A bit of wisdom from our Buddhist friend Patrick: "It’s alright to have balls in the air as long as two of them aren't your own." Hallelujah!
Dr. Patrick Gabriel, a physicist and certified chiropractor who lived in Guerneville in the '70s, and his wife Charlotte, a massage therapist from Northern California, have resided in Costa Rica for a dozen years or so, several of them in Arenal. They currently live in The Bird House, a B&B just outside of town on the road to Tilaran, where they coexist with: a horse named Amigo; a gray kitty named Mouser that keeps their rodent population in check; a thief’s collection of orchid blossoms (orchidea flores); several pet parrots and parakeets who feast on bunches of finger-sized, overripe bananas; wild toucans who tap on the windows of their sala; golden-chested birds named oropendolas who make long, hanging nests and a lot of noise; and 80, yes eighty, mas o menos, Tibetan terriers of all shapes, sizes, genders, and ages. They also own a 100-acre parcel of land on which they intend to host a Buddhist university.
We met Patrick and Charlotte by chance, of course, in town, on a jaunt we took down here a couple of years ago with Chris’ brother Jon. During that trip, we spent Chris’ 34th birthday with them at El Establo, where we met the proprietors and our now good friends, Gordo and the Carvajal family. Patrick and Charlotte, as Michael Franti and Spearhead would say, “make the beauty of the world.” We had them over to our house for the first time tonight for dinner and spent an enlightening evening talking about Buddhist principles and life in general. Wilder cozies up to the both of them very well and had a great time playing with them (64-year-old Patrick is a kid himself and had a great time going through Wilder's toys. His favorite? A small, "nutshell," that opens up to a wiggling ladybug and the words "I love you.") We are happy to know them and have much to learn from their them and their experience.
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