Familiar

The ride didn’t go anywhere I’ve never been last night, nor was it “moderately all right, maybe average at best” in any significant way, but even so, there’s always something unprecedented when one is out on two wheels with one’s familiars on a Thursday night, this one being the last such evening in May, although you couldn’t obviously tell it from the weather.

For instance, although we’ve often stopped at the Hop In grocery for beer and skittles, I can’t remember ever getting there with a bomb down 24th Avenue, especially one fast enough for even pokey old me to break the speed limit by a good six miles an hour as duly noted by the radar sign halfway down the hill.

And I’m sure we’ve never been greeted, as we made the left into the grocery store parking lot, by some crazy homeless person shouting “Fuck You Niggers! You Fucking Faggots! Learn to Drive!” at the top of his leather lungs like a dog wildly barking at passing cars.

Moreover, even though there have been four or five times I’ve stood around drinking beer with fellow cyclists, keeping an eye out for nutria in the UW Nature Preserve on Lake Washington behind Husky stadium, I’ve never before enjoyed witnessing there a brief, but spirited, game of “Chicken on the Log” one that surprisingly, didn’t even result in the Angry Hippy rupturing himself as he lifted his rider up on his shoulders.

And, sure, we’ve ridden through the woods up the ravine to Cowen Park, but this is the first time it was still light enough to see where I was going, although I was still surprised by how magically the park appears at the top of the corkscrew.

Finally, who hasn’t before finished off and evening with a quick spin to the surrealistic playground that is the Baronoff bar? But I, for one, have never seen so many jello shots consumed and which such sheer abandon.