Wednesday June 12, 2013  update #480 

Sad news received this morning.  Jill’s mother-in-law, Dorothy, has just been diagnosed with Stage 4 lung, stomach and spine cancer.  Poor Dodie has been a recluse for the past year no doubt dealing with her pain.  Darn cancer anyway!  Hasn’t it caused us all enough heartache and pain.   Where are all these cures that they supposedly have?  There was even a report that the U of A had found a miracle cure….

More bad news today…  Our Coopera Credit Union in Cuenca has been closed and is under liquidation by the Banking Superintendent, supposedly for money-laundering, the same reason they closed down the Banco Territorial earlier.  Everything I have managed to read indicates that we should be able to recover our deposits and we certainly hope it is as easy as the last one.  I guess we should make sure our deposits are always diversified and guaranteed.

I uploaded some photos for sale today and did other chores before going out to finish sealing the rain barrel crack.  Hopefully it will hold the pressure of a full load.

After cleaning up I headed in to visit Mom about 2:45 and she was more than eager to go for a ride so we headed south.  I cut off the highway through DeWinton and had a real leisurely drive so she could comment on all the lilacs in bloom.  She still had a fixation about groves of trees being too thick, or just right.  When turned back onto 2A heading to Okotoks we just went slowly in the emergency lane then turned right to get some rich country flavour and enjoy the horses, cows, and views of the Rockies.  We even went into D’Arcy Ranch Golf Club on the off chance there might be some deer around but no such luck.

Then we drove across town and she recognized that we were headed to our home.  The grass had been freshly cut so the place looks quite nice.  On the way out I always automatically look at the ravine behind the mail boxes and was rewarded with our first sighting of a deer in our neighbourhood.   Gosh I miss those guys.

We both had been craving more Wings so we went over to Foxy’s where Bev and Jocelyn always look after us so well.  We ordered 30 wings and Mom did her best to help me out and we picked those plates clean.

After getting Mom back home I decided to drop in on our friends Lorne & Mary and was fortunate to catch them at home.   They both look great, as do all of our friends here.   It must be the good clean Alberta air here.   We had a nice visit and chatted about many things and Lorne offered me a blue rainbarrel, available Friday, that I could easily put under the south downspout off our deck.   From the sounds of it I will have to doctor it up much like the other barrel.

That was today’s excitement.   Cheers, Al

Please see all new photos at http://souvenircuenca.blogspot.com/