Moist

If fear of the weather is what kept a person from the traditional Thursday night bicycle ride last evening, then they blew it.  

For most of the time, conditions were swell: a soft and gentle mist (at most) enveloped riders in a sweet Cascadian caress; wool sans shell was plenty and you could even enjoy a previously un-enjoyed park beside the mighty Duwamish without hardly fogging up your glasses.

This is how I remember late January rain in Seattle: the worst of the season’s storms are over and what falls from the heavens now is the first harbinger of spring.  Crocuses are peeking from the soil, robins have begun appearing everywhere; the Lunar New Year rings in and with it, the promise of fresh growth, or at least the hope that one’s cycling gloves will no longer smell like cheese all the time.

A scant assemblage braved the mean streets around Westlake Center; riders were almost outnumbered by cop cars closing the barn door after the horse had already left McDonald’s yesterday; maybe the solution to gun violence should be to have a trade-in program of six-shooters for two-wheelers; pedal-pushing instead of trigger-pulling, how about that?

Not that cycling is a balm for everything: some people in SUVs sure get angry when a handful of bikes slow them down for all of three seconds; I couldn’t take the pissed-off lady’s exhortations seriously because, for the life of me, I thought it was Derrick in his truck pretending to be mad—that’s how incoherent and over-the-top her rage seemed to be.

I get it though; my blood would boil too if I had to be encased in a metal cage with only podcasts and Googlemaps to keep me company on such lovely night to be in plein air.

After all, there are people who come out for the ride from all the way on the other side of the world; proof that missing out really is missing out.

Ageless

It seemed strangely appropriate that my reason for planning on missing a Thursday evening out on two wheels was my intention to see a lecture at the library on “successful aging,” when, after all, my main strategy for not going gentle into that good night for the last decade or so has been to head out bike-riding and beer-drinking and dope-smoking at the same appointed hour.

The speaker, neuroscientist Daniel Levitin, earned his Captain Obvious stripes with the central claim that the key to brain health in one’s later years is to stay active and engaged; “Don’t retire!” was his concluding point.

Duh.

In any case—and consequently—imagine my delight when, on my route home from the event, I spied a small collection of bicycles, (including a brightly-colored carbon-fiber French model whose appearance always warms my heart), outside my favorite local watering hole.  Here, right before me, was the unexpected opportunity to enjoy at least a little time actively engaging in the very same (now scientifically-validated) means of successful aging I have relied upon all these many years.

Solely in the cause of neurological well-being, mind you, did I stop in, to be rewarded with a small, but welcoming group of familiar brain health nuts, who eventually joined me for a quick jaunt up and down to the lake where further synaptic activity was stimulated.  And, as additional proof of the salubrious effects of such activity, I managed to lose a beloved Jannd reflective ankle strap en route*, a clear demonstration of how the healthy mind plays tricks on us if given half a chance.

“Sharp as a tack” is the phrase often applied to an old person who still has their wits about them; I’m not sure I aspire to all that.  I’d settle for being no duller than, let’s say, a butter knife.  That way, I can still do an adequate job of spreading joy, just like successful aging on Thursday nights has consistently done.
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*Found!  By retracing the day after, mind blown.

Hot

And there was a full moon!

And it didn’t rain at all until right at the very last instant as I pedaled into my back alley!

And sinfully delicious hot cocoa drinks spiced with Everclear, vodka, rum, and whatever else was in the bottom of booze bottles at our magnanimous host and hostess’s liquor cabinet!

And the music bike with new and improved sound or maybe one just forgets how loud and clear it is even from a block away!

And re-usable cups, only a couple of which ended up in the mighty conflagration!

And a solid collection of old friends and familiar faces, including many a far-flung or rarely-seen companion, plenty of whom stuck around all the way through until the dying embers!

And Point84!

And a fire-totter!

And surely the fastest trip ever to the secret location, including a police escort!

And a gold star to Chester who kept me and the trailer company on the Ballard Bridge so I wasn’t even really that mad about being left behind even though it was fun to get all cantankerous and curmudgeonly about it at first!

And no one burned their private parts, at least on my watch!

And rum balls and (nearly) the final batch of the Christmas weed cookies!

And the requisite overawed strangers who couldn’t believe their good fortune at stumbling upon the event!

And conversations about Little Women, both the movie and the book—which, in spite of its moralizing, (or perhaps because of it), is really quite charming; Jo, especially would be the sort of character you’d see out on two wheels of a Thursday night around a twenty-foot high Christmas tree blaze!

And only one blinkie lost!

And a U-lock found if anyone’s looking for one!

And one more tree!  At least three times!

At lots of laughs and a little singing and everyone talking at once but sometimes listening, too!

And no fire department!

And did I mention: a full moon!

Premier

You know what they say: “You can’t drink all day if you don’t start in the morning.”

The same principle applies to bike riding every Thursday night of the year.  Unless you make it out to the first one, you can’t have a perfect record on your annual Point83 drunken shenanigans scorecard.

A quartet, at least, however, are still in the running, and while it’s hardly a goal to which any sensible person would aspire, nor is it an accomplishment you’d want to highlight on your curriculum vitae in applying for fellowships abroad, it is worth noting that, as an inebriated Lao-Tzu would surely remind us, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single stagger;” in other words, a gold star for perfect attendance may still be awarded at year’s end, including special commendation for fixed-gear category.

It was pointed out over whiskey at my very own neighborhood bar, that many a favored route over time has been a result of someone essentially leading the way back to their own neighborhood, a strategy that I only somewhat intentionally adopted, although there were several detours along the way for cannabis consumption and view admiring and the requisite interaction with a lost soul who assured us that he “wasn’t always broke” in his repeated efforts to sell someone a set of Bluetooth earbuds in the shadow of Hermon A. MacNeil’s monument to “Seattle’s Foremost and Best Beloved Citizen,” Judge Thomas Burke, of Burke Museum and Burke-Gilman trail fame.

According to Wikipedia, “Burke frequently organized subscription drives to raise money for Seattle projects, to the point that he often described himself as a ‘professional beggar,’” which seems to me an admirable profession and one we might all aspire to one way or another in the coming twelve months, especially in support of causes earning encomiums like Burke: “patriot, jurist, orator, friend, patron of education, first in every move for the advancement of city and state.”

First and foremost.