Who knew how hard it would be these days for a gaggle of bike-riding miscreants to find a spot to burn a few bundles of wood and drink beer and tell stories and lies to each other without violating COVID protocols, reasonable norms of responsible behavior, and a healthy sense of self-preservation?
I mean really, even though anything goes and a person can pretty much set up campsite wherever they want of late, it still took us exploring two different locations and considering several more before we just agreed “what the fuck, here is fine,” and created a brand-new firepit at the far end of a park that barely a month ago we were able to enjoy not one, but two different “official” spots for burning stuff.
That said, no complaints and all’s well that ends well; the teenagers got to keep breaking the Governor’s guidelines for numbers of assembled at the fancy spot high above the lake and the recently-minted denizens of the park shelter were able to keep hiding behind their tarpaulin, while the handful-plus of us who arrive by bikes got to surround a cheery glow, occasionally enhanced by cans of burning aerosolized Girl Scout Water to solid rounds of mansplaining, misrepresentation of the facts, and occasionally, tidbits about each other that nobody else already knew.
The weather was perfectly perfect all night long for a January evening in the Pacific Northwest; I was convinced it kept getting warmer, but that could have been the effect of pedaling up and ingesting alcohol. All I know is that my fingers were freezing in my gloves when I left my house, but on the way home near midnight, I didn’t even cover my hands. Chalk it up to whatever.
Not to be forgotten was that it was the first Thursday night bike ride of the new Administration. Good, bad, or indiffernt, at least Donald Trump no longer has the football with the nuclear codes. So, huzzah, right?
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