Oh, Yosemite: Part Two

I bet a lot of you are feeling overwhelmed cleaning up all the Christmas crap. I've restricted myself to two rooms in my house -- my bedroom and the kitchen -- because I can't face it. I'm still in my pajamas, trying to do some work for my jobs and the mounds of laundry that I wrote of yesterday. I've also spent an inordinate amount of time figuring out my new camera and how to download the two hundred photos that I took in Yosemite. This whole digital thing is nuts. So much for bourgeois complaints, though -- here are a few more photos that will, at the very least, amuse you and might, at most, distract you from the interminable undecorating chores:

Let me tell you a little story about a sled run that I took, deep in the woods of Yosemite, in a beautiful place called

I grew up, until I was ten years old, in New Jersey, and I lived much of my life on the east coast and am therefore well acquainted with winter clothing and winter "sports," like sledding. When the boys pleaded with me to go sledding, I acquiesed, lowered my large, ancient LL Bean-clad ugly winter coated body onto a small, round black saucer and began sliding, picking up speed and spinning and screaming, feeling the cold wind in my face and my boys' hoots and hollers in my ears. Such was my speed, though, and lack of skill, that I slid right into a hole where I embraced a lovely little pine.

Henry and Oliver ran over to check on whether I was alive, and I looked up and shouted at them, through my hysterical laughter, Go get the camera from Cara! Go get it and take my picture! You know you're aged or quickly aging when you can slide into a small hole on an even smaller black saucer and find humor.

I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard. The saucer was wedged underneath my bottom, so I didn't even get that wet.

Henry, laughing nearly as hard as I, acted chivalrous and attempted to haul me out of the hole.

Oliver mocked me.

When I finally hauled myself up and out of the hole, my dignity and self-esteem shattered, my laughter nearly maniacal, I grabbed the camera from Henry and started figuring out how I was going to tell the story on my blog. As for Oliver, I took his furry head in my gloved hands and pushed it into the icy snow.

Just kidding.

Now go finish taking down the Christmas crap in your house.