“No Fast Forwarding! I’m Still Having Fun, Guys!”

Because Kina urged us, this morning, not to fast forward to the inevitable beginning of the work/school week (which, it should be noted, is a holiday from scholarly responsibility for her), we spent the day dwelling on family, the rain, and Kina’s grown-up friend Kelli—who brought us bagels and rugelach in the park, where the weather (as noted) vacillated between aggressive fog and passive-aggressive drizzle.

It can be handy to have a roommate who reliably reminds you not to get ahead of yourself with worry on a gray Sunday, who collects just the right wizard hat to impress your friends, who will run into somebody’s home to hug them when they just aren’t feeling up to lunch outside, who counts among her most kindred spirits of the day:

1. a small, excitable, and newly-met wooly dog named Brooks

2. her grown-up friend Kelli

3. a cousin, not yet counted among us, who is nonetheless making their presence known

This roommate, who sometimes falls into sobbing fits when you hesitate to fetch her a second chia jelly (the crueler edge of the life-à-la-minute sword), still manages to help you—a barely-reformed NYC weekend maximalist—find your moment on the couch with a book by placing herself in the crook of your elbow to watch Ada Twist, Scientist and eat her aforementioned second chia jelly. Your wife, in her moment, slumbers in the room next door, as the fog and the rain banter like old men on the sidewalk outside, and you and your daughter take long, quiet breaths together on the couch, each in its proper time—patient for its own gathering, unconcerned at its own passage.

Thanks, kid, for keeping us here.

I suspect Kina drew this Parade before I woke up today, but it was Laurea who cut it up and glued it together while Kina built her a crown.

dad