Superior

photo by Joeball

As Dead Baby Terry observed at Westlake Center, my sister Deb’s cookies are really something special.  Any homemade baked good is appreciated to be sure, but when you sample one of hers, your taste buds do a double-take.  You’re all like, “Wow.  Mmm.”  And you make the little involuntary sigh of pleasure that impels you to reach into the bag for another.  This is something I’ve long known about her culinary artistry and it’s always a pleasure to share it with others for their enjoyment and edification.

Come to think of it, many a Thursday night ride is like that, too.  You show up at Westlake Center thinking, “Okay, here I am; there’s all those other bike-riding assholes; this should be relatively palatable as a way to spend an evening.”

But then, you get out on the route, which includes and unprecedented Home Depot stop and a stirring jaunt through the industrial bowels of the city to a destination whose bonfire potential requires no importing of fuel whatsoever, and as the flames rise higher and the conviviality grows louder, you realize that, as a matter of fact, this is way better than you imagined it might be; your heart does a double-take and remember you should never ever take this shit for granted because it’s really quite remarkable even if you’ve done it before, more or less.

The full moon was so bright that it produced a barely visible spectrum in the mist surrounding it and gave us all moonshadows to follow if we wanted to notice.  I took the opportunity to scream at the top of my lungs for a bit and dance around like Stinky Pete.

Eventually, the flames died down and the beer ran out so it was up and down the hill and over the much-missed Airport Way Bridge to the old standby singing joint.  And even though the karaoke machine only showed background radiation, not words, it was still superior to predictions.