Hash Trash BHHH2 Run #1354 Pura Ukur Ukuran Pejeng

And Lo, It Pisseth Down

for 40 Minutes and 40 Seconds on the Way to the Hash (or: Spook’s Birthday Special)

There is a different and dramatic license and tone taken in Biblical proverbs and parabolas (is that the right spelling?) when relating rain and flooding incidents, for example, in the Old Testicle (is that?). Time and tide are on a totally different and epic scale: What if a 45 year-old Noah, an insurance adjuster from Wollongong, who was a 900 year-old Sage and Shaman in the Good Book, had whipped out his brolly during a light shower and gone on his way whistling a happy tune rather than building a bloody great rudderless wooden boat and filling it with the contents of the Galillee County Zoo to float aimlessly to the top of Mt. Arafat, Araby, Arrowroot, Krakafat? What if Jesus (New Testicle) had gone for a pleasantly cool early evening stroll in the desert instead of staggering deliriously around in the sun without a hat muttering to himself and having hallucinations for a couple of months? Not the stuff of stirring tales or revelations in The Book of Nukes or something, no? No. That’s what I thought.

Yea verily I say unto thee, last Saturday on the way to the Hash it absolutely chucked it down, we were doing maybe 45k and creating water skiing-like plumes along The Most Venerable One I.B. Mantra Road. It didn’t really let up until we got to the Hash site. Fortunately, once it stopped it didn’t start again all through the Hash and the circle (it was prophesied, well, I did mention to Hardcase and Dynamo, my hosts on the ride up, that the deluge would abate as soon as we arrived. What a Seer I am. Please do not sneer, jeer or leer at the Seer. I have no peer, dear, no bloody fear).

And so it came to pass having gathered at Puri Ukur Ukur car park we set out on a pilgrimage across the paddys, thanking the Good Lord that we didn’t go in the opposite direction with the ridiculously perpendicular valley walls and the 500 step flagstone staircase, either or both of which at this slippery and slimy time of year would have heralded our passing on to eternal life at the right (or left) hand (foot?) of Jesus. I wouldn’t know where to stand or sit, really. So, just as well we didn’t go.

The rice paddys begat a dirt trail, the dirt trail begat some stone steps (not THE stone steps), those stone steps begat some other stone steps until finally, gord blimey, there we were all milling around once again scratching ourselves – digression alarm – barrp, barrp, barrp (do you remember that great Divinyl’s hit from the 80’s, “I Scratch Myself”, wait, no that was “I Touch Myself”). Anyway, just like last week with the X’s in the circle, if you have been following the story so far, we yep, scratched ourselves practically raw trying to figure out where the paper went, staring at a concrete weir arrangement that was semi – blocked with broken branches, bamboo, small tree trunks, small trees, cows etc. that had been washed down stream by the recent downpour and resulting flash flood.

Water from the overflowing stream was rushing down either side of the concrete canal banks making it impossible or extremely dangerous to walk on them. On the opposite side of the stream were more ascending flagstone steps, which many Hashers had decided to climb to see if paper had been laid on them. It hadn’t (more scratching). It took discussion, phone calls, rumination, poetry readings, Hare cursings, wailing, sack cloth and ashes wearing before we finally figured out that the paper must have been washed away on one side of the stream, thus there was little choice other than to double back to the site or take the opposite flagstones to the top, turn left and proceed parallel to the river valley to pick up the paper at some point that the Hares would have emerged from it to continue the trail. Geniuses, Really Stable Geniuses – and it only took us a few hours. Just kidding, we’re still at the river, scratching (har).

We did stumble on the paper eventually and the rest of the run was cool, pleasant and scenic. At one point Mt. Agung appeared magically clear on the horizon with a wispy curlicue of smoke emerging from its crater. There’s one thing you can say about Organ Grinder as a Hare. Nothing is a secret, if there’s a split it’s a split that’s visible from Alpha Centauri. Every so often he reminds you in no uncertain terms that you’re on the long or short with the subtle nuance of a brick and tile bi-plane. Take note Hares, I beg of you.

Yea tho’ I walk through the valley of the shadow of Trump, I will not be discomfited by his rod and staff, which is probably about the size of an averagely level-headed shirt button. The circle was as wildly hilarious a piss up as you’d find in the back blocks of Pejeng on a Saturday night AND let’s not forget the whole thing, run included, was to celebrate Spook’s birthday. May 4 score and 10 years be a distant memory for him when he finally goes to that great beer truck in the sky.

On on,

J.B.