BLOCK-CHIPPAGE

The Mistress of Sarcasm models a Panama hat.

You might look at this photograph of the Mistress of Sarcasm and conclude that she is a Chip off the Old Block. And, at least to some extent, you’d be right.

While her good looks come mostly from her mother’s DNA contribution, the Mistress’s demented sense of humor acerbic wit is inherited from me... or so I like to believe. We laugh at many of the same things and can reduce each other to breath-stopping hysteria with a well-timed twitch of an eyebrow. Yet a simple paragraph of her writing can make me weep with fatherly pride and the knowledge that I am held firmly in her heart.

Last month, I had the opportunity to go on a Road Trip with the Mistress. It may not have been a marathon journey to the far side of the world, but that’s not her style anyway. We were together - just the two of us - for long stretches, during which I kept her amused by reading huge swaths from the various works of Chelsea Handler or, alternately, Orson Scott Card. Not for one second was I bored.

I love this daughter of mine, truly I do, and it is hard to imagine a time when She Who Must Be Obeyed and I did not have her to love. As of the timestamp of this post, she has been walking the planet in our company for fully twenty-eight years... and I am looking forward eagerly to the next twenty-eight, to see what wonders she will see and create.

Happy birthday, O mistress!