Archive | October, 2011

Day 179: Preston

2 Oct

My husband met Preston Mitchell last winter when he volunteered to be the photographer for the Medford Food Coop and I met him at the grand opening celebration for the coop in August. Earlier this week, my husband had lunch with Preston and when he came home he suggested that I make a pie for him.

This afternoon we made an appointment to meet Preston in Medford. We enjoyed an exhibition of his photographs on display at the Rogue Valley Manor. One photo showed a very young Preston with his family having a picnic on the side of the road with their vintage 1916 car parked nearby. There were also photos of his daughters, kittens, and the Yosemite half dome.

In addition to being an accomplished photographer, Preston is a very active man. He plays in several bands in the valley ( he plays tuba, flute, recorder and bass), is an avid swimmer, and until a few years ago he could be found hiking the trails of southern Oregon. Preston is a wonderful example of a person with “joie de vivre.”

This afternoon as I was preparing to make a pie for Preston I considered the beautiful figs that I bought at the Ashland Food Coop and the gorgeous apples in the bowl on my table. Having never made a fig-apple pie I googled a recipe and found this one. I made few changes to the recipe. Here is what I started with:

About an hour later, this is the pie that I pulled from the oven:

After our tour, Preston walked us to our car where I presented him with his pie and explained my project. When I told him that his pie was made with apples, figs and walnuts his blue eyes lit up and he exclaimed how much he loves fresh figs. And though it might have been just a lucky coincidence to have made a pie with his favorite ingredients… I believe that there’s more to it than that. And it’s one of the best things about this pie journey… those moments when everything seems to come together perfectly.

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Day 178: Ashland Birthing Center

1 Oct

On this day, twenty three years ago at 7:02 PM my baby girl was born. It had been a twenty-five hour labor and at times it was pretty intense (as I remember it). Even though I had been to birthing classes and thought I could handle natural childbirth, I was definitely not prepared for the pain. Call me a wimp – it was hard.

In birthing class the instructor had done all she could to help us “imagine” a very hard contraction and we all did the best we could. But who imagines that kind of pain? Well, not me. I had no clue. Suddenly there I was in the birthing center at Ashland Community Hospital screaming my head off.

And I was embarrassed to be doing that because another woman from my birthing class was also in the hospital giving birth. She was a super athlete and I was not even a contender and I did not want to be screaming in pain with her down the hall! (Later this woman told me that she didn’t hear me screaming because she was screaming herself!)

At one point, perhaps twenty two hours into labor, I lost it – I simply forgot how to breathe. When the contractions came I tensed up and held my breath. The nurse who was on duty kept telling me to breathe… but somehow I had forgotten how to do that. A short time later, as I held the hand of the nurse with my left hand and my husband to the right I felt a contraction coming. I tensed again and instead of screaming I chose to bite down on my left hand. And it didn’t even hurt. When I looked at my hand I saw that instead of biting my own hand I had bitten the hand of the nurse!

Immediately I began apologizing to her, and to her credit, she did not slap me! She just told me again that I needed to breathe. When I told her that I did not know how to breathe, she held my face between her hands and demonstrated how to breathe. I remember looking at her and thinking “Wow… she is amazing.”

Tonight, I brought a spinach, roasted pepper and caramelized onion quiche to the birthing center at Ashland Community Hospital to thank the nurses for the work that they do. It is such a wonderful gift that they give to all of the families that have their babies there. And I am very thankful for their efforts. And to that nurse whose hand I bit, I really am so sorry.

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