The sidequests for this week included going for a walk around the neighborhood, selling or donating something I don’t use anymore, and reading a chapter form a new book.

The book one was a little hard in interpreting – does the book only need to be new to me? Or new as in just recently published? But since I’ve still got my BOTM subscription, I decided to read my book from the previous month, so that would make it both new to me and a book published in April of this year. I started reading The Husbands by Holly Gramazio, and finished reading it by Wednesday night. I enjoyed it a lot, but we’ll see what I still remember when I do my reading write up at the beginning of next year.

I finally decided to put my treadmill on facebook’s marketplace. Mostly I had been putting it off because I dislike interacting with people, but I haven’t used the treadmill in over a year and I don’t keep myself on it for any significant amount of time when I do use it. I have better luck just going to a gym. (although admittedly, I haven’t done that in a long while either)

It was only up for a few days, with a couple of people expressing interest, but mostly they just kept asking me to bring the price down. Finally found a person that seemed interested in looking at it in person and said that he didn’t intend to ask for me to reduce the price, but when I went to eat with my parents for Sunday, they offered to buy it instead. I apologized to the guy, collected the money from my parents, and then helped Dad get it into and out of his truck and situated at their house. Then I showed them how to use it. My Dad kept saying he felt more comfortable having it because Mom likes to go for walks, which made him worry. Lots of people in our town own dogs that they don’t keep very well contained, so it’s not unusual to see some happy-go-lucky fucker waltzing around enjoying some freedom. Most times they’re friendly, and it’s not like dog attacks are common place. But I have seen a few while living here, and Dad has had to fend off an aggressive dog on his walks before, hence his apprehension.

Don’t know if it will get much more use, but Mom does like to walk.

I also did sort through a few drawers and come up with some more clothes to donate, though I haven’t taken them to Goodwill yet.

And then the last one – for for a walk around the neighborhood. Rather than going around the neighborhood, I decided to walk down to a neighborhood feature I never realized was there before. On my drive to work, there is a park that is tucked in behind some houses. I only started using this route to drive to work once I moved into my current home, so I was unaware that the park existed. It’s usually abandoned, though still semi-maintained with the grass being mown regularly. It’s actually very expansive too – when I started walking along its length, I realized that it actually extended all the way back up towards my house. It kind of awkwardly looks into a lot of people’s backyards, and the entrances to the park are very narrow. There are a lot of places were water obviously stands after it rains.

And despite the regular grass cutting, the actual equipment isn’t maintained. The benches rusting, and the playground equipment looked like it was rusting as well, even though I think it had been plastic at one point. The swings were pretty good though. A bit further back was a tennis court, but the metal fencing on one end was completely absent, and there was no net. Even further back was some more tall metal fencing, but I couldn’t tell the purpose – maybe at one point it had been part of a baseball field? Closer to the ditch, set under some trees was some concrete. I think maybe a picnic bench may have sat there before, but now it was just a random patch of concrete in the shade. I didn’t see anyone else, just a rabbit and dogs in their back yards.

I suppose there would almost be some temptation to blame the condition on kids not wanting to go outside anymore, but in this case I think it was purely poor positioning. The park is tucked so awkwardly behind people’s houses that you feel a little like you’re out of place or invading privacy. I’ve lived near this neighborhood since I was a kid and didn’t even know the park was back there. Despite the size of the grounds, there’s zero parking available. And there’s plenty of other play options in our neighborhood, which has two elementary schools. So it just sits back, out of sight, out of mind.

The week was fairly quiet otherwise – due to work scheduling, it ended up being a 6 day work week, and I spent the day off cleaning. I did get a response from my penpal and have already mailed a reply.