Friday, December 31, 2010

Freeze

On the ride from my house to the pre-funk, my fingers froze, but after the appropriate ingestion of various anti-freezes, I wasn’t cold at all even though this last Thursday night of 2010 was as clear and frigid an evening as Seattle has seen all year.

Still, it seemed like a good idea to head for a place with an outdoor firepit as we pedaled away from Westlake Center and, although progress tended to be a bit less aggressive than when someone’s pre-planned a theme or in cases where Angry Hippies or Drunken Derricks are leading the way, the assembled were eventually treated to a ride on the road across the Aurora Bridge where a Subaru station wagon zoomed passed us, honking steadily and inspiring a great deal of conjecture as to whether it was a friendly horn-blowing or, in what would seem contrary to the stereotype of such cars’ drivers, one sounded in anger.

And it was both body and heart warming to still be able, after all these years, to cross a pedestrian bridge I’ve never been over and then, with great alacrity, already be atop Phinney Ridge and alternately standing around the bar’s outdoor flames and sitting inside the joint to admire the sights within.

Pretty soon the call to head west to Ballard and see Goddamn Bob Hall at Snoose Junction arose and so then, there we were consuming pizza and drinking beer as, on TV, the UW Huskies unexpectedly prevailed in their Holiday Bowl matchup against Nebraska much to the boredom and/or delight of those still in attendance.

It seemed like only a handful of the hardiest souls were left to then cycle eastward along the ship canal to the most time-honored of outdoor warm-up spots; I, however, was intent on one more indoor fire and so departed for the venerable CIP where I warmed my gloves on the flames and drank a nightcap before setting off home, warm as toast.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Disaster

“Disaster planning” usually refers to efforts taken to avoid calamity; by contrast, preparations made for last nights .83 Christmas Disaster—the Xmas Xtreme Xlocross Xplosion—were mainly undertaken to ensure that catastrophes ensued, and even if it hadn’t been the rainiest night of the year, there’s no doubt that cataclysms were guaranteed, what with something actually resembling a cyclocross course actually mapped out by the Angry Hippy and all kinds of booze poured forth (much into himself) by Derrick, who thanks to the efforts of tehJobies and others wasn’t even the biggest problem around for all of the night.

I had but one goal for this year’s Xmas party and that was to get rid of the elaborate shot-pouring contraption I “won” last year, and since I succeeded at that during the gift exchange, everything else was gravy, including managing not to fly over my handlebars heading down rocky paths in pitch-dark woods and also winning this year’s .83 people’s Teen choice award for Best Professor, woo-hoo!

When Lee and I arrived at the whisky checkpoint, Derrick claimed that the evening’s deluge had driven all the hobos in the woods under cover of the freeway and so our proposed meet-up beneath I-5 had been cancelled for lack of space; I took this to mean I should head to the bar, but when I got there, the place was deserted so I doubled back, but couldn’t tell, as I approached those blinking lights beneath the highway columns if I was happening upon inebriated cyclists or homeless drunks—and even after joining in the festivities I still wasn’t sure.

In any case, I was glad I found whoever it was because I’d have hated to have missed Joeball’s tractor pull and the associated outdoor shenanigans and the eventual return back to the bar, where I made out much better this year with a Buck knife as my present and sang “We Are Family,” because, at Christmastime, anyway, we sorta are

Friday, December 3, 2010

Oopsie

Accidents are accidents because they’re accidents; that’s why the concept of “preventable accidents” seems to me like an oxymoron: if they were preventable, they wouldn’t be accidents, right?

Consequently, my little accident as I left the Lake Forest Park Bar and Grill after a few post-vocational libations with my fellow instructors couldn’t not have happened. There’s no way I could have failed to accidentally drop my front wheel off the sidewalk into the parking lot and have it get stuck between the curb and the concrete parking space bumper, thus vaulting me over my handlebars and face first into the tarmac where I took a nice bite out of the asphalt (and it an equally swell one out of me) giving me a fat lip and bending the left bullhorn upon which I landed inward at an angle parallel to how the right randonneur bar bends out.

Just as inevitably, though, it was no accident at all that I soon found myself at another outdoor calamity, this one at the Backyard Barbecue firepit that Joeball and I accidentally on purpose came upon the summer before last and at which—almost a year to the day ago—a gaggle of not-so-accidental cyclists previously staged a similar rendezvous.

This time, tehJobies brought along the mobile bicycle dance party machine instead of showing up in a car with Chinese food; still, there was no less festivity and perhaps surprisingly, no more complaints from nearby rich folks. (But as was pointed out to me, there’s no reason to assume that just because somebody lives in a mansion overlooking Lake Washington, he or she doesn’t appreciate overhearing joyful nonsense emanating from a nearby public park.)

You could almost feel the earth spinning (as no doubt many did their rooms later that evening); I wandered about the periphery and talked with Tiddlefitz about whether math can quantify hope.

I’m not sure I ever got an answer, although perhaps, accidentally, it all added up.