Hares: Ariane
Juzen, Ewa Mobus et Froggy
On-In: Tavern du Sandy
Scribe: Christine Hinz
After having barely recovered from DB2’s horrendous
hash the week before, I was looking forward to the opportunity to “Storm the
Castle” at Ariane, Froggy and Ewa’s annual Bastille Day Run and Cow Parade (Remerciez
un dieu que je n'ai pas dû porter un costume du vache ce soir – Thank god I
didn’t have to wear a cow costume this evening!).
I knew great treats were in store, since Ewa had
already distributed a link to a rather informative web site on the history of
Bastille Day, complete with facts about the French Monarchy and the First
Republic; Liberty, Democracy and the struggle against Oppression; as well as the
Man in the Iron Mask (who did time in the Bastille) and inside knowledge on
just how easy it is to actually storm the Bastille (Seven out of eight attempts
in history succeeded!!).
When I arrived at the start, it appeared that we
were planning our own storming of the L’Alliance Francaise on 60th
Street, with bystanders staring at us as if we were Guilliani’s henchmen
determined to firmly take back the city to its original Police State. But alas, after telling some lewd French
jokes, discussing the weather and strewing our bags all along the Fifth to
Madison Avenue corridor, the only thing that the public had to worry about was
the possibility of a bomb in one of our bags (Hmmm, have I just fallen upon yet
another possible breach in our nation’s security efforts against
terrorism?). Maybe, but we took off
towards Central Park nonetheless.
This was probably the first summer run where we felt
the full-on effects of those fair-weather hashers who only run in the
mid-summer, when the beer tastes colder and the partying is hardier. This evening, several virgin women were so
enthusiastic about the hash, that they immediately began calling up all their
friends and family on their cell phone during the run, to encourage immediate
and future participation. Disgusted, I
decided to leave them hanging at a “back cow check” by not calling “on-on” (or
“moo-moo,” as others were doing), and had hoped to leave them stranded behind
at the Central Park Zoo. Unfortunately, those Nokia’s must have a homing
device, because they managed to get back on trail rather effortlessly.
As part of the Cow Parade, we ran past virtually ALL
of the cows currently taking over New York City. (Quel beaucoup de vaches!) This was quite helpful, or
harmful, depending how you looked at it.
At one point, for instance, Dave Long and I were lost without a clue (sans
indice), on Sixth Avenue. We had
seen the “storming herd” heading West on another back cow check, however, when
we sheepishly followed, we found nothing -- rien. Our strategy was to head over to Rock
Center, in hopes of finding another cow…and the trail, but twenty minutes
later, we were back at the check retracing our steps and finally found
ourselves running through Bryant Park and its eponymous Café – past les
vaches et les taureaus in a virtual meat market of modern husbandry (Translation:
it looked like a pretty swinging happy hour.).
We were then led to the front of the New York Public
Library, the original site of the evening’s long-awaited milk check (Prenez-vous
le lait?). My assumption is that les
lapins attempt to storm the Library were stymied, and the check was
relegated to somewhere along Third Avenue.
But this was not to happen before a check at the base of Park Avenue,
yet another “back cow check” in which we had to count 12 cows back to try to
find the trail. This is where my second
attempt to thwart the cell phone virgins was foiled – I only half-mistakenly
pointed them in the wrong direction, but someone else lent them a hand, and
eventually, like the rest of us, they made it to the on-in at Sandy’s Tavern.
Sandy’s has a bad reputation for le baiser des
hashers, however this evening seemed fine.
Beer was plentiful, and the staff was rather accepting of our
commemoration of cows and other things French.
Baguettes of turkey, French Brie et d’autres frommages were
handed out – along with down-downs (les bas-bas).
First up were hares Ariane, Froggy and Ewa, followed
by the virgins and cell phone babes named Caroline, Wendy, Kathryn and a guy
named Rian. Then John Burke was called
up to sport les oreilles de lapin in which he looked très debonnaire,
followed by Sucks-After-Dark (Suce Ensuite L'obscurité) for his
French regalia and Sarah, who won the Barry Cohen award after running into a
tree (Ouch! Ce mal!). Then Diane was called up to pay back her $1 debt
from the week before, and finally, Mr. Andanov was awarded the
Asshole-of-the-Week for being found in a potentially compromising position at
Mark’s place on a recent hot summer evening. (Zut alors! Je n'ai pas su qu'il
était gai!)
It was getting late when I finally finished up my
conversation about my male chest hair fetish with Burke and succumbed to les
overtures of a drunken Fluffy, agreeing to share a cab ride back to
Brooklyn...I’m living to tell the tale, but mon dieu, l'injustice
d'elle tout!!
Notez,
s’il vous plait: French translations provided by http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/translate.dyn
-- check it out!