Wednesday, May 29, 2013

GFH3 Run #1,699; 29 May 2013

Neither so hot nor so humid as the forecasters predicted -- though certainly a bit of both -- and everyone seems to have figured out that we're on Wednesdays now, so maybe forty hashers convened in Great Falls, gathering around Radar's pool before heading straight into the woods to scare the deer.  Seriously, deer were leaping every which way as the shouting pack heeled and hauled and crashed about in the underbrush.

The trail featured two turkey/eagle splits, leading some to boast of being "double eagles," surely not a concept much in use in this group.  Co-hares Radar and Phoenix Rising heaped praise upon co-hare Tasty Cakes for setting all the backchecks.  The runners suggested heaping something else, but you just can't pay attention to the runners once they reach a certain sweatiness level.  Valiant offered the walkers an eagle walk, alert to the most magnificent arboreal specimens and reminiscing on threats he has received whilst cycling around and about the village.

Only the very sportiest water stop will do for the GFH3.

Hey, I just realized we had two complete sets of Joneses this evening.  How often does that happen?  How happy we are when it does!

We also had chicken barbecued by our host that garnered rave reviews, salad and fancy guacamole.  You may not have seen the fancy guacamole; BC3 and Bite Me did not exactly make sure of that, but they both seem to enjoy guacamole.  Also, tons of Gatorade given the whole heat/humidity combo.  Plus... A SWIMMING POOL!  Walks on Water swam in same instead, along with a handful of friends, all cheerfully ducking the squirt gun fight going on overhead as Lust in Space taught three little boys how not to behave at a grown-up party.

The Mufti shouted the roll call, from the patio and the diaphragm to be sure of people on the deck hearing, and people in the pool area hearing, which they all more-or-less did.  Although, from the pool, with frequent forays to the underwater part, it was hard to tell if anything more exciting than Greg's #50 occurred.  Let me know if it did, please.

Just to be clear, this is a grown-up.
You know what tonight was, right?  Check the headline if you're not sure...   that's right, run number one thousand six hundred ninety-nine.  Oh, my.

I am really having a lot of trouble getting pix in the woods once the sun has even begun to set.  Perhaps we can all think of them as artistic, rather than blurry.  See what you think here.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

GFH3 Run #1,698; 22 May 2013

Yes, you heard the radio weather announcer correctly:  86 degrees, and 90% chance of thunderstorms.  Oh, yay!

That's right, oh, yay -- because this is the day that our Mufti returned to us, looking suspiciously hearty, fit and well, walking with a jaunty swagger and the gentleman's walking stick that always goes with a jaunty s.  BC3 reports that he was demanding to be let alone to do things for himself a week after surgery; Mufti recalls wistfully that, "For the first two weeks, everyone comes to you.  After that, you go to them."  He was much less wistful when predicting that he would be the first runner in, and when threatening to leave Ole Fud in his dust on the walkers' trail.

Well, we're all very glad you did come to us.

So I guess Greg helped Tasty Cakes with the setting (on his bike, so he could do all the falses), and I'm guessing that Beef Strokemoff set the figure-9 walkers' trail.  Both of them excellent courses, and the walkers' trail was especially handy for the several runners who decided they'd had enough of sweating through the increasingly cloudy evening and used the pink arrows as a shortcut.  Incidentally, the hares report that in consideration of the weather, they cut a mile or two off the true trail, bringing it down to five-and-a-half miles or so.  Herndon offers some lovely opportunities for stream crossings and mixing the paved with the dirt and etc.

So it was a charming bit of exercise however one cut it up, and the back deck at Beef S's greeted returning hashers with plenty of icy drinks and a fancy wine cooler and an even fancier beverage dispenser full of extremely tasty sangria.  To give you an idea of the kind of spread the Strokemoffs lay on, pitch your mind back to the last time you heard anyone say, "appetizers" at a hash.  As in, "The appetizers are on the deck."  Pitch your mind back.  It was never, right?

What?!  No ice sculpture?!
The interior of the house featured a Mediterranean spread of seasoned chicken to go into pita bread and be topped with yogurty sauce and hummus and cukes and other veg, plus three salads and stuffed grape leaves.  It sounds ridiculous.  But wait!  There's more!  If you attended tonight you also received several kinds of cookies, some absurdly rich chocolaty bars, and baklava.  That would be homemade baklava.  Right.  Homemade.

The Mufti hollered the roll, and it was as if he'd never been away -- except that Bionic Babe brought out a cake blazoned with "Welcome Back, Mufti," and everyone "sang" "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow," and the Mufti demanded three cheers ("hip, hip...  ON ON") for himself and his hip.  Welcome Axel, Lindsay and about a half-dozen other first-timers, and welcome back Leila (98 to the cup!), and click here for photos (some very fuzzy in the twilight), and goodnight.

And yes, there was a torrential downpour about 8:30 or 9:00, and everyone scurried inside.  It is a generous host indeed who allows post-run hashers into the living room.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Save the Date: Anniversary Hash on Father's Day

The Magnificent, Munificent Mufti informs me that Pickled Peter and Packing Pink will host the 31sth Anniversary Hash on Sunday 16 June 2013 at 2:00pm.  See you there!

This is how much fun a GFH3 Anniversary run is.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

GFH3 Run #1,697; 15 May 2013

Man, if the Magnificent Mufti had full use of both legs, he'd be kicking himself for missing this one.  It is rare that our relatively serious & sedate hash sees so much riot and rumpus in a single evening.

So as usual, when gathering at the Reston Pony Barn, we reflect on the irony of Chip Off the Old Dick's preferred staging ground.  After all, when it's a COtOD trail, how many of you yearn for a pony on which to complete it?  And yet, there's never a pony around.

But, in a big surprise, COtOD and co-hares Easy Strider and Phoenix Rising (both also reputed to be capable of setting a death march when they want to) kept the trail reasonably compact, and most of the runners were back in about an hour.  It may have felt like longer, but that's because the heat was up a bit high, and the humidity wasn't too far behind, so everyone looked and felt a little more ragged than the run would warrant under more clement conditions.  (No, I do not know why I am being so aggressively alliterative in this piddling post.  It just keeps happening.)

Hash Hero, on his pedestal, being praised and glorified by the assembled multitude.

The walkers had all the benefits of planned-community and former-distillery Reston's lovely woods trails, but they know the kind of spread COtOD lays out (Maria:  "You owe me.") and so headed back for the pavilion ahead of the runners.  There was pizza, lasagna, salad, boatloads of chips and dips and many kinds of cookies and I don't know what else besides as ES brought two lanterns and no one else brought any so by 8:15 it was a bit hard to see anything.  Anyway, more than enough to feed even this crowd of 40 or so.

With the Mufti still lost to us (woe!), the Oral Advocate called the roll, with his junior spawn cheering him on in between doing chin-ups on any available overhead bar.  Someday I'm going to do a chin-up.  We had Melanie, back for run number two after only about an eight-week hiatus, and Cockpit E's junior spawn was there too.  Everyone "sang" Happy Birthday to Radar, even those who had a mouthful of pizza at the time, and he bore it bravely.  There were ballots to vote on what would be the best date for the Anniversary Hash, so the Mufti will confer with host and hostess and maybe we'll get an actual date in a week or two.  And there were vigorous cheers for our hash heroes, with no booing because it was an inarguably GREAT TRAIL, with shortcuts and everything.

This is not a usual part of the hash, although that it didn't make any sense was entirely in keeping with hash tradition.
And Oral A. missed a runner or two on the roll call -- the sort of thing that almost never happens -- and in retaliation, two red devils, with horns and eery grins and satin capes and pitchforks and even a tail (just one tail between the two of them as far as I could tell), appeared out of the dark night reeking of sulfur (or something - they certainly reeked) and called down curses and imprecations about the assembled multitude, and threatened and garbled and sang off-color ditties (off-key as well) and recounted the sins of the GFH3 at great length.  And then Oral A. double-checked his roll and realized he'd missed Ole Fud and Strac, both celebrating their runs number 666.  Yikes!  A little more care with the roll and we might have been spared this late-night terror.

Has anyone volunteered to host Ghanarrhea when he shows up in June?  Please do.  And feel fabulously free to take a peek at the pix if you please.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

GFH3 Run #1,696; 8 May 2013

We must be brave, and face some facts.  This hash is not much good at following directions, finding trails, or, often, running.  It is also kind of lousy at adjusting to change.  Every year, when we switch from Saturdays to Wednesdays, and every year when we switch back again, we get a week or two of light attendance and a couple dozen people pulling up the website two days late to the realization -- d'oh -- they missed it.  Add a light drizzle from cloudy skies, and you get 19 people, the true hash elite, showing up in Reston for what may be (oh, woe) our last hash from Bobby, Lust in Space and Put Away Wet's place.

Hares in the rain, wondering what's happened to the hounds.

That's right, along with deep confusion over the trail markings (Put Away Wet:  "The X's mean... 'Don't... go here.'"), which sent Chip Off the Old Dick back onto trail to sweep at about 8:00pm, we got the frightful news that the Wet family is decamping to New England, trading their townhouse for acres of pasturage and horses.  This is what comes of this government budget-cutting:  people get tempted with early retirement offers, and whoosh.  They're off to the mountains.

In this case, they're off with a bang, or at least a loud plop, as the rain (PAW and COtOD got caught in a thunderstorm while setting in the afternoon) turned the ground to super-slippery clay that gave the hashers a bit of trouble.  But there was more trouble from the trail itself; Rrocks Starr actually phoned in for help at a point where the pack could find nothing but Xs, and got a rescue mission from LiS.  Even once put right, they couldn't stay right, and spent way longer out in the gloaming than their hares expected.

So the pizza got cold, but what's cold pizza?  No one cares if the pizza's cold!  And the beer was already cold, and the beverages, both adult and not-so, were plentiful, and the tarpaulin protecting the wood floors allowed everyone to relax.  And Bobby showed us his new saddle, which was made in England.  Tactfully, no one told the pack Phoenix Rising's explanation for why he had no trouble with the trail markings while the rest of the hash had nothing but trouble:  "They're stupid.  I'm not."

You don't need to be careful coming down the hill if there's a beer cooler at the bottom (to stop your slide).

The Mufti is still feeling a bit beat (and beaten up by his physical therapist, sadly), so he didn't join us, though one hears rumors of cane-assisted mobility.  Maybe next week.  The Associate Mufti was watching other people exercise over by the Navy Yard.  That means I, entrusted with the official roll for the second time this lifetime, called the count.  Don made double 1s, and Lori double 6s, and everyone cheered like crazy for the Wet family.  PAW actually claims she will still be visiting, as company hq is here, but what about LiS?  And Bobby?  Oh, Bobby.  We will miss you terribly.

But we'll be able to write, phone and visit as we have updated contact info in the hash directory!  That's right, I'm updating the directory all day every day, in preparation for distributing paper and e-copies at the Anniversary Hash, which will take place... someday.  Probably in June.  So please see me the next time you see me and double-check that, unlike Rrocks Starr, we don't have a seriously outdated work phone  number listed for you.

Oh, and sign up to host, would you please?  We need a hero next week, although the May slots are going fast.  This is clearly the most...

Click here if you'd like to see more blurry pictures.

FORGOT TO MENTION!!  GHANARRHEA (really, the things you people come up with) IS VISITING IN JUNE AND NEEDS A PLACE TO STAY.  If you can offer him a bed, couch or pile of dirty laundry in the corner of the basement for the night(s) of Monday 24 June, Tuesday 25 June, Wednesday 26 June or any combination thereof, he promises not to review your guest room harshly on Yelp.  Please let the Mufti or me know if you can be hospitable.

Saturday, May 4, 2013

GFH3 Run #1,695; 4 May 2013

A beautiful, warm, sunny spring day may not be what some think of as quintessential hash weather, but it makes a great tribute to our founder, Last Call.  So while the 25 of us gathered on the Duck Sucker and Queen Cobra 's tennis court by Scott's Run held heavy hearts, the sorrow was tempered with joy in the 31-year old tradition he granted us, the friends around us, and the chance to dash about in the woods on a beautiful day.  Queen Cobra requested a moment of silence, and then dedicated today's run to Last Call, receiving a heartfelt "ON ON" and much lifting of caps from the group.

In a way, every GFH3 run is dedicated to Last Call, 1936-2013.
And as I understand it, LC was a fan of hilly terrain, so this was a fitting course to dedicate to him.  The walkers got a free pass -- "try to stay out for an hour," was about all QC instructed -- but the runners had a trail that almost immediately sent them off the established path and into bushwhack territory.  Of course, you can't get far in Scott's Run without bumping into some kind of path, so they bounced between the two a bit.  There was a slightly diabolical scramble down a steep hill (rather cliff-like, actually) to a creek crossing.  Air Horn traversed that latter via the most sensible path, upstream a bit to the big, dry rocks, having previous experience of the wetter downstream crossing wherein he caught a bit of water-moss or rock-slime that knocked him on his coccyx.

Do you think the phrase, "Kill the hare" was in anyone's mind at this point?
The Duck Sucker was able to disclaim all responsibility for the trail, as it was entirely QC's setting, but it turns out he knew in advance about the more-than-slightly-diabolical backcheck 18.  Funny how these things work out -- Easy Strider caught that one, as did Dave, coming along a bit later.  Doesn't that suggest that someone neglected to mark the trail?!?

Easy Strider got his, though, as he, Suck Squeeze Bang and Chip Off the Old Dick lost true trail and wound up short-cutting.  No doubt they will tell you they ran just as far as the non-shortcutters, but I believe that if you come to the On In through the woods and you were supposed to come up the driveway, you are a short-cutter.  Admittedly, they didn't save much time, but they were nonetheless seated, with beers and burgers, by the time the others strolled by the Mufti Parking Only sign and in through the front gate.

The burgers were courtesy of Patty, hashing (or cooking for same) for the first time at her sister's.  She does great work, and left QC free to hostess at a very high standard, personally serving people and taking burger/dog counts to be cooked to order.  Later there were brownies, also the result of Patty's efforts, so yay Patty.

Despite the parking place prepared for him, the Mufti did not join us -- was this elective surgery? -- on orders of the Money Bitch, living up to one part of her name.  But Bionic Babe did make it, bringing a get-well card for the Mufti for everyone to sign.  No one else had brought one, figuring that everyone else would.  You know how that works.

Seriously -- was this elective surgery?
Oral Advocate pitched in on roll call, opening with a heavy-heartfelt elegy for Last Call.  If I tell you it contained frequent iterations of the phrase, "fat ass," that makes it sound less sincere and respectful than it was.  He turned the figurative mike over to Ole Fud, who memorialized his friend and fellow West Pointer with eloquence and grace.  More cap tipping and many, many "hip hip ON ON"s rang through the McLean evening.

The roll call also revealed four first timers, so welcome, Patty, Tim, Katey and John.  And it revealed the double 1s and the double 5s, both in Rrock Starr's run count.  Isn't it wonderful to have RS back from the wicked west coast?  Oral Advocate also closed out the fall/winter/early spring season, on behalf of the missing Mufti, and opened the late spring/summer season, which begins on WEDNESDAY at Put Away Wet, Lust in Space and Bobby's.  If I don't make it, someone please chase that kid for me.

You may have to squint a bit and peer in at some of these photos, as there are several where the subjects were well screened by trees or rocks or were up kind of higher than the camera likes.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Request from the Gurr Family

Please let me or Ole Fud know if you plan on attending John Gurr's memorial service Sunday.  His family is trying to get a rough headcount in advance of the event.  If you could let one of us know today, that would be great.


The Founder Hasher, 1936-2013

To contact us:  Ole Fud's and my contact info are both correct in the Hash directory; even if you don't have a copy you probably got an e-mail from me on Tuesday and therefore have my e-mail address.  If you don't, you probably know someone who does.  If you're comfy doing so, you could also leave a comment here or on the Facebook page.  Thanks!