She’s only been with the Firm for less than a year, but she has quickly become one of my favorite people there because she’s so goddamn amusing. One time I was on the phone and she stood in front of my desk and then slowly traced her finger along the front braid I had in my hair in that day.

Catherine can get away with that kind of quirky personal bubble penetration.

She’s not on Facebook, so I gave her a verbal invitation, thinking  for sure she wouldn’t show up. But she did! I mentioned to her at one point that I didn’t think she would come, which she thought was funny.

She was one of the last to leave, and that’s when she realized that she locked her keys in the car. This was around 6:00, which was the scheduled ending time of the party, but Seri and I were planning to walk down to a nearby haunted house which didn’t open until 7 (it was an open invitation to the pie party guests, but no one else wanted to be a part of the cool club, I guess), so lucky for Catherine we were still going to be there for awhile. Plus Henry’s family was still there too, so it was only slightly scary when the sun went down and we were left sitting under a darkened pavilion.

Catherine kept saying we didn’t have to wait with her, and I kept insisting it was fine until 7:00 came and went, and the melodious tones of the chainsaws and screaming victims wafted across a field and into my face. Then my patience started to waffle and I  almost suggested that we could just leave Pete and Henry there to wait for AAA, but my couth got the best of me and I sat there quietly, waiting it out.

“You thought I was going to come, and now I might never leave!” Catherine laughed.

Eventually, I shut down socially. Not because of my company, but because I was so one-track-minded about this stupid haunted house that it was literally all I could fixate on. That last half hour, if I really was forced to describe it, was like a series of clock-tickings, amplified heart-beatings, deafening blood-pumping through veins, because (who knew haunted house anticipation was the same as vampire transitioning?) while I quietly willed the tow truck driver to fucking find us already so I could go and get my scare on.

Henry had to give the tow truck guy directions, but he still passed up the entrance to the pavilion, so our Hero, Professional Driver Henry, boarded his trusty Ford Focus and kicked up gravel as he sped away from the pavilion in an effort to lead the tow truck back to the Catherine’s car, so now Henry has another fan, THANK GOD!

Ugh. Henry, Henry, Henry! 

The tow truck guy wasn’t even out of the truck yet and I was already rushing through my goodbyes, thanking Catherine for coming, giving my child the obligatory “Ha-ha, Mommy’s going to a haunted house without you” hug, only to have to stand there doing the pee jig while it took Seri a million minutes to say goodbye to everyone before finally joining me for our walk to the haunted house.

And that’s how I closed down this year’s pie party: by nearly projectile-puking pie guts on the chainsaw guys at Hundred Acres Manor.