All Relative

If no one ever says “Jelly Jar pies” to Team PJP again, we would probably all be just fine with it…mainly because our hands are formed in a claw shaped formation after baking, cleaning, and packaging over one thousand of them in the past three days. And as we rolled the last of the six-pack packages down to the UPS store this afternoon, it felt very unceremonious to send them off into UPS trucks and planes. Somewhere out there right now are hundreds of little pieces of the soul of PJP. I hope they are well received over the next few days. Ironically, we have more jars to ship tomorrow and a last round on Monday. I can’t even think about that right now.

So tomorrow we are back at it with a focus on our almost-Thanksgiving life. We closed Thanksgiving orders on Monday evening at 6 pm, ending at just north of 2,500 pies for the cumulative total of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of next week. That is a PJP record, for which we are especially humbled by and grateful for in a pandemic year. Beyond more than 2,000 pies being SO MANY PIES to bake, we did lean into concerns about all those people picking up pies in a socially distanced manner. So more than ever, the order closure date and time was an easy decision.

Here is our social distancing solution: we are basically going to create a pie nightclub with a strict five person in/five person out policy. Undoubtedly it will be the most exclusive club in town next week since you’ll need an order to even get in the doors. When someone arrives to pick up an order, we should have it boxed, bagged, and triple checked for accuracy. The customer only needs to pay, so we expect things to move quickly. And for the sake of my sanity, things better move efficiently.

Alas, that is all NEXT week…and we have an astounding amount to still do THIS week. So I’m going to endeavor to focus on one day at a time, though no promises. Thankfully, I have Jeanne to remind me that she didn’t even know Thanksgiving was next week until two days ago. It’s all relative, right?