things that make me miss her the most

tom yum soup with tofu, spicy
dolphins
calling the vet to get pet records
kids who ask me, "Where's Luna, Liz?"
dimples
folk singers with aussie accents
menards
genmaicha
puns
mad TV
tv on dvd
fall leaves
camping, without her

fall leaves
arias
opera
composing
mojo
home-made jewelry
stargazer lilies
daisies
october
singing, without her

Lake Como
the kids who ask about her
little pitbulls I see in the neighborhood
running, without her

Power of Prayer

Actual birthday card letter from my actual grandmother:

Hi Liz,
We think of you often and wonder how you are doing. Kjersti says they don't have an address for you as you are living with a friend. What is going on?
We keep hoping you will meet and fall in love with a nice guy, someone to share your life with. (that is our prayer for you) I am going to play cards this p.m. with my card club and grandpa is going to golf as it is stag day today.
Love you lots,
Grandma

I read this card aloud to my mother, my aunt, and my sister yesterday, where we had gathered at the unlikely location of a steakhouse in Nowhere, Minnesota.

My sister grunted and said, "Well. Now we can see just how strong the power of prayer really is!"


Just in case there is any merit to the power of prayer, let's hope that my grandmother is praying for my happiness more than for my heterosexuality. I think the two might be incongruent.

Pez

In Spanish class at the Pre-School yesterday, we reviewed a list of animal names we had learned the previous week.

I held up a picture of a cat, and the three/four-year-olds collectively shouted, "Gato!"

I help up a drawing of a pig, and the little ones yelled, "Cerdo!"

And then I lifted up a picture of a fish. This is what I heard: "Piss!"

"Uh, no. Pez," I corrected, stressing the vowel in the middle of the word pez.

"Piss!" the class shouted.

"Pez," I said.

"Piss!"

I am dumbfounded as to how they came to this conclusion. Maybe I was slurring my words last week, and they just got it in their head that a fish is called Piss in Spanish. These kids don't actually know what it is to "piss" or to "piss off" or be "pissed" or "pissy" or anything like that. It's a complete fluke. Right?

In any case, next week's class is steering clear of animals.

But I am just waiting to hear from that parent who pulls me aside next week and says, "I heard you taught my kid a slang word. Little so-and-so came home shouting Fish Piss."

Racer

Last weekend, I did something CRAZY:

I entered a kayak race.

This does not mean that I sat in a boat and raced from a start line to a finish line on placid lake water. This means that I paddled a 50-pound boat through whitewater (albeit measly whitewater to any seasoned kayaker), slaloming in and out of hanging gates, turning upstream and downstream as the course demanded and rushing with the current over a couple of sudden drops of water over rocks.

I was the beginnerest of beginners at this particular race, following closely behind a seven-year-old.

This summer I learned how to whitewater kayak and discovered that it is way fun. But I never imagined that I would enjoy racing in a whitewater kayak. That seems like a whole different thing. Speeding over class 3 rapids with your competent (and hott) teacher always right in front of you or behind you is one thing, but doing it while a slew of people is watching you, timing you, and knocking off points every time you hit a gate is pretty intimidating.

And exhilarating!

I don't want to mislead you here, with all this talk about rapids and slalom gates. I am by far a terrible kayak racer. But you have to give me some credit for racing at all, when I only sat my butt down in a boat for the first time, oh, three months ago.

I generally think of myself as someone who is not very competitive. Unfortunately, that is not completely true. I happen to have a small but fierce competitive streak in me, especially when trying something new. And since I was a beginner, I had the option of competing in two races: the whitewater course and a flatwater course.

Well, you can bet your bananas that on that flatwater course, which was easy to maneuver, I meant business. With a capital B. I wasn't risking falling out of my boat (which I did on the whitewater course--it's pretty fun to swim over rapids, but I'm grateful for the safety boaters who pulled me out before I smashed headfirst into a boulder), so all I had to do was paddle hard and glide through a few gates.

Because there weren't many beginners at this race, I was certain to get a competitively good time. I had my eye on that seven year old, though, because she was at about precisely my level, and my one and only mission for the day became about defeating the tiny boater who whizzed past in her gigantic kayak. I think she felt the same way. We kept exchanging knowing glances. You recognize people who are at your caliber, and you meld a sort of tacit bond with them. You find your competitors easily, and then you growl and wriggle and show teeth until you can finally compete.


Later on, at the awards ceremony (where I comedically provided live music by singing an original song called "Solid Ground," which is a metaphorical blues song about falling into a river), after awards for all the serious kayakers and canoe-racers droned on and on, it came time to announce the winners of the flatwater course. Finally, the moment I had been waiting for!

First place went to (dum, da-dum!) a serious boater who had dislocated her shoulder and could only compete in the flatwater course.

Second place went to----Liz Rognes!

And third place went to the seven-year-old.

Smugly, I grinned and faux-humbly accepted my red ribbon with a picture of a cow on it. (By the way, EVERYONE gets a ribbon. It's no big thing at all to get a ribbon. But I was elated!)
I sneaked a glance at the seven-year-old, who was happy enough to get her third-place ribbon. Her mother, though, caught my self-assured smirk and said, loudly enough for me to hear, "You did a great job, Seven-Year-Old. And, guess what, the girl before you only beat you by 10 seconds!"

The seven-year-old caught my eye, and I clutched my red ribbon tightly in my fist.

Ten seconds or not, I was the one holding the ribbon which said "Second Place," and she was the one holding the one which read, "Third Place."

Let the numbers speak for themselves.

And, next time, I'm going for First Place. All the way.

Move over, Tiny Boater. This Beginner is ready to leave you in the dust.

Er, foam.

Role Reversal

A six-year-old student who took a summer hiatus recently had her first back-to-school piano lesson. When I walked in the door, she greeted me with a grin and a big hug. I was flattered and took my seat next to the piano, glowing with love for my job and excited about this student's eagerness to start back into her lessons.

I opened up her assignment notebook and began reading over the notes I had written for her last spring, to refresh myself. She said, "Did you bring the flashcards?"

Sometimes I bring flashcards, as a special thing, for students, especially if they are beginners and need something a little more fun to help them learn the bass clef or time signatures or something. "No," I said, apologetically, "I didn't bring the flashcards."

I made a note in the notebook to "bring the flashcards."

The six-year-old nodded and looked at me closely. She squinted and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Well, Liz," she said, with a sigh, "One thing is the same about you. You are forgetful."

I raised my eyebrows, more amused than offended.

"And," she continued, as she peered onto the notebook where I had written my forgetful self a reminder to bring the flashcards, "one thing is different about you. Your handwriting is much better!"

I smiled and graciously stammered, "Why, thank you." (Even though I don't believe it for a second--my handwriting has not improved one bit. And, in fact, it wasn't that bad to begin with. But I'm not offended, I promise. I mean, it only gets messy sometimes when I am in a hurry. Really. My handwriting is very neat. Mostly. But maybe my lapsing memory serves me wrong on this matter.)

Nodding, she employed a very teacher-ly voice. Approvingly, she said, "I can see you have been practicing this summer!"

Like Usual.

The other day, I was hanging out with three of my favorite kids. We were playing kickball with a smaller-than-a-kickball-type rubber ball. After striking out, I poutingly sat on the sidelines with the four-year-old, who couldn't figure out that after kicking the ball (further than I could have), she was supposed to run to first base. "I can't do it, Lizzy!" she screamed. "I don't know where to run!"

I excitedly pointed toward first base and said, "Right there! You're almost there! Keep going!"

But "right there" was too obscure for her four-year-old brain, which saw so many possibilities. She didn't realize that there were four bases connected by straight lines--she saw a million directions in which she could run. That way? That way? That way?

I watched her little eyes dart in all directions, earnestly trying to figure out where "right there" was supposed to be.

And then she collapsed on the dusty ground and began to sob.

So I scooped her up and we had a short rest on the sidelines while her brothers attempted to play baseball with the larger-than-a-baseball-type rubber ball.

While we sat in the shady grass, both of us recuperating and nursing our egos, we took off our shoes and wiggled our toes in the late summer breeze. "Ooh!" I said, "My toes are a little stinky!"

And Theo, being four, picked up her shoe and put it to her nose. Then she pulled her foot to just below her nostrils and announced, "Mine are not stinky. My feet smell....like usual."

I laughed, thinking that was such a strange thing to say. "And does 'like usual' smell like?" I asked her.

"Plain," she said. "My feet smell plain."

"Plain, just like usual?" I said, smiling.

"Yep. Just like usual," she said.

Then she put back on her shoes, stood up, and announced she wanted to finish running to first base.

Extravagant

In the past week, I have been at altitudes of 2,400 feet and over 12,000 feet. My legs have carried me up and down Arizona's highest and lowest places. Well, second highest place, to be exact. I attempted to climb to Humphrey's Peak, which really is the highest point in Arizona, but an unfortunate mistaken deviation from the trail led me to Agassiz Peak instead. Second highest. But close. And only two days later, without fully recovering from the climb, I hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and then back up the following day.

I have lots to say about both of these experiences, including other mishaps and potentially dangerous situations from which I gratefully escaped with only a few sore muscles (situations which may or may not have to do with unpreparedly climbing the San Francisco Peaks in monsoon season without adequate attire and then actually being caught in a monsoon, descending steep drop-offs of loose boulders and falling rock while watching the lightning pierce nearer and nearer, scaling a "no hiking allowed" fence out of dire necessity, and things of this nature).

But, alas, I am not here to write about my hiking adventures. Not yet. That will come later, along with a top ten list of the most exciting non-life-threatening things that happened during my trip (you know, freestyling in broken French while suffering mild heat exhaustion, biking in the dark while pretty much unable to see at night, Charlie the bike-rental kid who was either hitting on me or hating on me, depending on the day, etc.)

I am here tonight, instead, to gush about my extravagant compensation for volunteering to give my airline ticket to a standby passenger. Well, maybe it's not really extravagant, considering that I am stuck here in Phoenix overnight, but to a month-by-month fiscally irresponsible young lady like myself, getting a free hotel room, a free breakfast, a free shuttle to and from the airport AND a free round trip ticket to anywhere in the contiguous U.S. is pretty luxurious.

So here I am, using free internet after my free swim in the underwater-lit, outdoor pool, under the open night sky, after a free shower with free lemon-verbena shampoo and lotion soap, just winding down from my adventurous trip with a free stay in a fancy-shmancy hotel room with two double beds (which one should I choose? How does one choose between two beds?). There is free coffee, free towels to use, free toothpaste, free air conditioning (it was 106 degrees in Phoenix today), free TV (which I won't use--even free, I still hate that animated box), free wake-up calls, and even free food for me, compliments of the airline.

Apparently there are people who seek out this sort of situation--who immediately ask at the ticket counter if they need volunteers to give up their seats. I didn't seek it out--I wanted to be in St. Paul tonight, snuggly in my bed (er, well, the borrowed bed I am sleeping in for the next few months). Instead, I got bumped from my flight, which was delayed anyway, and here I am, soaking up the luxury that only an unsuspecting, strapped-for-cash wide-eyed, lovestruck traveler can really appreciate.

This free stuff doesn't come without some amount of guilt for me--do I really deserve this? I mean, really, two beds? Three towels in the bathroom? Air conditioning?

But...for now I am just going to enjoy it. Luxury awaits me and my stinky backpack.

Anyway, if I were really going to be extravagant, of my own accord, I would have turned down the fancy-schmancy hotel room offer and rented a car and driven the three hours back to Flagstaff, from where I just came, even if for just overnight. Free food, multiple towels, and an outdoor pool are nothing compared to the extravagance that a little bit of romance can inspire.

My sensibilities keep me here, in this free hotel. Extravagant or not, even leaving Arizona is an adventure. Let's just hope I can get on my return flight tomorrow...