Welcome to the 35th edition of the screaming pages Thursday Thirteen.

I work at a college and many of my co-workers are off for the summer.  Others are splitting their vacation time between summer and winter months.  Unfortunately for me, summer is my busy season at work and it doesn’t tend to calm down around here for me until later in the fall and mid-spring.  So, while all my co-workers are busy bouncing around Mexico, California and Europe or lounging around at the lake or cottage, I’m stuck in my office.  But there’s other things I’d rather be doing…

Thirteen things I’d rather be doing today… Camping in the mountains.  I miss the days – before the monstrous gas prices and crazy summer work schedule – when we would load up the RV and drive off to the Rocky mountains for a week or two. Fishing at Pelican Pouch in Lake-of-the-Woods.  I always catch the most fish there. Backpacking through Europe. Re-organizing my office/library.  I need to comb through the area to make sure I have room for next semester’s books. Finish the front yard work.  The ugly ass half-dead hedge has been torn out but we still need to plant new (smaller and nicer, juniper most likely) bushes and install the decorative rock.  After that, we need to tackle the severely diseased tree in the yard.  I think the previous home owners had the same shade of green thumb that I have – black! I can’t believe I’m writing this, but I’d rather be reading my course textbooks and working on my papers (2) that are due soon. Sit on my deck in the backyard with some lemonade, my textbooks and my laptop. Grocery shopping.  The cupboards are pretty depleted and I would like to eat this week. Determine what I’m getting Loxley for her birthday next week.  She wants something home-made (like Christmas) but I’m not sure I can top that.  Well, that and I don’t have that many free hours to spend working on her present – see #’s 6 and 7 re: pending papers and upcoming due dates. Groom the dogs and cats. Go for a walk through the river valley. SLEEP!  I’m exhausted today. Not really sure why. Cooking.  I used to cook frequently but got thrown out of the kitchen by a cooking fiend (the hubby) and was never really interested in going back.  Every once in a while I get into a mood to cook.  If I wait long enough, it usually passes *grin*.  Today, I wouldn’t mind spending a day in the kitchen cooking.  Mostly, I just want to make food to freeze so that we have a tonne of ready made meals available for the times when I don’t want to cook. Get the Thursday Thirteen code here! The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted! View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Caught up with an old friend over dinner tonight. Boo and I used to work together at the evil empire. We were joined with fellow escapes Loxley and P (and P’s family). It’s been a few months since we’ve had a chance to hang out and I’m pretty sure the roads were still coating in ice and snow at the time. Today was extra special as we had something to celebrate – her shiny new raise!

On Saturday night we ended the evening with a bbq. Loxley arrived just as we’d finished eating. During the meal a storm broke out and water pooled along our canvas gazebo cover. We were still sitting on the deck hours after we’d finished eating when the devil decided to act through J. While Drew was distracting Loxley and I by pretending to push out the water collected in the gazebo (which we all knew was going to land on Loxley’s back), J grabbed a wooden spoon and actually pushed the water down on her. After the screaming subsided – apparently the water was very cold at 11pm – Drew picked up the monster water dish we had outside for the dogs and pretended to throw it at J. J’s reflexes were quicker and she dumped half of the contents of the dish on Drew. He then threw the rest of the water at J. While she was soaked some of the water was diverted onto Loxley. The clothes that hadn’t been soaked by the dousing from above were swamped with water from Drew’s antics.

Loxley has been known to wait years to get her revenge. Drew and J should be wary!

The fun doesn’t end there. This evening many of us were sitting around in contractor R’s backyard (not the same R from the previous Jr. High entry) when V decided that watering the lawn wasn’t entertaining enough for her. She promptly hosed down me, then moved on to L and Drew. When R finished saying goodnight to his grand-kids and packing them off home, V caught him in the walkway between their garages. He snuck into the house and filled a large bucket with shampoo and water. Creeping around into V’s backyard, he threw 1/2 the bucket’s contents onto her as she had sat down to relax. L laughed so hard he claimed to have nearly pee’d himself. Always generous, R offered her the bucket and its remnants to spash onto him.

V claims to be patient. I think we’re all in trouble.

Me, I had to go in and change

We didn’t think to grab the camera and get some photos of the ugliness that was our old garage. Normally the boys take photos of their builds but photographing demolitions isn’t the norm. By the time we remembered to take photos the roof was already off of the garage. We managed to snap this one of the back before the battery ran out on the camera.

L pounding out what remains of the roof. Not sure where everyone else is…

It looked much worse from the front than the back. While the shingles covering the back were painted white, the ones covering the sides and front were a faded grey. That’s right – 50 year old shingles covered all four sides of the garage. The roof were hideous red shingles that were curling up everywhere. The door was a dented burgundy monstrosity. Anyone who has seen it has no doubt why I’d dubbed it the ugliest garage in Edmonton.

Since we had the flat bed trailer in the yard already the boys decided to take down the garage in segments and pile it onto the flat bed to take to the dump. As they took the parts down, they placed them onto the trailer. What didn’t fit ended up in a pile in the middle of the old garage pad.

T (L’s son), contractor R, Drew, J and L surveying the remains of the garage.

Before they began tearing down the garage, the boys gerry-rigged a new fence to keep our dogs in. L devised a way to put up our old gate so we could continue to access the back alley from our backyard. He figured since we’d be a small construction zone for a few weeks we should make the temporary fence and gates as strong as possible. There’s a good view of L’s handiwork in the photo below.

J, T, contractor R, and L

While they didn’t end up salvaging as much as they could have, the boys did make a large pile of wood to chop up for firewood and a secondary pile of wood that L wanted to use for carpentry projects. Aside from woodsheds and flower pots, L’s been making accent tables for people in the neighbourhood in his spare time. L cut up a chunk of the wood and all of the neighbourhood firewood stores were filled. After overloading E&V’s, contractor R’s, and our woodsheds they filled 3/4 of the back of T’s truck. Apparently there’s still more they need to cut up and distribute.

The morning after.

When the boys headed off to the dump on Sunday morning to drop off the first load of detritus, I toddled into the alley to take photos of the remaining demo pile and old garage pad.

All gone.

It rained poured all day on Sunday and the ground was just too wet for the boys to dig out the sides and start cribbing. Sure, if we’d hired them they’d have worked with minimal complaint. Since the labour was all working for food and drinks we didn’t expect them to work during the downpours. It would have been silly to expect anyone to work during thunderstorms when we could all hide out in L&J’s garage across the alley and play darts.

I swear Drew was a mouse in another life.  His plans always go awry.  After we’d brough the flat bed trailer to the alley and the boys started gathering the equipment to jack up the garage – F decides he doesn’t want it after all.  Always resourceful, L and T came up with a method of chopping it up so that the pieces will fit on the trailer (tarped and tied down) and the whole mess – whatever isn’t salvaged for firewood – is being hauled out to the dump as I type.  They’ll need two trips to get rid of everything but it does look like the cribbing will still be completed later this afternoon.

While that’s going on, I need to get fresh baked bread for sandwhiches and lots of juice and water.  Have a great day everyone.