The great tree hunt

Posted in Canada, Finding Home, Fun, Life, Love by

Today my family and I hunted down a Christmas tree. It involved sharp objects, muddy fields, roaring fires and free cups of hot chocolate. A reader of this page and all round lovely lady (you know who you are!) suggested we visit Ian’s Evergreen Plantation and to get into the holiday spirit (after Tony the Grinch tried to stomp out of seasonal fun). Therefore, the entire family minus my oldest brother piled into the truck and we drove about thirty minutes outside of Kanata to the Tree Farm.

Hey, if you have children, you have got to take them to this place, assuming you haven’t yet purchased a tree.  Driving onto Ian’s Evergreen Plantation, there are Christmas trees everywhere as you curve along the drive and head up to the main area with its small log cabins, pre-cut trees and – yes – more fields of pine, fir, spruce, etc waiting for the chop.

We pile out of the car and Dad grabs a tree caddy. He looks, basically, like a giant kid with his red metal sleigh, and we head into the land of trees (Daniel carrying the axe, because no one trusts Tony with a giant blade in his hands.) The lady who works there comes out and gives us the quick low down on how it works at the Plantation. Basically if you cut a fresh tree, you have access to hot chocolate, playgrounds, hay rides and reindeer. If you buy one pre-cut, then the rest costs extra.

Honestly we’re all adults – though young at heart – and going on a hay ride in the snow as my butt gets soaked to the core is less appealing than it might have been twenty years ago (oh sh!t, I’m getting older). Had I been wearing snow pants, my opinion would have been different. Live and learn.

Going back to the story: we head into the growing trees. Dad is going on about how awesome this or that tree is, and my mom is shushing him to keep quiet because there are other people around looking for the ‘perfect’ Christmas tree. We don’t want them poaching our choice. Therefore we try and whisper, but that doesn’t last cause everyone’s ridiculously excited.

Stomping through the field Tony sets eyes on the perfect tree.

“That one!” he calls out.

We all move in and I pull out my camera. “Get in the picture!” I say, and everyone gets in the picture. With the photo snapped I head over to the giant fire that’s roaring by our chosen tree. Zsolt, Mom and I go over to warm our fingers. Therefore, I blame what happens next upon both Daniel and Tony.

Mom and I look back over to the men as they take out the saw and begin to cut through our tree.

“Tony!” Mom shouts, “It’s crooked!”

And it is. This tree is shaped like an S. I am not kidding you. But they didn’t notice and by the time my mom yells again, Dad’s gone and cut through the tree.

So there you have it, we’re committed. After we cut down our tree (drive 30 minutes out of town just to cut down a tree that has scoliosis), the tree-lady feeds us hot chocolate and we go and visit the reindeer.

Overall I’d say it was a great little trip. The best bit of the entire day was getting that tree home and watching Zsolt, Daniel and Dad try to balance this sideways, crooked, curving tree in the tree-stand. However, they managed and it now stands (leans) on its own. And that, I think, is a little bit of a Christmas miracle.

BRCA and Queen Victoria

Posted in After treatment, Bumpboobs by

This morning I was productive. Some days this can happen. I woke up early, tided the house, ran on the elliptical, ate breakfast and went to the post office. Along with a stack of Christmas cards (almost entirely addressed to friends in England) I mailed an envelope to my local children’s hospital. Really, having just typed this, it would be great if I could follow that sentence with ‘and it had a huge donation inside’ but that would be a lie. So what was inside?

Nothing to do with children, or at least not directly.

Last September when I went to visit Dr Canada he again suggested I get tested for the BRCA gene. This is genetic testing that basically explores whether or not you’re body is predisposed to get breast cancer. Maybe there are similar tests for various cancers? I’m not sure. But if there are, I bet all your doctors have suggested a similar investigation once diagnosed.

Hmm. I wasn’t entirely sold on the necessity of genetic profiling my life. No one in my family has had cancer. No one. Period. That’s all. But then Dr Canada says, “well, no one in the royal family had haemophilia until Queen Victoria introduced it.” Turns out the Queen who had insisted the disease hadn’t come from her side of the family, was in fact the carrier.

Some people say her side of the family, the  Coburgs, were cursed by a monk in the early nintheenth century. This monk envied  the Coburg prince and his excessively rich Hungarian bride. So he cursed the family. (“Bam! You are cursed!”)

Other people say the haemophilia may have derived from mutation in Queen Victoria’s genes or her father’s sperm.

Okay – enough with the history.

My point, or rather, Dr Canada’s point was that there is always a beginning. For the sake of future generations (and possibly current ones, but I really think not) it may be good to know whether I carry this stupid gene.  Mind you, having BRCA doesn’t mean you’ll absolutely get cancer. It just ups your chances to like 80% or something.

Anyhow, I digress.  So he prescribed this test. The genetics department sent along a family history questionnaire to my house. My family history literally comprises itself of NO cancer. But I filled out the papers regardless.

And now it’s in the mail on the way to the local children’s hospital. I guess if I have children it would be nice to know whether they’re at risk. And also, if I do have this gene (highly doubtful) than that will leave me with the not-fun decisions to :

1) Remove my other breast?

2) Get ride of the ovaries?

3) Say bye-bye to my uterus?

Boo for any of these three possibilities. And boo for having to consider these wonderful parts of my body as threats. Boo (since I’m booing) for cancer, too, cause it’s blows chunks!

But nevertheless I have submitted the test, thus proving that while I don’t want to worry, I nevertheless worry.

Curiosity killed the cat, or had her remove her ovaries . . . or maybe it didn’t kill her. Maybe it saves her life? Well crap, I don’t know. I’m just doing my best!   (You know what, I don’t really even love cats. They make me sneeze & wheeze like crazy. So whatever that cat does with curiosity, she can leave me out of it.)

P.S. The family had compromised. We will get a tree from a tree farm on Friday. Thanks for your votes – it got Dad to sway and me to wait (but only a little bit, and in the meanwhile we put up lights on the house. Too bad half of them are burnt out, but once they’re in place it’s such a pain to go back up and remove the duds. So we have some lights and some duds, but all good intention. It’s uniquely Brunelle.)  And Daniel is making cinnamon buns AS I TYPE. Okay, so that extra bit has nothing to do with anything, but hey: CINNAMON BUNS. Ah, I’m already drooling.

The Fresh Tree Debate

Posted in Canada, Fun, Life, Love by

Yesterday afternoon my brother and I were sitting by the fire, conspiring over plans to put up a Christmas tree. Daniel suggested that we buy a real tree this year since Home Depot was selling them cheap, and I agreed this would be great since Zsolt is used to having a real tree whenever he celebrates Christmas in Hungary. The Zsoltster will be here with us this year in Canada, so maybe a real tree would help him feel more at home. (?)

So that was the plan – we were off to buy a tree. Until Tony Buzz-Kill showed up and said, “no tree for two more weeks,” claiming it was “way too early” to buy a real tree for Christmas.

WordPress has this lovely feature that allows me to create a poll in my post. So – first time ever, here’s a bumpyboobs poll: Should we buy a tree and enjoy the Christmas cheer, or is my father, aka. the grinch, right and we need to wait?

What do you think?