Reader, it was exactly one hour after Kina spotted her full-size princess in the bathroom of El Vez, waiting patiently to float down upon the attendees of a random kid’s birthday and enjoying the compliments of a little girl at the sink, that I, too, spotted the very same princess, with the brilliant yellow flower still in her hair, sitting at a table outside the very same restaurant with her friends enjoying some nachos, which prompted me to turn my head and ask Kina if there was a princess there among the nachos, just long enough for the pedal on my bike to come around and whack me square in the little bulbous bit of my ankle bone and cause me to scream. I will never know if the princess was privy to my misery, or if she would have come to my aid had she known that I was related to the little girl who had said such nice things about her dress that morning, as she placed a little yellow flower in her hair.

This is a picture of the universe, and a metal bench from which we are meant to admire the universe. Kina wants you to know that she intentionally did not include Earth. There just wasn’t enough space.

dad