DEFCON

In less than 48 hours, we will be right in the thick of our first night of Roots and Blues. And if there is an upside to oversharing your life on the Internet via a blog, it is the ability to look back at the archive and see yourself at DEFCON 1 panic levels about just this sort of event in previous years.

So, let’s start with the obvious…we rarely participate in a PJP roadshow. 98% of our pie baking & pie selling happens right at PJP Buttonwood, so leaving the confines of our poorly air conditioned space is always a struggle. Never have I wished more for a truck/trailer/wagon to move our things in as I will tomorrow afternoon as we start to load all the items we need to create a booth off-site. In short, we will be provided with a tent and a patch of grassy dirt…everything else will require a move from our store across town to our tent. Last night I woke up at 2 am and worried we might forget our required trashcan. Sigh.

Trashcans aside, we do seem to have a bit more of a handle this year on how this festival life works, and especially what we wished we had known/brought/baked/done in the previous years. And really the only trick will be the obvious…how to make as much pie as possible and keep our booth stocked well without making ourselves crazy. Festival organizers compare this year’s ticket sales to 2016 and we consistently sold out of pie all weekend long in 2016. Whatever Jeanne and Team PJP brought to us at the tent was basically sold right off the transport golf cart to a long line of waiting customers and then we were back to square one. I think this might be what keeps me up tonight. And tomorrow night too, actually.

Insomnia aside, I’m officially declaring us as DEFCON 3 for 2018. We know what is ahead of us, but we’ve put some significant thought and preparation into it…which is progress, especially for us. Our goal is to produce 1300 tarts and several dozen of Jeanne’s cookies. Whether that number lands in the sweet spot for the anticipated crowds this weekend, well…we shall see. If you stop by Booth Three and find us selling Jelly Jar pies, then you know that we blew right through all the tart papers left in stock in Missouri and moved directly to Plan B.

And then of course, know that we are operating at DEFCON 1.