Cake

GACH by Shahan

According to the Internetz, the expression “piece of cake” originated in the British Royal Air Force in the late 1930s as an idiom meaning an easy mission.  Apparently, the precise reference is as mysterious as the similar simile, “easy as pie,” but one conjecture is that it evokes the simple accomplishment of eating a slice of sweet desert.

Perhaps it also has something to do with birthdays, which are a piece of cake to celebrate as long as you’ve got a bike to ride, some beer to drink, and several dozen nonsense-loving confederates with which to share the occasion. 

And although, due to the larcenous efforts of some nameless scum of the earth, two of your comrades ended up the evening without that first vital celebratory component, there’s no question that commemorating the day of one’s arrival on the planet is effected with ease by following the long-setting sun westward as far as possible and then turning back east under the crepuscular skies to congregate around fire with fire dancers who might just as well be spinning their flames as a means of sharing in the festivities themselves.

For my part, it was one of those times when collegial quaffing with fellow faculty morphed into libations with bike nerds via the Burke-Gilman trail.  From Bothell to Ballard takes on the order of a two hours at half a dozen post-work beers and a private trailside safety meeting speed, but surely there’s no rush when the whole way you get to admire nature’s handiwork in the form of alders, maples, and poplars in full leaf and cottonwoods so enthusiastically living up to their name that it looks like snowfall on the slough.

I didn’t make it all the way to the saltwater, which, given unfortunate outcome for those two riderless riders, might have been my good fortune, but nevertheless felt nothing was lacking in the overall experience.

Fun times on two wheels in spring?  Piece of cake, man.