Harbinger of pine

I came home yesterday to find a Christmas tree in our living room. The room was transformed into a homey oasis.

Wow! I said to my roommate. Where did you get it?
A place down the street...
(I picture bundled trees on a store lot)
... they had dumped it by their trash.

The Hopewell house is indeed one of resurrection. The tree still looks marvelous, albeit a little dry. My roommate said he was planning to hunt down another tree to replace this one, likely for Ukrainian Christmas, which is already upon us. Sure we're mixing traditions. But that's what we Gen Xers do, and definitely Hopewellers.

My plan for Ukrainian Christmas is to cook up a pot of buttery Varenyky and curse the Russians. And possibly shut off the furnace.

Speaking of cursing the Russians, my cursing worked on Saturday in the World Juniors when Canada barely won aganist Russia. It's the secret Rasputin curse. Deadly. Watch hockey with me and you'll understand.

Now, with Canada against the Swedes, I'm going to have to come up with a Swedish curse. How about Svenson? It's supposed to refer to a goodie-two shoes person who has a perfect life? Your perfection will malign you, Swedes! Svenson!

I considered wearing a Viking hat, with a sauna towel around my lower half, while talking in Sveedish on my cellphone, Ja.

But then I thought that would be impractical for the riots afterwards. Ah, riots.

No such riots will be possible at the championship next year, so we better get it out of our systems now. The World Juniors are in Saskatoon and Regina next year, where it is currently -217^*#

Those symbols are what you add to temperatures that are worthy to curse at. Not even the Swedish or Russian players understand that, at least not the southern ones who were interviewed. Little do they know what it means to breathe in air that chokes you like a crossbar to the neck.

Svenson! Rasputin! If I hang out by their buses next year, maybe I'll learn some real curses.

*Happy to be back in Ottawa's balmy clime*