Pitter-Patter...Splash

I pushed Tiffany off her paddle board on Lake Tahoe today. She was already feeling a bit insecure about her balance. The littlest wave made her say, "Oh boy, here we go!"

I was not so insecure about my balance (although it took me about 20 minutes to realize I should switch which hand was at the top of my paddle when I switched sides, which made my stroke far less awkward looking).

It bothers Tiffany when I am better--even slightly--at things she thinks she should be better at. This works in reverse, too, I might add. The first time we played tennis after we started dating, I creamed her. She was so mad she threw her racket, and I thought we were going to break up right then and there on the court. A few months later, however, on a romantic weekend getaway, we played Scrabble for the first time. She smoked me. I almost dumped the letters on her lap.

Anyway, on Friday, we decided to make a spur of the moment trip to Tahoe. We've lived in California almost four and a half years and had never been. So we tossed some clothes in a bag, got up early Saturday morning and made the drive. We checked out a few hotels when we hit the water and ended up, as we almost always do, in a place I have to carefully describe to my mom as "cheap but clean-ish."

"The way I see it," Tiffany said as we pulled out of the lot of a nicer lodge and into the lot of the $60 a night place we chose, "we could spend $125 bucks on an okay place. Or we could spend $60 on a dive."

"I totally agree," I said, and we gave ourselves a self-satisfied high-five.

Tiffany and I plan to Someday stay in nice hotels. Until that Someday comes, we'll stay in hotels like this one, where I pushed the chair up against the door when we locked ourselves in for the night.)

The perk about the hotel we chose was that it was right on the water, which was what we came to see. Of course, for $60, we could not see it from our hotel room, but it was just around the corner--beautiful... and freezing. On Saturday we were brave enough only to wade in up to our shins. But this morning, after our run, Tiffany handed me her shirt, and dove under in just her sports bra and shorts.

"Sh*t," I whispered to myself.

"You don't have to go in!" she said, emerging all fresh looking.

"Of course I do," I said, thrusting my shirt and hers into her hand, and throwing myself under.

A couple hours later, we splurged and rented the boards for an hour, gliding along, marveling at how far down we could see.

Then I pushed Tiffany. Only moments before, I had lost my balance and pitter-pattered my way forward and backward, side to side, to recover. I wanted to see what the pitter-patter recovery looked like.

I watched as Tiffany's board accelerated with my push. She pittered. She pattered. And then she toppled off the board into the water.

I felt a little guilty.

"My sunglasses!" she screamed.

I made a mental note to buy her a new pair.

Then she was gone, diving down, paddle in one hand. She came up after a few seconds, sputtering, with her glasses.

"Sorry, babe!" I said, edging my board away from hers in case she felt like evening the score.

But Tiffany is much too nice for that. We laughed at our pittering and pattering, and paddled our way back to shore.