She’s unique. One of a kind, and one is odd.

dad

I have explained to Kina how people die and what it means to die, but I don’t think I had ever really thought about why we die. It seems nonsensical, like a fault in the laws of the universe. I understand entropy, of course, and the shortening of telemeres, the hardening of soft tissues and the brittleness of hard things. It’s hard to understand why things dissolve and what purpose it serves for us to… stop existing.

I don’t know how to answer that. It doesn’t make sense.

She was pleased to have stumped me.

Who among us has not stayed until they shut down the club, ate some spicy fried nonsense, and had to puke in order to sleep?

It’s a rite of passage.

dad

Come for the flying dream, stay for THE COOL S.

dad

No variety show that rejects Kina’s close-up magic routine is worth watching, anyhow.

dad

Daddy recalls that time that Gertie had to get her kidneys flushed and they made her arms into little boots.

dad

Kina makes me pretend to be a chatty hairstylist when I brush her hair, but I fear she has taken her role as a demanding client too seriously. Type 2Bs, amirite?

dad

I think the alternatives she gave to us, her parents, for the ideal superpower were “going back in time” and “transporting yourself”, but she has picked “going back in time” so that she can live her life again and again and never lose the ones she loves. I think I’m still just a little heartbroken. I want us all to live forever, which is a superpower all unto itself, but it might also be nice to go back with Kina and the rest of my family to, well, another time.

dad

The orchids were lush, though.

dad

We were just trying to make ourselves comfortable for a little nappy nap.

dad

She got pulled off Librarian duty to keep the lines orderly until the rowdy boys could be retrained.

dad

At the end of the visit, the spy museum sends out a dossier about your kid, and it says that Kina is either a fashion designer or a social worker.

So, no lasers.

dad

Cheddar Cheese and Bacon makes its first showing in The Daily Kina in a secondary headline on August 13 of 2020, in the height of outdoor dining, when Kina discovered the wonders of a good bacon, egg, and cheese. Then, about a year later, we had a celebratory visit to Cheddar Cheese and Bacon. We haven’t documented a morning visit to the mothership since then, and so it is with great pleasure that Kina and I walked to the local coffee shop for a sandwich on a day off from school, splitting it straight down the middle and talking about dogs. I missed it, really.

dad

This is that adult, pierced-ears Kina showing up to keep me accountable.

dad

“We call them strong ladies, Kina,” responded Mommy.

dad

I don’t know that I’ve felt the passage of time so keenly as I did when I watched Kina’s face transition between cusp-of-weeping anxiety and confident adulthood as she got holes punched in her earlobes.

I can’t say it any other way than that she is this much closer to growing up.

It was worth an entire issue.

I’m really proud of my Garfield.

dad

Honestly, anybody could have guessed that she was going to order the chawanmushi.

dad

They would have played Guess Who, but only one party had the game close at hand.

dad

Who among us has not enjoyed some chicken and rice with a friend?

dad