Weekend work in the garage

It’d been on my mind’s backburner to get the garage to where it is a working garage, meaning that I at least have a table at which I can work. We’ve been in our house almost 5 years now and my “working” space has been limited to approximately 24-inches on a 12-inch wide storage shelf.

On Saturday afternoon, Maly and I dropped Elise off at the dress shop so she could get her bride’s maid dress altered. I’m lucky I remember that much of what it is that she did. I ordinarily would have just assumed that women meet in strip malls on Saturday’s to watch Oprah together.

Maly and I drove over to the HoPot, grabbed one of those honkin’ haulin’ carts and started loading up lumber and hardware. After approximately 20 seconds in the hardware department, Maly started reorganizing things to fit her style. So while I was trying to find 30 different pieces of specific hardware for one project that I’m working on, Maly managed to rearrange and misplace who knows how many lag bolts, hex nuts, washers and other various lengths and dimensions of otherwise meticulously-managed hardware.

Elise walked from the dress shop to the HoPot and managed to get there in time to distract Maly while I finished shopping. Much to my surprise, we left the HoPot with $104 worth of lumber and hardware.

I spent the rest of the afternoon building a much-needed work bench.

Shortly after I was done with my workbench, Maly awoke from her nap and it was time to head out to Angela’s fiancee’s birthday party. We braved the traffic and crowds of ACL Fest and found parking just at the front door of Green Mesquite. We asked the bartender where the birthday party was. He informed us that they hadn’t arrived yet. We were a little perplexed as we were 45 minutes late.

We grabbed a picnic table on the patio, ordered a couple beers and dinner for Maly. Maly wolfed down her brisket as a true Texan should, and we waited some more. Still no birthday party people. We inquired with our waitress if the party had been canceled. She confirmed that no one had called to cancel. Elise and I had another beer and ordered dinner.

No party ever showed. We stuffed our faces with barbecue, watched Maly chase ladybugs and birds and listened to some good Texas country music from whoever the hell it was playing at the Green Mesquite last night.

We stopped at the HoPot on the way home so I could pick up some more lumber to finish off my workbench and to build a little chair for the little desk that I made for her earlier this year.

I worked in the garage until midnight, and spent the better part of today working in the garage, getting things to where I think I finally want them to be.

I was pulled away for a while so I could mow the yard and cook porkchops for dinner. It was this evening when I think my grill that I inherited from my dad finally crapped out on me; not so much crapped out as I think it’s become a volatile fire hazard. To end my weekend, I’m going to start shopping a new grill for a Christmas present for yours truly.