Open Mouth, Insert Foot

Despite the fact that we didn't leave the house until after lunch yesterday, Kate and I enjoyed a day full of adventure.

First, we collected her camera from the Musée de la Civilisation, which she'd left in a bathroom the day before. We'd no time to celebrate her good fortune before a guy backed into the side of our BRAND NEW rental car. These kinds of situations really test your mettle when you're experiencing them in your native language; throw in ignorance of local laws and mix with having to conduct the conversation in une langue seconde and hup! it gets interesting...The short version is this: Seems Québec has a very civilised approach to small accidents such as mine. The driver had in his possession a form that one keeps especially for these occasions, named something along the lines of "a friendly report of what happened." The deal is, you fill this out, sign it and take your copy, without calling the flic. The person responsible for the accident then calls the insurance companies and works it all out for you. "Yeah, right," I thought. My task became to convince this nice person that yes, I believed him but no, I couldn't risk being screwed by him. In French. Luc to the rescue: I called him, he played shuttle diplomat, we filled out the form and were on our way. Believe me, Luc is much more conservative than I, so if he says it's cool, it must be so. (I hope!)

On to the subject at hand...Kate and I were at the Terrasse Dufferin, at the Chateau Frontenac, watching a French clipper ship come down the Saint Lawrence for the 400th festivities. I struck up a conversation with Roxanne, a woman next to me. Turns out she's from a town in New Brunswick with an unpronouncable Mi'kmaq-sounding name. I joked that all the unpronouncable town names in NB I know, I learned from Zachary Richard. To my great surprise, she replied that she knows Zac! Be still my heart... Before I have time to fall on my knees, up comes her husband and her lovely daughters, who graciously introduce themselves and smile gamely as she and I launch into shared recollections of the charms of New Brunwick. (One word: raspberries. That's a story for another day.)

Shawn, her husband, shares they'd recently visited Savannah, where Roxanne learned to dance the Shag. With Sonny Perdue. Who is, it seems, a much better Shagger than Shawn. Rather than ask the obvious, "How is it you were dancing with the Gov?", I ask, "So, did you pray for rain with him afterwards?" Shawn cracks up, then deflects the conversation to a man who's just joined us, saying, "He knows Zachary Richard even better and just spoke with him this morning about a meeting we're arranging. We have to go now, but we leave you in good hands." 'Bye, Shawn and Roxanne et la petite famille.

As we watch them walk toward the statue of Samuel de Champlain, my companion shares, "Shawn's the Premier of New Brunswick and I'm his Chief of Staff." All I can say is, thank God he's a liberal. You just never know...