Thank you Wich

That’s Gabriel’s name for him. What do you call a friend who will go to great lengths and heights,

crossing channels and countries and even flying on RyanAir, to come stay a few nights in a tiny mobile home without a palatial bath nor a swedish masseuse (she’s in Québriac),

and sling mud onto walls,

stay up late and paint planks, and tap and saw together a wood floor?

And on top of all that, teaching me how to saw correctly, telling me about the finer points of Ducati monos, agreeing with me very politely that the 900ss is a nice looking motorcycle, and pretend not to hear when i have a small yet virulent swearing fit due to abject frustration at my complete and utter lack of mud-slinging skills? Rich worked tirelessly and patiently from whenever we stopped eating pancakes in the morning until dark. We are so eternally grateful that our lovely Carolyn shared him with us for a few days. Our migrant laborer has excellent skills and can converse on any subject from the intricacies of push-starting a Ducati, genetic modification, Bob Dylan lyrics, the Hell’s Angels, the role of rice in the Vietnam war, Lawrence of Arabia, Formula one racing, dairy cows, gold in South Dakota (his book on the subject is on Amazon), the subprime crisis, or the Rosebud Reservation, among others.

Plus, when things get bad, he says ‘Uff da’, just like us. We just hope they both come back and save us again soon because every time Rich comes, it seems like the house jumps ahead three weeks in the course of three days. Plus, he’s very brave, he drank even the cloudiest and authentic of local ciders, a bottle that Gaël brought over, ostensibly blended in some sort of cauldron with a bit of lime because it was about as thick as the breton sky, and looked as forbidding. I was only able to drink a glass.

But he said he liked it.

Ps. Gabriel did finally pick up his ‘R’ during the weekend that Rich was here, which should be exciting to any speech therapists (hi Joycie!) who are reading these notes.