Another episode of checking Monday night cloud cover at five o'clock -- this time successfully, although less so for the hares. Some hashers standing in the cold and damp at the start in shorts pretended to worry when Ewa said she had to reflour the beginning of (Roy's) trail while he had gone on to the end. You see, several Brooklyners have never had the pleasure of running an Ewa trail in New York. (By now) she knows what she's doing.

Another bloody New York runner who knows what he's doing by now is Keith, but he got down-downed for it. Running half a mile straight to the On-In before the first check! Honestly -- of course we all saw him go off shortcutting -- Geoff yelled after, "You'll get a down-down for it." First thing I asked when I got to the bar was if he'd guessed right (only slightly jealous -- being just possibly more spry, we all opted for the boot camp training instead). Suavely he replied "of course," although we all know the certitude of this phenomenon is not always the case.

Suavely also DB2 showed up for his postworkial preprandial libation at the local, confessing he had come from a need to, in his newly appointed Queens functions, secure all the starts till the next millennium lest the computers crash.

Enough of mere mortals. On to the trail. The trail was super. Out of the Park by dark. Christine did not take kindly to its circuitous uphill and downhill nature. I explained that's just how cross-country was. Ewa wanted to know was I really running again, otherwise how had I come in in under an hour. Well, if the bloody river hadn't got me cursing and getting Geoff to go away so he didn't see my novel style of river crossing, I might have explained that the less concrete, the more like running the out of shape footsies felt. That was it -- a great number of checks and loud onons keeping the pack together across any conceivable path and up the nearest mountain (now I didn't see the movie so I can't make a lousy joke here); the cardinal arriving late appearing at any moment behind me for the second hash in a row, and the inestimable pleasure of seeing Jeannie (the duck) and Janet (who's now moved, but not in a state to locate her shorts again). Down-downs in the garden -- we exchanged longs for smoke -- it was by then majorly freezing. Jeannie hadn't forgotten how to do hers, just when. I do hope her little baby finds someone else to take care of him on Monday nights long enough to let her run once in a while. As for everyone else, I am happy to report that they were their usual hasher selves and also that I like to keep my writeups short just like this run, although we began wondering after we got out of the park and passed every single Brooklyn bar in creation starting with Sparky's. Great run.