Little

So, we didn’t lay out 150 feet of plastic sheeting, fill the trees with glowsticks, load up an inflatable swimming pool with gallons of green goo for slippery rasslin’, and pass out fancy drinks made with Tang and Everclear to dozens of revelers well into the wee hours of morning, but, nevertheless, it was a fine evening for a bicycle ride and a swim near the traditional venue.  

And granted, the lake is full of milfoil, especially in the shallow parts, but why complain when you still can lie on your back in the water and gaze up at the cotton candy colored clouds before returning to the shore for libations and conversations with old friends and a lollipop that lasts for half an hour minimum?

Not everything has to be everything; something is still something, and when that something includes a ride en masse down what really should be the main north-south bicycle thoroughfare of our fair city, but which really only feels feasible when ridden en masse, then that something’s plenty even if it isn’t the everything that it could be (and has been in years past).

Sure, we should all aspire to greatness most, if not all, of the time, but that doesn’t mean we should always be dissatisfied with pretty-goodness; it’s important to calibrate one’s expectations and if you don’t expect too much, then you’re way more apt to be satisfied with what you get no matter what.

It would be awesome, of course, to be an Olympic athlete and win a gold medal in one’s chosen event, but man, a silver or even a bronze wouldn’t be so bad, either.  

If you were the third best gymnast or table tennis player or slalom canoeist in the world, that would be something to be very proud of, so, for heaven’s sake, a perfect summer evening out on two wheels with a lake swim to boot, even without historically-insane shenanigans is pure gold, too.