Best

Voltaire’s Dr. Pangloss had a panglossian perspective on life, meaning not merely was he optimistic about the way things are, but rather, held the view that the world, such as it is, is, in fact, the best of all possible worlds, that no better world could exist, concluding, “they, who assert that everything is right, do not express themselves correctly; they should say that everything is best.”

Embedded in this is a kind of determinism which assumes that nature always produces the ideal results (since God would have it no other way); thus, for example, our noses are perfectly “designed” for us to wear spectacles (which we inevitably do), or because our legs are so uniquely formed for the wearing of stockings, stockings fit perfectly.

The good Dr. P. has long been an object of derision; Voltaire himself was satirizing the optimistic conclusions of the German philosopher Leibniz, who addressed the so-called “problem of evil” by arguing that the actual world, even with all the terrible awful things that happen is, in fact, the best of all possible worlds that God could have created. 

It’s a view that’s worthy of disdain to be sure, especially if you read the news for even a moment, but as Dada pointed out around the legal firepit last night, there’s a certain appeal to it that turns hopelessness into a kind of hopefulness that emerges from accepting that this is as good as it gets, so you might as well carry on without expecting anything more.

And indeed, a world that affords you the pleasures of bike riding through the woods and over metal paths across the cool and boggy wetlands of your city’s largest body of freshwater is surely one that’s right up there.  And if it also gives you the opportunity to harvest a handful of American chestnuts and roast them in a crackling campfire to share with friends, then maybe it really is the best possibility of all.

Angelic

photo by Joeball

If you’re going to crash on your bike and get knocked out for an hour and break your collarbone, probably a rib, maybe a cheekbone, and suffer various and sundry other ailments, including, apparently, an instantaneous, albeit painful, treatment of free orthodontia, as did our beloved fancy colleague and well-known Peter White Cycles critic, Mr. Fred Blasdel, it’s kind of a drag that it should happen on your way to work, at 9:30 in the morning on a Tuesday, while perfectly sober; it seems a waste of all those times when a person is pedaling about well after midnight with a consciousness deranged in one manner or another and somehow manages to make it home perfectly intact. 

I guess that just goes to show that our guardian angels get lazy or inattentive when they figure they need not be so vigilant; and perhaps it’s an argument for more regular applications of wake n’ bake or morning 40 just to keep them on their toes.

In any event, once folks at Westlake were informed of Fred’s mishap, conjecture about ride routes evaporated as it became obvious that the obvious course of action was to pay him a little visit en masse, and even though the sweet little card many of us signed somehow got lost in the four blocks between the Red Apple and his house, it somehow seem strangely appropriate that the empty envelope did happen to make it.

We hugged him gently and hung around long enough to ascertain that although a good deal worse for wear, he’s still our Fred and, not wanting to overstay one’s welcome with an invalid, took the short jaunt over to the industrial views westward accorded by the only park we ever tend to visit on Beacon Hill.

Beers were drunk, stories of other bicycle mishaps were shared, and a souvenir-bat-sized joint was smoked.

As far as I know, everyone made it home okay; guardian angels on the job, vigilant!

Span

Back in the Naughty-Aughties, a goateed guy named Ro used to ride bikes (and sometimes, on camping trips, a motorcycle) with us; he was 67 IIRC, which to me, a wee lad in my early 50s at the time, seemed legitimately old.   During the same period, there were a handful of minors who came out on Thursdays as well; the youngest, Alec, was probably seventeen; charmingly, he would sometimes wait like a faithful puppy outside whatever bar we had holed up in, to join the inebriated for the group ride home.

So figure a span of fifty years between the senior and junior members of said crew; that’s surely the record.

Last night, though, did pretty good: there was, me, yours truly, at, as Fancy Fred pointed out, sixty one-derful years, and our young tag-along capture, Windy City Carlos, who boldly admitted he was just sixteen years old, meaning there was a four and a half decade age span between the firstborn and lastborn riders in attendance.

It’s kind of amazing, and surely heartwarming, as well, that the delights of two-wheeled shenanigans can be enjoyed by folks so far apart chronologically, (in marked contrast, for example, to whatever pleasures attend to one’s choices in music, a point brought home particularly uncomfortably when the youngster kept blasting N-word filled rap songs from his backpack speaker as all us white folk pedaled past houses which—during my lifetime (but not his, admittedly)—only white-skinned people were permitted by neighborhood covenant to own.)

But I guess back in 1973, when I ductaped a transistor radio to the handlebars of my Raleigh Record and blared Led Zepplin’s “The Lemon Song” while riding through the quaint streets of Pittsburgh’s Highland Park district, some guy born 45 years before me, in 1912, wouldn’t have liked it, either.

On the other hand, I’ll bet if he hopped on his penny-farthing and joined in careening down winding streets on two wheels, we'd have both felt like kids.

Sight

Just when you think you’ve seen it all (and thanks to upper air aloft, you actually could see, for the first time in days, all the way from the West Seattle superfund site park to the downtown Seattle skyline), you witness the absolutely unprecedented experience (at least in your own experience) of being denied service at of all places, one of the diviest of dive bars; so what else is there to do but take it as a sign that the bridge should be crossed before further shenanigans occur; the result being, after a look-see at a potential new haunt, you find yourself observing the most familiar of walls, one with mirrors on them, to boot, gazing on that very reflection you’ve reflected upon all of your born days.

I mean sure, a person’s going to be a little tipsy after sharing the traditional twelve-pack at the traditional nut-punching platform above the Duwamish, and yes, I’ll admit that a guy might stumble a bit after hopping off his bike and wandering into a watering hole that requires navigating around a person with a microphone belting out their favorite country music tune, but it’s hard (entirely opaque, honestly) to see what the bartender saw to make it impossible to order even a Coca-Cola, but who knows what they might have been eyeing?  Maybe she just doesn’t like your face or perhaps it’s the new short hairdo.

In any case, it was hardly a blot on an otherwise fine night for observing (and breathing); an almost full moon rising over the industrial wasteland was its standard issue yellow as opposed to “new normal” red, blue sky was visible behind wispy cirrus clouds, and three, count ‘em three! Ryans outnumbered just a pair of Kevins on the way out of Westlake.

So all’s well that ends well, I guess, and besides, it does mean you get to watch the birthday girl drink a mai-tai, a sight, clearly, never to miss!

Leap

Call me a sissy scaredy-cat coward while pointing out that even children and nearsighted tech-nerds braved the attempt and I’d have to agree; nevertheless, discretion (such as it is) remains the better (perhaps only) part of valor for this chicken-hearted chicken when it comes to hurling oneself off a plastic ramp into Lake Washington atop a janky BMX bike after careening down an increasingly wet and slippery runway especially when well-lubricated already with apparently not quite enough liquid courage to overcome the survival instinct part of the lizard brain for yet another year running.

Long story short: as usual, I preferred the view from the water and was rewarded with the sight of one more hilarious splashdown after another as less fearful, younger, or maybe even drunker souls than me piloted the floating two-wheeler into the drink much to the cheers, jeers, and sympathetic groans of the assembled.

It was the perfect night for launching, one of those magical Seattle summer evenings where the lake water and air temperature align so that it’s just as warm to be wet as dry; the watery choice, of course, has the secret advantage of providing a full-time conduit for beer-processing, a point we need not belabor, but bears noting because why the hell not, everyone does and it’s awesome, right?

For some reason, the younger, cuter version of the bike gang declined to stop and join, but oh well, these kids today with their appetites for exposure, more power to them, but this lily-livered old-timer will continue to capture life in the time-honored manner of imprinting memories directly onto the grey matter and then making up stories about them, like the one where Shows Up Joe flies far beyond the handlebars as he splashes down atop the lake’s silvery surface in the waning twilight of the August eve, just at the point where everyone turns into luminous shadows, backlit by reflections, glowing at the edges, walking (and riding) on water.

Plenty

Traditionally, it hardly counts as a Thursday night ride if you’re home in bed before midnight and so, when it’s barely eleven and you’re already laying your head upon the pillow, you might think that a person could just as easily stayed home and not missed a thing.

But you’d be wrong, then, because—even in an abbreviated session—all the boxes were ticked. 

Swimming, check, including back-floating and board-diving. 

Beer-drinking, yep, an entire twelve-pack consumed and shared, quickly enough to stay fairly cold even on one of the warmest nights of summer so far. 

An unnecessarily steep, although as-the-crow-flies direct route to the water: that, too, providing an unusual opportunity to join the throng as opposed to simply thronging ourselves. 

And yes, a stealthy pelaton through the land of milk and honey, although its ingress would probably be characterized more as the domain of nettles and hobo-poop.

So…short, but sweet and fully satisfying in the end (not to mention the beginning and middle, as well), proving that it’s not necessary to stay up so late and overindulge so much that you’re hurling into a garbage can at work the next day.  Of course, there’s a time and place for that, as well, but this time, and those places were sufficient, illustrating, as intended by this somewhat truncated effort, too, that less can sometimes be—if not more—at least plenty for plenty.

Dive

When summer finally arrives in the Pacific Northwest, you want to embrace it.

And that means taking every opportunity to go out of your way to go out of your way. 

Efficiency is once again revealed as an overrated virtue and when the ride goes the long way around to a spot you could have arrived at much more quickly by taking the more direct Shaddup Joe-preferred route, you realize that you’re glad to have pedaled through probably the most familiar of all familiar routes, the one upon which your very existence in this plane of existence depends—albeit in a state of mind of mind that you never go this way in.

It counts as success to get in the water before the festivities even start and if you can follow that up with yet another dunk in the drink, then you’re playing with house money as they say. 

That your entry into the wet entails launching yourself tits over teakettle into the dihydrogen monoxide and precludes a broken neck, even for those youngsters who seemed determined to ingnore the paternalistic rules posted prominently on the danger zone, means that even the invisible magicians were on your side, as well.

When you know you’ve got to early-to-rise it in order to create one-of-a-kind enrichment experiences for the progeny of the ambitious, it does cut into the buzz a little bit and you’re apt to depart early, (although less early than would be the case if you didn’t forget to forget your aquatic attire and have to ride back to scoop it up off the ground), but even give the constraints of common sense, you can nevertheless, enjoy an uncommonly good time under the long-lasting light of summer above the 47th parallel north.

Not everything has to be everything and in many cases, even what is is less than it could be; but even so, it’s plenty plentiful, so let’s dive right on in, the water’s fine.

Filthy

spoke card by Claudia

As the Buddha reminds us, life is suffering, and the source of that suffering is desire; we are liberated from suffering by the cessation of desire, which we achieve by following the Eightfold Path of right intention, conduct, livelihood, and so on.

Sure, that’s one way to do it.

But you can also overcome the inescapable pain of all existence by riding bikes in a group of more-or-less formally dressed miscreants, ingesting and quaffing a variety of mood-altering ingestables and quaffables,  and then dancing in a public park to the absolutely magical sounds of Seattle’s primary all women and non-binary street band, the inestimable Filthy Femcorps, whose sonic stylings inspire even the most buttoned-up of high-school guidance counselors and D&D role-playing nerds to get up offa their things and shake some booty or other relevant body parts.

“It’s never too late to have a happy childhood,” goes that old self-help chestnut, but more to the point, it’s also clearly never too late to have an awesome high-school prom, courtesy of the aforementioned all women and non-binary street band, led by their tireless musical director and tenor saxophone goddess on the eve of the anniversary of her birth.

I guess one of the downsides of being so damn entertaining is that you end up being the entertainment for your very own parties, but that hardly seemed to put a damper on things and even led to an encore much to the delight of the assembled and somewhat disassembled, as well.

I had a hard time understanding what all the rush was by those pedaling in the front of the pack on the way there and it confused me that the guest of honor was getting dropped, but what the hell, it all worked out in the end and, in fact, was kind of delightful to see the sprinters come rolling into the park just in time for the show to begin.

Suffering overcome, liberation attained, Filthy Femcorps, huzzah!

Jaanipäev

My colleague, who married a woman from Estonia, told me that summer solstice marks the beginning of Jaanipäev, the biggest holiday in the Estonian calendar.  The way he described it, “Everyone flees to the countryside, builds big bonfires, and stays drunk for 2 days.”

Sounds to me like we’re all Estonians.

And while I can’t vouch for the sobriety, or lack thereof, of my fellow cyclists over the next 48 hours or so, I’m pretty sure that the assembled managed to do a fairly good approximation of Jaanipäev revelers for the better part of the shortest night of the year, complete with what Wikipedia tells is the best-known ritual of the evening: the lighting of the bonfire and then jumping over it.

According to Estonian folklore, this is seen as a way of guaranteeing prosperity and avoiding bad luck.  Who knows?  But one thing’s for sure: the bad luck of falling into the fire and burning one’s private parts was at least avoided, so let’s take that as a propitious omen, shall we?

It must be a deep-seated human impulse, something we’re essentially hard-wired by evolution and genetics to do; otherwise, how are we to explain this confluence of behaviors across thousands of miles and hundreds of years?

Well, it could be the staying drunk part, of course.

But still.

The festivities were also enhanced by the last installment of several year-old remains of vintage Farmer Ito brand cannabis which, while admittedly, just as dry and stale as the eponymous cultivator’s sense of “humor,” still did the trick when consumed in mass quantities and enhanced by gluten-free space cookies courtesy of L. Choi Bakeries, Inc.

There’s no doubt these are trying times; as I’m sure your average Estonian knows, we live in a world where the Balkans are Balkanized, where Finland, is Finlanized, and where people still get Shanghaied by forces far beyond their control.

Fortunately, we can still come together and get Estoniaed out of our minds.

Holistic

I choose to believe it was auspicious serendipity, rather than satellite telecommunications, that brought together the two contingents—one sweatier, one cuter—of the bike gang atop the far western heights of our fair city in the appropriately-named park at sunset, (or at least civil twilight), in the long lingering crepescule of a late spring evening in the Pacific Northwest.

Half of us—although who knew it was a fraction at the time—had done our best impression of responsible citizens, following nearly all the rules on the legally-mandated stroll through the local wonder of civil engineering, and, after visiting what might be the very first spot I’d ever ridden to of a Thursday night, exited just in time not to be locked in the Locks; reckoning, then, it being too early to decamp for singing, (and still possessed of at least a case of beer in bucket panniers on ice), we followed uphill to the western-facing viewpoint, only to be treated, in moments, to the southern exposure of nearly just as many riders approaching, familiar faces, one and all.

Of the very few things every human being on the planet has in common is that they were born, and while other nearly ubiquitous traits—such as liking deviled eggs and early Michael Jackson—might be more compelling, that’s surely no reason not to celebrate the occasion; and  if you can do so by pedaling somewhere lovely, drinking beer outside with comrades, and then assembling at a festive water(wheel)ing hole for singing and dancing with acquaintances and strangers, by all means, that’s reason to celebrate.

For this reason, and others, including their musical skills and wry insightfulness, I’m awful glad the event coordinator, Rza, was born, and it makes me glad to have come into this existence myself, because, after all, if I didn’t share this one trait in common with everyone else, then I’d have missed out on both halves of the whole damn wonderful thing.

Reverse

We live in a topsy-turvy world, just like Dr. Peter Venkman said in Ghostbusters: “Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!”

The putative adults allegedly running the country act like children; young people, still in high school, present thoughtful and mature perspectives on the pressing issues of the day.  Multi-billion dollar corporations complain publically that the costs of doing business are driving them out of business; small local companies happily pitch in to make their cities better places.  Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups become just a minor player in the Reese’s candy company product line; M&M’s melt in your hand, not in your mouth.

So, you may as well embrace the backwardness of it all; or, I guess, in keeping with the upside-down theme, have it embrace you.

Case in point: instead of the usual route from south to north behind Husky stadium, (where nearly every day commuting to work, you “say a little prayer for Dan” at the spot he did his Halloween face-plant), you ride the reverse route, down through the Ravenna trails—which turn out to be remarkably shorter on the descent than the ascent.  Fremont Boulevard, typically a late night bomb down towards the water, then, becomes an early evening slog up to provisioning and then a charming little spot overlooking the vast light industrial wasteland of Freelard.

And as Mullet (né Mohawk) Mike observed, you can sometimes, if you try, turn the setting sun around instead to the become the rotating earth; lean back and enjoy the ride; imagine the planet-sized Ferris wheel slowly somersaulting heels over head.

“Life,” said the proto-Existentialist philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, “can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”

Well, sorta.

As we’ve seen, there are times (often between the hours of 7:30 and midnight on a Thursday) where the living happens in reverse; little joys become huge; the mundane spectacular; movement stillness; and the many, one.

Understanding, though, looms forward, still to come.

Trains

What’s the rush, really, when you’re outside on a perfectly pink and sky blue evening with everyone who’s anyone to such a degree that no one isn’t someone; you wait for one train going south until (at least those who are responsible for others than themselves) realize that railroad crossing gates are there for a reason, to wit, not getting killed by a giant metal behemoth that takes a minimum of a mile to stop.

Good to see some of the recently unseen and even if no one is ever as special as they think they are, the good news is that more than one person was reminded they do like riding bikes after all.

Post Ben Country, any fear of being abandoned with no direction home is minimized; I might have gotten lost, with effort, but only in the sense of being out of touch with those that might have brought me there.

It’s surprisingly comforting to realize that the mere act of keeping one’s eyes open constitutes something; the question then is whether being something is any reason for anything.

I did learn that a freeway median really can be a park if there are picnic tables and a patio.  It’s like how the selection of cold beer at the Gross Out is kind of limited for a place that sells toilet paper by the palette, but if you’re willing to take a chance on a brand that couldn’t even make the cut for Trader Joe’s, you might end up being reasonably satisfied with the outcome.

Not a lot of miles when all was said and done, but plenty of smiles nevertheless; the combination of Derrick and Long Island Ice Tea never disappoints in the department of LOL AF.

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results; when you keep on riding and once again the expected hilarity is manifest, though, that’s just insanely great.

Mitzvah

photo from Dada

A “mitzvah,” as even your average atheistic non-practicing cultural Jew can tell you, refers to something you’re commanded to do by God, and while no one would accuse the Angry Hippy of being an all-knowing perfectly good Creator of the Universe, I’m pretty sure most of the thirty or so cyclists on this year’s version of his annual bike-camping debauch, Ben Country XIII: The Ben Mitzvah felt—if not commanded—at least strongly advised to fulfill their quasi-religious duty to ride a bunch of unnecessary hills, traverse miles of unexpected trails, and best (that is worst) of all, complete an absolutely ridiculous hike-a-bike (or just camping gear for those whom discretion turned out to be the better part of valor for) through “half a mile” of deadfall and brambles at the end of an already long day in the saddle and under the influence.

But just as Abraham unquestioningly raised the dagger to slay his son Isaac when Yahweh told him to, so did the assembled obediently transgress numerous secular commandments (such as the admonition never to follow Ben up a mountain or Fred down a gravel road) when the route called for it; so great was our faith that we’d be rewarded, not in some possible afterlife but right here and now in this one—at least when we finally managed to stagger through the woods to the washed-out highway to which we were directed.

The suburbs go on for a remarkably long way, but when they finally turn into pastoral valleys and gorgeous mountain watersheds, it’s hard to believe that all those McMansions are just through the woods over the hill.  It’s a little—all right, a lot—of extra work to get to real seclusion, but when it means you can roar as loud as you want for as long as you want, it’s worth it.

If Ben Country were a young Jewish boy, he would now officially be a man.

Mazel fucking Tov.

Nice

Creative writing instructors, entertainment critics, and your 7th grade English teacher, Miss Collins, justifiably excoriate the word “nice” as being bland, non-specific, and, in general, just an insufferably weak-titted term of approbation.

To label something “nice” is to paint it with a broad, flaccid brush—in beige—and sound like a combination of the Church Lady and your grandmother as she reviews the selection of Hallmark greeting cards at the local five and dime.

That said, there’s something nice about the term “nice” which is particularly apt in relation to a Thursday night bike ride with three dozen or so fellow cyclists on a lovely, cloudless evening in spring whose record warm temperatures really bring folks out—many of whom, apparently, have been hiding under rocks or being otherwise engaged during our recent months of drizzle and gloom.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “nice” originally comes from the Latin “nescius” which refers to foolish and silly; the semantic development of how it has come to take on its current meaning as pleasing or pleasant is, according to the OED, so mysterious as to be “unparalleled in Latin or in the Romance languages.”

But it’s surely no mystery how the foolish and silly become so nice when you’re out on two wheels.  All it takes is the foolish silliness of multiple routes to the same familiar provisioning stop and then the silly foolishness of riding east across the water to quaff quaffables in a public park a mere billy-club’s throw away from the city hall and police station of our region’s wealthiest municipality.

Additionally, the OED defines “nice” as well-executed; commendably performed or accomplished, as in “nice going,” “nice try,” or “nice work,” all of which were also on display: it was nice going across the lake twice on two difference bridges; nice try for half the group missing swamp trail riding, and to get all this and still be home by midnight--Nice work!

Reunion

I felt bad about putting the burden of decision-making on the visiting Nurse—for all of about 2 seconds.

And then, I was only glad since I had secretly hoped that a southerly route was in the offing anyhow.

It seemed like one of those nights where organization is a little jagged—droppings and indecisions were the theme, although no one could complain about the views: a city bedecked in spring splendor under bold skies that filtered a golden sunset through cottony clouds of persimmon and apricot.

The waxing crescent moon smiled a sideways smile in the west as twilight blued the snow-covered Olympics periwinkle and powder.

A shortcut took just as long as the usual route although it did provide the opportunity for gravel and a close-up look at our civic failure to combat homelessness.  A short descent was enjoyed just long enough to occasion an unnecessary climb and then there were those who preferred to get rad while the skater dude yelled for bikes to get it out of their systems.

We bombed down the favored bombing run and corkscrewed over the traffic; divergent routes were taken to the old-growth park and the firepit had to be backtracked to—and not just by those who weren’t as under the influence of leftover time trial cookies as yours truly.

Somewhat impressively, ignition was achieved by the perseverance and lung power of Fancy Fred, no fossil fuels required—(unless you count the leftover plastic wrap from the bundles)—which made for a cozy fire of just the right size for the size of the group.

Soon enough, several stragglers straggled in and almost concurrently, the early departing departed early.

Saltwater, freshwater, mountains, lakes, an urban core with plenty of bars, giant trees, gravel paths, not a single drop of rain all night long; stories from the forest, anecdotes about the kitchen and finding things at last.

 If you could live anywhere you wanted, why live anywhere else? 

Lots

In Nicholson Baker’s relentlessly introspective novel, The Mezzanine, the narrator reflects on—among countless other observations about social and psychological minutia—the ways in which everyday objects evolve organically to be used for purposes other than which they were designed. 

So, for example, the humble paper clip, whose primary function is to hold manuscript pages together, is regularly unbent and employed as an ear-scratcher or hole-puncher.  Or the common parking meter morphs from being a device for collecting money from automobile drivers to an apparatus for leashing your dog to when dashing into to the dry cleaners or for securing your bike on as you stop in at the corner bar for a few cold ones.

The same thing apparently happens to much larger structures, notably multi-story parking garages, which go from being a place to vertically store hundreds of cars in the horizontally-challenged core of an urban center in the Pacific Northwest to becoming a marble raceway for cyclists ascending to the perfect viewing platform upon which to observe a sunset over the industrial heart of that aforementioned western US metropolis.

It was a view no doubt soon enough to be reserved only for our future condo overlords on the tenth floor of the glass and steel box that will inevitably replace the concrete cube as real estate values in our fair city continue to rise, and the importance of enjoying it while we can was brought home when it turned out that the second of the two parking garages on the evening’s conceptual agenda was no longer accessible on two wheels, although that did lead to the opportunity to turn a pedestrian overpass into a windy single file outdoor bar for libations al fresco.

There are places in our town that given their geography and scale, are pretty scary to ride to by yourself, but when you’re there with a score of fellow cyclists, end up becoming a charming little park. Transformations abound, unbound transformationally.

Vortices

As did the Tasmanian Devil in those old Looney Toons cartoons, we ascended like a tornado one height after another.

First, we whirled up through the testing ground, which was funny to think of given that I was already riding the bike I would have wanted to buy.

And then, you might not have noticed, but the Fred way aloft from under the freeway is also a kind of wormhole, leading to yet another, one sanctified by St. Ignatius who apparently admonishes us to go out and set the world on fire which, literally, would have been hard to do given the dampness, although half an hour into things, no more drops fell from the sky.

Dead reckoning through the trails opened the secret marble raceway along the newly-paved route and soon enough superfluous laps hardly seemed like more than enough.

Then, there’s only a short up before a much longer down and then you’re being invited by the bartender to drink special extra-large beers around their toasty fireplace.

Moreover, how many places have you ever been where they happily turned off the lights once all the diners had left so that indoor one really felt and looked like an authentic outdoor one?

And to think that all it took was a power-move around a fence and over a pond past razor wire and brambles to make a long-standing wish come true.  The case for eating the rich is made ever stronger by the observation that such a perfect and perfectly flat vortex is usually reserved for the recreational activities of wealthy landowners.  That being said, it was nevertheless thrilling to emerge almost immediately across usually-distant space.

The quotidian is remarkable for those unfamiliar with it, which is yet another reminder that real shortcuts do exist as long as you’re willing and able to ride them.

Flat planes magically ascend, and you’re home before you know it; how can the secret to secret pathways still be a secret?

Sprung

When you realize, while storing your bike for the night, that somewhere in the course of the evening, one of your beloved winter gloves has gone missing, the question immediately springs to mind: Was it worth it?

Was the moon-watching, star-gazing, trail-riding, dope-smoking, story-telling, fire-fucking, song-singing evening out on two wheels a fair trade for one of your most trusted articles of outerwear, a piece that has served you remarkably effectively for the better (that is, worse) part of two years, keeping your left hand pretty warm and mostly dry even on the coldest and wettest days and nights of the seasons?

And the verdict is: a resounding yes!

After all, you can always go to the thrift shop and find a replacement, albeit, in all likelihood, inferior, but there’s no place to purchase standing under a redwood tree with a dozen or so cyclists to regroup and wait out a hailstorm and then taking the steepest way down to the paved woodland trail before going mildly off-road in a successful search for a covered shelter that wasn’t even necessary by the time of arrival.

And even Amazon doesn’t sell snaking along the waterfront to a semi-officially sanctioned barbecue pit, the perfect spot for faculty to collaborate on the between-term research project into oxidation and inebriation on the first waxing crescent moon night after the vernal equinox.

So despite the fact that the miles-to-lost-article-of-clothing ratio was not all that high, the data show conclusively that the amount of fun generated by the overall shenanigans easily outweighs the amount of pain created by the misplaced mitten; Utilitarians everywhere, from good old John Stuart Mill himself back in the 19th century, to Peter Singer today surely agree.

Of course, self-recrimination figures in, and you get to kick yourself a little for not noticing until too late, but ultimately, it seems a small price to pay—and that doesn’t even take into account singing and dancing to the Jackson Five!

Balanced

I felt sure that our old friend the widowmaker would have blown down already in one of our winter windstorms.  But such was not the case, as it still grinned its evil Cheshire-cat mad squirrel grin down upon the assembled.  Moreover, a good deal of shaking and few lobbed logs did little to dislodge it, much to the relief, frankly, of anyone who’s bike remained in the general vicinity.

Which I guess goes to show that you never know just how sturdy the unbalanced are, after all. 

Case in point: yet another route through the woods to a sylvan glade where fire is evoked with less than half a container of the improved technology on a cool but perfectly dry perfect late winter evening, the last waning days of the last waning moon of the season, meaning the stars were out in their full Pacific Northwest glory—which some might say is damning with faint praise, but it’s high praise nevertheless.

We rode to the occasionally-visited view park out west and ogled at our fair city from its backside.  Or maybe that’s the front—it’s the water front, anyway.  Suffice it to say that the appetite of one’s eyes was perfectly sated, setting the table perfectly for the most constrained perspective later under the trees.

I will never tire of seeing my colleagues back lit by the orange and yellow glow of controlled flames in the woods; mighty thanks to our hunter-gatherer ancestors for figuring out the secret to making fire; how tiresome it would be if we had to wait for lightning to do the job.  And how difficult it would be to keep alive a burning brand on a two-wheeler.

As it is, we’re able to rely on an electric bike to carry the fuel in its potential state. 

Then, all we have to do is bring the illumination.  And for humans like us, that comes as easily and naturally as falling off a log.

Rolling

Dreams really can come true, as long as you’re willing to propose an itinerary and enlist a gaggle of cyclists to ride them into being.  And if Fancy Fred takes point on the route, you can even augment the original vision with unexpected trails through woods you’ve experienced before but never so horizontally.

Two wheels to four wheels, and both, it turns out, are pretty great, although, oddly enough, balance is harder when you’ve got eight under you than just a pair—especially at first.  But then, you get into the flow of the music and for a few shining moments, you’re all Olivia Newton-John in Xanadu, before, of course, pride literally goeth-ing before the fall—or, at least, a few seconds of hilarious and embarrassing arm-wheeling and leg-kicking to stay upright.

The proposed castle in the sky was to involve an infant, a murder site, and, perhaps, a slight violation of the traditional norm against paid entertainment and it all came to fruition, albeit with a few minor modifications.

No Michael Jackson scene was evinced as we pedaled by the presumably sleeping baby, but the playground where the high school drug deal gone bad took place had a serendipitous zipline to go along with its spectacular view.  Whatever ghost may or may not rest in peace there sure gets to enjoy a panoramic perspective on the vast industrial underbelly of our fair city, and we did, too, made even more marvelous by the all-but-full moon making the visible spectrum visible at its edges in the evening fog.

Unfortunately, the envisioned karaoke on skates wasn’t happening, but it hardly seemed a loss, given that one could still glide down a ramp to a bar where intoxication levels were monitored simply by the ability to order and consume a tallboy without ending up on your bum.

Nevertheless, a coda of singing did occur at the traditional venue; and, to top it off no rain until safely abed; dreamy!

Full

Nobody climbed the rafters as in years past; nor were numerous waffles flung like Frisbees across the park shelter’s interior; and we all missed, no doubt, Derrick Ito throwing batter everywhere and antiquing folks with unmixed pancake mix and handfuls of flour.

Nevertheless, this year’s annual (13th annual to be exact) Point83 Waffle Ride was just as enjoyable, and every bit as remarkable as in every other of its dozen previous incarnations.  I woke to find my shoes coated predictably in dried batter, my nostrils filled convincingly with the scent of country breakfast, and my mind overflowing happily with images that while familiar, remain as unbelievable and precious as they have been for over a decade.

Where else will you see eight bike-hauled waffle irons, including the Hello Kitty model in all her pink-clad glory, steaming away merrily in a public park for the late-night dining pleasure of three or four dozen cyclists?

Or when else do you get to witness what surely began its life as a canoe paddle (or maybe Cricket bat) being used to stir the pot, so to speak, the “pot” being a six gallon bucket loaded with the raw materials of deliciousness soon to be pressed between hot metal plates?

Or how else can you find yourself in the delightful quandary of having to choose between balancing chocolate-covered coffee beans in every or every other square of the waffle before consuming?

Additionally, there was fire, sorta, and hot chocolate mixed with your liquor of choice, (or what was left over, eventually); plus, it never even rained or was so cold you couldn’t hold your beer without wearing gloves.

And once again, electrons got busy, free of charge, to make the extravaganza possible, thanks to the technical prowess of our resident organizer and the organizing prowess of our resident technician, huzzah.

No one crashed on the bridge heading home, either; a perfect topping to a night as full as our bellies could be.

Torched

Seattle P-I

“Which one of you assholes almost got me punched by the angry guy on the Fremont Bridge?!”

I was already burned up and we hadn’t even gotten to the conflagration. 

My grouchy old man rancor at the narrow escape from a fist to the face and at the frantic pace the piney pelaton had hightailed it towards the beach was a furnace within me and I couldn’t wait to scream a furious inquiry to the assembled masses who I hoped would be milling about at the traditional 7-11 stop on the way.

But there was only a handful of shoppers in the little parking lot one of which, fortunately, was tehSchkott, who, in an unprecedented role reversal, talked me down from the livid ledge on which I stood with the thoughtful observation that whoever it was who bumped the outraged hobo mid-span was probably right not to stop because, shit, that guy was dangerous.

Mollified, I continued on, and only felt my ire rise momentarily upon nearing the shore and seeing sparks already climbing skyward in the distance, but when I approached the circle and saw how much fuel was still remaining, I cooled down plenty sufficiently to be able to fully embrace the heat of all those Christmas memories returning their carbon to the atmosphere and the warmth of so many familiar faces lit by the glow.

Our traditional head pyromaniac, waylaid by the weather up North, wasn’t able to be there, but was there really—further evidence, for the Vedanta perspective the Angry Hippy and I were reflecting upon: that our individual selves are really the Universal Self, each lick of flame actually the fire, if you will.

I kept thinking about that scene in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, where Tom gets to observe his own funeral; similarly, having “passed the torch;” (almost literally); another adventurous rascal could see how brightly his influence burns in his absence.

And who could be angry at that?

Grateful

I’m not a huge proponent of New Year’s resolutions but I do think the turning of our yearly calendar page is a good time to take stock and be slightly more intentional about the things you do or don’t do.  So, while I won’t be cutting alcohol or caffeine from my diet this month, I would like to recognize my good fortune and make note of some of what I’m grateful for when I’m being more intentional about gratitude.

Above all, I’m grateful to be loved by someone who generally accepts my inclination for Thursday night bicycle adventures and whose general acceptance thereby makes possible my ability to regularly find myself quaffing quaffables around an outdoor fire to which I’ve ridden my bike with several dozen similarly inclined miscreants.

I’m grateful I have a job.  Full stop.  But especially a job that is not only mostly rewarding, but also allows me, with some regularity, to depart on Thursdays in time for a leisurely 18-mile pedal primarily on a lakeside bicycle path that brings me eventually to the center of our fair city for a rendezvous with said aforementioned miscreants.

I’m grateful that said miscreants, while fairly opinionated as a rule, are also willing to be persuaded to set aside worries about impending rainfall and head for the spot I’d had my fingers crossed they could be persuaded to head for.

I’m grateful that grocery stores sell firewood and spirits and for Joby’s largesse in acquiring mass quantities of both.

I’m grateful for the 12-pack of Rainier beer, which fits so perfectly in the Wald basket and is predictably just the right amount for drinking and sharing.

I’m grateful to live in a time and place where recreational cannabis is legal, fuck you, Attorney-General Jeff Sessions.

I’m grateful that, in spite of certain past indiscretions, said miscreants have not been permanently 86’ed from Bush Gardens.

And I’m grateful that the bicycle is a gyroscope all the way home.