And to my surprise.....

The tire didn't cost me nearly as much as the clowns at Fountain Tire quoted me. I was in St. Albert on Friday after dropping Dev at work and had some yummy homemade burgers at mom and dad's. When I arrived there, there was a bed in the doorway. Ahhh, grandma wants another bed at her place so she can have a spare room for visitors. Moving more stuff to/from grans. Story of our life lately it seems. But that's ok. She knows what she wants.
After dropping the bed we thought we'd go see if they could find me a new tire seeing as I couldn't repair the old one. After a short wait we determined that my free tires courtesy of Marty last year were discontinued - hence the good deal when I bought them. So they selected a new one that would match and told me they would call when it was ready. So we went and had those delicious burgers and Canadian Tire called. The guy took a measurement of the tread depth on the damaged tire and worked out the warranty for road hazards. Turns out there was 0% wear on the tire and I just had to pay the difference.
$37 later I had a brand new tire on, and the little donut back in the trunk.
I'm just left to wonder if those jokers at Fountain Tire will reimburse me for the $40 they charged to fix the flat the first time (which clearly did not work). At least I know where to take my tires when I need repairs.

Loonie

Loonie .... yup, it sure is. I have been keeping an eye on the CAN/USD exchange rate, and saw our Canadian dollar take a record one-day drop to settle at 81 cents. It has really been bouncing up and down, but I want to buy some more American money for the Africa trip. Last time I was in I got about 96 cents USD for my loonies. It would hurt a little more to go buy today.
I was hoping to hit 90 again and I'd be happy. Good thing I bought some when we were on par earlier this year. Phew.... but it's sure funny how it can change so fast.

And speaking of money I had a slow leak on my rear passenger tire of my car about a month ago. Finally got it repaired for $40 a week and a half ago. When I went for supper at grandma's on Sunday I left to find the same tire totally flat. When I got the chance to take it in today they told me there was sidewall damage and they could not repair this tire. So my free tire from Marty didn't even last a year. Now I'll have to decide where to get a new one. $150 seems a little steep. Bummer.

And my mom recommends....

I'm not going to write anything about politics. I'll wait until I see what happens with Obama. I was reading this book called Bad Land by Jonathan Raban. It's interesting so far - a story about the people who settled the western USA. I'd say you can safely include the people who settled in Western Canada at around the same time. And it fascinated me to think it was all happening only a hundred years ago.
There are some incredible lines about photographers during that time who were close to artists, but also close to hardware store owner, or even a doctor. People had to send pictures of the new homestead to their families in England, Germany, Russia or whatever.... Fascinating.

But this little part struck me as quite lovely:

.... and with the character of it's landscape, where nothing got in the way of the newcomer's eye or put a drag on his ambitious imagination. I'd felt it myself. No sooner had I set foot on the prairie than I was having designs on it and thinking big. It was dangerously elating to be able to see so very far under a sky so very clear.

Do I sound much like my mom?