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‘Course, four days later, the 16th, was my birthday. Thirty-eight-years on this Earth. I was six when Neil and Buzz were traipsing about on the green cheese. I graduated high school the year my brother-in-law was born. Not so old as some, but older than others. There you go. Been around. Enough to know what time it is, without looking at a clock. So I figure me and the missus can go to Yosemite, celebrate the wedding, and the birthday. Take a few days off from the hustle and the bustle. We used to go there quite a bit, nearly ten years ago, when we started dating. Back then, we were kids; we’d stay in the canvas tents at Camp Curry, on the valley floor, and put our food in bear-proof metal shelves, and bring Cheerios and eat ‘em dry first thing in a meadow somewhere. A few years later, when we’d go back, we’d have traded up a bit, and have sprung for one of those heated cabins. No amenities, no bathrooms, even; hot plates verboten and stumble over the raccoons on your way to the john in the middle of the night. But at least the wind’s not whipping the canvas and keeping you awake and it’s warm and dry and there’s no bear problem. So there’s that. This time, though, a few years later, we’re adults, and have been married a while, and we’ve got that lucrative comic book publishing thing happen ing, so we shell out for the big room at the ritzy hotel with the fireplace and the jacuzzi and the balcony overlooking the Merced river and the bath room with the shower in the bathroom the size of a small town in Montana… Naw, Mimi and I are the Adventure Team… we’re not the kind of folks who will sit in a slick hotel and be pampered and whatnot… we like to go out and get our hands dirty, and get into trouble. So, because we were away from the office for a couple of days, I started thinking about the subject matter for this week’s column a little sooner than I would have, ordinarily. On Saturday, we climbed up around Mirror Lake, which wasn’t so much a lake at this time of year, as the glacier run-off was slowed down to a trick le. …but it’s all a big waste, really, because we’re not those kinda cats.

"What do you think I should write about this week, Meem?" I asked the mis sus.

"What’s going on in comics?" she said.

"Nothing, really," I said.

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