Monday, May 9 was a pleasant spring day at last, balmy, sunny, with evening creeping in on its little feet of quiet stillness. Perhaps Haipoo Gai said it best as we watched unfamiliar hashers trickle in: "Now that the snow's melted all the turds show up." So poetic, so precise.
We were at Pauly's on Yonge Street midtown. There were indeed a few people we hadn't seen much of recently(Moonman, Half Wit), including the hare, Flyer. The question on everyone's mind was whether all that exuberant energy saved up over the winter would be vented on us, in the form of a trail of superhuman length and complexity. There was a couple visiting from Orlando, who both had double-barrelled, multi-syllable names, so of course I remember neither of them. And a new boot named Jonathan.
Our trail turned out to be of reasonable length – at least for Flyer – and as twisted and bent as the hare herself. We started off heading toward Avenue Road, then doubled back to Yonge, then went west again along the rail viaduct past Avenue Road. Our new boot was showing off by leading the pack by this point. Back on the streets, we were heading on our way to improving the lives of the residents of Forest Hill, but checked at Poplar Plains and turned south, then east again at Davenport. No proof against further twists on the part of the hare, of course. But it was in fact relatively straitforward from then on, through an alley after another check at Avenue in the general direction of Yonge Street, and then up to the beer check at Wylie's, about a one minute walk from where we started from.
The following Saturday was back to normal, weather-wise, with periods of intermittent rain interspersed with periods when it pissed down rain. But it was the AGM and could be interpreted as the cleansing rain that washes away the scum of the old mismanagement to make way for the fuck-ups of the new mismanagement.
The venue was the Loblaws off Laird, which backs onto the woody area in the Don Valley I've finally realized is called Crothers Woods. The turn-out was actually more than two hashers could count on their combined fingers and toes, which would make it somewhere between 22 and 16,000 (I believe it was really 24, which I guess could still be two hashers counting their fingers and toes). People huddled in their vehicles – oddly, none of them were rocking – while bedraggled stragglers like Shadow and Zephyr trudged in on foot.
Our glorious leader, COD, was present with his lovely bride – yes, the same one, Just Cathy. So apparently the honeymoon is over. "The honeymoon TRIP is over," shot back the oh-so-clever GM.
The trail was an entertaining jaunt through the leafy woods, if you consider sliding in warm mud on slippery slopes and getting whacked in the face with wet branches, while a steady drizzle gradually grew to a tropical downpour, entertaining. Luckily I do. It was surprisingly well marked, at least, which came in useful as the pack strung out to invisibility. The walker brigade of COD, Cathy, Moist, Helen Keller, Backdoor Buzz and maybe a few others disappeared into their own little world, full of wonder and delight. The able runners and other FRBs (Flyer, Mangina, Switch Shitter) likewise went off on the trail less hashed.
Too bad for them when both groups missed the beer check. Our hare New Shoez was quite chuffed with himself for putting it under the rail bridge next to the Don. It provided lots of shelter, provided you were really skinny. But Zephyr, Shadow, Shampoo, Casket Case, Notty, Pissin Hole and some others made the best of it. Hey, there were slightly soggy chips. And soggy beer! Cougar was just grateful to be off trail, after having falling down and had mud pushed up every orifice and then being snuffled by big dogs – though come to think of it, she wasn't complaining about that.
The survivors of this trudged back up the hill to the start, to find most of our cars standing in several inches of water. The intelligent decision – I know! – was taken to huddle together under a shopping cart shelter and drink more beer and eat more chips. Well, it was about the size of a typical Toronto condo, so we could have done worse. The FRBs could console themselves by finally getting a beer. The missing walkers were slightly missed, though if they had all died on trail it would at least be a novel way of replacing the GM.
Eventually everyone showed up, and more waiting was done. Meanwhile, Flyer tore around the shelter on her bike to stay warm, and Moist jogged around the shelter to stay warm, and they got dizzy doing it, and we got dizzy watching them.
Down downs. More down downs. Deposition of the old regime, and new mismanagement was announced – so apparently that NATO bombing campaign has had some effect: HaiPooGai for GM, and the rest do you really care about? An early close for some of the drowned rats, while others went off for more fun at Aristotle and McGregor's, where presumably they shook themselves like wet dogs.