It is an extremely 2020 twist of fate for Kina to have gotten sick during her epic birthday weekend. I’ll spare her (and you) the recitation of her evening tribulations, but it was, in short, a long night. In accordance with the contemporary practice, we postponed our plans for two last distanced one-on-one hangouts with her best friends Sloane and Futura, tootling off instead to the abandoned shoreline of Jacob Riis Park, where she took a long nap in her car seat as we gazed out at the ocean. Once Kina woke up, we dawdled around the park, walked in the sand, collected shells, and rode along with glee as Laurea (a deeply-apprehensive driver) finally took our car for a cruise around the vast and vacant Riis Park parking lot.
Just like the good old days, when, back in April, we drove our rental car to the same chilly beach, unsure how we’d make it through the year. I kept thinking about how doctors used to send tuberculosis patients to the beach, so that the salt air could cure their lungs. Kina, who had been cooped up in our apartment for weeks, ran so far we could barely make her out.
Just like the good old days, when Kina used to puke at the merest insinuation of a head cold. The first time it happened, I panicked, calling the pediatrician and Googling all the worst things. Eventually, I came to accept it as a reliable and benign reminder of Kina’s immune system. I learned to clean raspberries from her hair.
Just like the good old days, when Laurea and I would home from partying and I’d end up patiently holding her hair back in the bathroom. My hair was never that long, so I could go it alone. Hasn’t happened in years. I don’t miss it.
Just like the good old days, when we’d recover at the shore in Long Beach, reading crappy magazines and eating peanut butter pretzels. People on the LIRR would make fun of us for all the stuff we brought, but I guarantee we had a better day at the beach than all of them combined. We’d stay from noon to seven in the evening, slowly eating our way through a cooler full of food and finishing paperbacks. I want to say that having a kid at the beach is even better than being there as a couple, but that would be a huge lie.
Kina’s feeling better, even though her nose is still a bit stuffy. I know her well enough by now to expect a better night tonight. She had a good weekend, though—best birthday of her life, if you ask her.
You know what her favorite part was? “When Mommy drove the car.”
That’s four.
I had to assemble today’s Parade myself, as Laurea and Kina were otherwise preoccupied. Kina has not yet discovered that I’ve vandalized two of her precious issues of Highlights. Don’t tell her.
In closing, let me note that it is much easier to draw Kina in the style of Peanuts than I had thought, and now I want to draw Peanuts versions of everybody I know.
dad