Just a quick post this morning before I head out to San Antonio to mark today’s Hash trail. Given the beer that will be consumed afterward, it’s a safe bet that this is one of those now-or-never situations, so here goes.

I confined myself exclusively to Hideaway Bar last night, which is noteworthy in and of itself, but sometimes events warrant sticking around. I was surprised to see Marvin seated at the bar–I’d never seen him in Hideaway previously. Marvin is one of the more interesting old-timers around town, but he spends half his time in Manila, so it is a relatively rare event to be in the same place at the same time. But as I pointed out to him last night, this was the third time in four days we were drinking in the same establishment–Mangos, IDM, and now HIdeaway)–and that there is a name for that kind of coincidence: stalking. Of course, he noted that he was the first to arrive at Hideaway, which made me the stalker.

In due course, the food from Jewel Cafe was delivered:

After the feeding, it was pretty much your standard night at Hideaway until Marvin and his bargirl (I can’t remember her name, I just call her the crazy one) got up to dance. Marvin impressed me with his slow country moves, and Crazy did a nice job following his lead. Well, I also fancy myself a bit of a country dancer, so I drug Joy out to the improvised dance floor to make it a foursome. It felt a bit like the good ol’ days back in Arkansas. Joy gets dizzy when I put the spin moves on her, so naturally, I can’t resist spinning her around frequently. We sat down after the first song, but Marvin and Crazy continued putting on a show.

I got distracted for a bit, but then I heard someone exclaim, “He fell!” I jumped up and rushed to the other side of the bar, where I saw Marvin down on his knees, attempting to assist Crazy, who was unconscious! I assumed she had passed out (she’s a heavy drinker) and hit her head, but Marvin said she had an asthma attack and blacked out. Crazy wasn’t responding to our efforts to revive her, and I was worried about what might happen next (ambulances here are notoriously slow and not staffed with paramedics, and the trip to the nearest hospital would be another 30 minutes). When I heard it might be asthma, I pulled out the inhaler I always carry for my COPD and handed it to Marvin, who squirted a couple of hits into Crazy’s mouth. She responded to that very quickly, and I was relieved to see her open her eyes. We gave her another couple of squirts, and soon enough, she was sitting up again. By the time I left, she appeared to be back to normal, well, as normal as she gets. I’m not an expert, but I’m guessing the excessive alcohol consumption and the physical exertion of dancing triggered the asthma attack. I’m glad it ended as well as it did.

How’s that for excitement? Here’s hoping for a Hash event sans excitement this afternoon! Full report tomorrow.

Oh, we all need to take a stand and refuse to submit to this type of government abuse: