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Pebble Pie
October 05, 2005 | Category: In My Life
When I was learning how to cook, pie recipes would tell me that I should bake the crust before filling it. So I would dutifully bake the hard-made crusts, and the crusts would bubble and bulge in the pan and be ruined.
I asked around, and one woman told me to use dried peas to hold the dough in place. Another cook told me she been using the same bowl of washed pebbles as weights for over 20 years. So I dug up handfuls of tiny stones and scrubbed them clean and carefully laid them down into my crusts.
And that's how I made pebble pie.
You see, no one had told me that you needed a layer of parchment paper between the pebbles or peas and the dough. I guess it seemed obvious. But as I chomped down on that apple & rock pie a la mode, all that was obvious to me was that these women must have been a lot better at picking stuff out of crust. Then again, maybe I am slow.
Today, I took Bear to the new doctor to get cleared to go back to school. Part of me was dreading it, because the last day or so - as Bear has improved - has been a very special time for him and I. We have spent hours cuddling on the couch and reconnecting. And I know that once he goes back to school, I will have to re-enter the whirlwind of stress and power plays that is my job.
But that's my shit, not his. And the sooner he gets back to life as regularly scheduled, the happier he will be. So off we went, and the doctor certified him as healthy and wonderful and raring to go.
He raced ahead as we exited the exam room and the doctor looked at me and said "You are, for lack of a better word, ballsy."
I got that confused wrinkle in my head - the one that says "huh?".
"Chutpah, ma'm. You got it. Most mothers are in here demanding MRI's if their children have that kind of fever just a day."
You know, that didn't make things any clearer.
"Normally," she explained to my Joey-like expression of interested ignorance, "when we tell a parent that we can not do any more for a child and that only a hospital is a logical next step..."
"Did I do something wrong?" I asked.
"No, no..." she said, patting my arm. "Look, he's fine... perfect. You certainly listen to your instincts."
She told me that Bear's fever - at 10 days - is the longest she's ever had a patient go. And that she and her partners couldn't believe we didn't bring him back to the hospital when it got bad again on Thursday.
So, yeah they'd told me that we should check him back in at Children's if he didn't improve. But his fever never hit 104f again and CD and I felt that while he was uncomfortable and sick - he wasn't in danger. But now she was making it seem like their advice to us had been some kind of code for "wrap your child in a blankie and race him in"?
The doctor told me no, that wasn't what she meant. But I got the sense as I walked away that I was missing something obvious. That I'd somehow been a bad parent. In a way much worse than pebble pie.
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