NYCH3 #1237
October 28, 2007
Hare: Birthday Boy Joe Pennsylvania
Start: 72nd and 2nd Ave.
On In: Bar East (90th and 1st Ave.)
Scribe: Blackout
Another doughty (or was that doubt-y?) trail set by our own trailmaster.
It was a smallish crowd (though really only compared to the summer throngs) that met on the sunny though chilly October Sunday. No surprise, Joe had his start on the Upper East Side. The trail no doubt would enter Central Park at some point, the only question was would the trail end on the east or west side? Of course some in the pack are much too sense of direction-lacking (read Lunch) to care about such matters. Chalk talk included two unorthodox statements:
1) There would be rice on trail. Rice? What is this, a birthday or a wedding hash?
2) A check to be solved only by Boston Red Sox fans (this particular day was the afternoon before the sweep). Um, as yours truly is no Yankee fan, I did not disapprove, but good luck finding a lot of BoSox fans in the pack…
The trail started wandering around the streets of the UES, eventually making its way to the East river, where the October wind was noticeably brisk. Eventually the trail wound westward, and yes indeed entered the park. Later on we found the rice marks, which were pretty damn hard to see. Luckily the pigeons and squirrels didn’t find it too edible, and after some hunting we made our way out of this section. Interesting experiment, all in all, but I think the best bet is to stick to flour, except perhaps when in big-box store parking lots.
After not too much longer in the park, we were dumped back out on the East Side again, and after some more meandering ended up at Bar East.
After the usual imbibery, the circle began:
– Joey for haring
– Joey again, plus DBB for their birthdays (rumor had it that DBB was getting a surprise birthday party later that night…hope the rumor didn’t spread to him)
– Visitors, about 3 or 4, including a gentleman from Frankfurt
– Virgins, 2, including a friend of the German (so did a frankfurter make him come?)
– Lunch got sent up for being caught as one of those crazy subway guys. Molly noticed someone frantically yelling near the subway exit “Help!, which way is north?”, before realizing it was Ed.
– The Saint for smashmouth-ing into some civilians on trail
– Steva for solving the BoSox fan check. Turns out the Brit’s excuse was he lived next to Fenway at some point
– Grace, Lauren, and Marie got down-downs for being the FRBs, or maybe it was a down-down to everyone in the room under 5’2”
– Grace got another down-down because not only was she one of the FRBs, she also managed to r*n straight past the on-in
– Assh*le of the Week: Joey Pennsylvania, for his unorthodox trail markings…as well as insulting FRB Lauren when she came in, asking her “What’s wrong, did you not finish the whole trail?”
The drinking continued, but the crowd grew restless as no pizza was seen for some time. Luckily yours truly, having skipped lunch for an excessive training r*n, bought a sandwich from deli next door immediately upon arriving at the on-in and so I was one of the few not grumbling at this point. Eventually the pizza did arrive, and in large quantities. The beer also continued for some indeterminate time from my limited point of view, since I left early. If you want to wax philosophical, in a way this is kind of like how we have no idea how big the universe actually is, because we can only see as far as the universe is old…that edge of vision is only the actual edge of the universe if we are exactly in the center of it. Uh, oh, I better stop now…
On-out.