first friday

Yesterday was the first Friday of August 2022. We started the day with a hike through Armentrout. We've technically been here twice before. The first time I forgot leashes and after retrieving them from back home got lost on the return trip and wound up walking a different park. The second time we did a short stroll around the large equestrian loops.

We spent this trip connecting over to Camp Woods and circling through there back to Armentrout. I forgot their walking leashes but had the extendo ones in the bag, so we made do. It's nice to stretch out with the space mostly to ourselves. We passed several uprooted trees, including one near enough to the path I thought I'd try to get Dany to pose for a picture. I confused her, then startled myself realizing there was a photographer behind the root ball. We waved and smiled, a friendly reminder we don't have the space entirely to ourselves, then continued on our walk. I looked back from farther up the trail and it seemed he was taking pictures of mushrooms growing on the tree, which I didn't get to see for myself.

We napped, and I ran some errands then took the train two stops over for First Friday festivities. I spent time in the beer garden with a family that runs a local brewery then split off with neighbors from the next town over. The five of us walked across the street to a plaza to catch the end of a breakdancing performance then down to a basement brewpub for a pint. A soloist played piano and sang, and I got to know two of the neighbors I'd just met in the beer garden. They told me about their dog, and we shared pictures and phone numbers.

I missed the return train and hailed a car. I had the routes reversed on the timetable and planned around a train going the wrong direction. That train rolled through while I waited, and I thought that at least anybody in earshot with an obscured line of sight would assume I made it onboard the train I said I would, and I'd be spared anybody ever knowing the mistake I made. It started raining lightly on the ride home. As we arrived the driver answered a call from the next passenger on speakerphone, who explained they'd been in an accident and were waiting at a gas station with their dog for an officer to arrive to make a report. That's all I could glean as I stepped slowly out of the car and into the rain, but it sounded like the dog was OK.