Chapter 275

I woke up fairly early, I wasn’t hungover per se but felt like my body had metabolized a few alcoholic drinks. I ate hard-boiled eggs and some of the apple sauce my coworker gave me just before we left the office two days ago, it’s awesome, some good chunky pile of crushed apples perfectly seasoned with cinnamon.

I did a bit of writing, and also wrote for my French-language travel blog. I talked about one segment from this summer’s road trip, the time we went from Shanxi province to Inner Mongolia. I proofread it before putting it online, and the quality wasn’t quite up to par, these days I obviously write way more in English and that is to the detriment of my French writing. It isn’t bad, just that it lacks the spontaneity and flow of the other pieces I’ve penned for that blog, some of which I’m very proud of.

Then we headed to the hash meeting point, a 15-minute walk away. It was pretty damn hot, and the streets were deserted, compared with early morning and after dark, when the dog walkers and old people come out in droves. About twenty people showed up, including the visitors from other kennels, one of whom brought a huge golden retriever who found our small dog very cute and constantly tugged on his leash, almost sending his tiny owner flying. We had a pre-trail beer, warmed up, and started walking. It was a city hash, with a lot of overlap with other trails we’ve done in the past obviously, but as an excuse to go out, move a bit, have silly conversations and day drink, it does the trick.

We had the circle at the entrance of the park, close enough so that the humorless shurgwaydinger would bug us and tell us dogs aren’t allowed there, but still outside the gate so that couldn’t really do anything about it other than sneer and make snide comments. We picked up every morsel of garbage as per HHH ethos (hashers, not trashers) and to deny him every single reason to bitch. Then we walked a few blocks south and had a big drunken feast at the Japanese restaurant, followed by more drinks at the hash bar. I’ll go back to a very moderate or non-existent alcohol consumption, only letting myself go as a treat from time to time.