Judging from the photo of a guy waving a Ferrari flag, you might assume I’m a Ferrari fan. Actually I’m more of a RedBull girl—for racing not for drinking. But in order to know why that photo is front and center, on this week’s blog, you’ll need to keep reading, and as Bill is wont to say, with me there are NO short stories.

When you marry someone, there’s bound to be a bit of a learning curve. When you marry someone you’ve known for exactly six months to the day, as I did, the learning curve is even bigger. I knew going in that he was a fan of racing—auto racing. For me that meant the Indi-500 and that was pretty much it. When he talked about Formula I, that was … well …Greek to me.

In the nineties, we threw caution to the winds and drove to Indianapolis for the race. They were predicting rain, but since we had grandstand seats, we weren’t worried. However, our seats turned out to be under a broken gutter from the grandstand roof, so we got soaked anyway. When they finally decided to postpone the race, we were already on our way out. Once in the parking lot, we discovered that our tour bus was locked up tight. By then, people were starting to pour out into the street. At that point, despite the on-coming crowd, I managed to flag down a cab. That’s when Bill’s learning curve kicked in when he discovered some advantages come with being married to a six-foot-tall blonde! By the way, when they finally finished the race two days later, they simply opened the gates and let whoever wanted to do so to come right in. But let’s just say, that cooled me on the Indianapolis 500.

Then, a long-gone television network began broadcasting Formula 1 races in the US. I was impressed. For one thing their races kept on running even when it rained, so gradually I got sucked in.

For Bill’s 65th birthday, I decided to surprise him with a trip to the Formula 1 race in Monaco, but when you spend all day every day together, surprises can be pretty hard to come by. We were staying at our house in Tucson at the time, and one day we were blessed with a visit from our friends Michael and Sheri Coleman. He’s a well known artist from Sedona whose wonderful paintings have graced the walls of both our houses for years. Once we sold the Tucson house and had to squeeze two houses worth of artwork into one, the only thing to do was stack them. The first time our grandson saw the result, he said, “Grandma, it looks like an art gallery exploded inside your house.” But I digress.

That day, Michael invited Bill to go out into the desert for a session of plein aire painting, and that was my chance. As soon as they left the house, I got on the phone, tracking down a company that packages trips—hotel accommodations and race tickets–to Formula I races all over the world. With Bill’s AMEX in hand, I booked ours. Then, while I was on the phone with Air France getting our flight booked, Bill and Michael came back home earlier than expected. I had to go into the powder room to actually finish booking the plane tickets. But that evening, knowing how carefully Bill keeps track of credit card activity, I knew my goose was cooked as far as surprising him was concerns. Not wanting him to suffer a heart attack at how much money I’d spent in one day, I fessed up. If I had asked him in advance, I’m sure he would have said “NO WAY!” As it was, we went and had a great time.

We flew first class from San Francisco to Nice where we boarded a helicopter that flew us directly to Monaco where we were delivered to the Fairmont Hotel. We were jet-lagged to the core. That evening, the moment the restaurant doors opened, we were there. Recognizing his early diners as being somewhat unsophisticated Americans the host immediately showed us to a less-than-wonderful table next to the door leading into the kitchen. Nonetheless, on our way upstairs, Bill slipped the host a nice tip. For the next three nights our dining room seating arrangements, all reserved on that first evening, were greatly improved.

Our room was on the back side of the hotel, facing the water rather than the street race itself. That was disappointing since there’s a sharp turn, a series of five corners known as the Fairmont Curve, directly in front of the hotel, but we were assured that during the race itself we’d be welcome to watch from the rooftop garden directly facing the curve. And that’s what we did—watched the race from the hotel’s rooftop. We stood in almost the exact same place as the guy holding the Ferrari flag! When this week’s race was stopped by a red flag shortly before the end, this was the image that was frozen on the screen!

There were no actual seats on the rooftop. We stood leaning against a brick parapet. At some point during the race, a narrow-faced, French-speaking woman, who was something short of 5.4 and maybe weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet, turned up under my elbow and tried to boot me away from the place where I was standing. My contribution to her learning curve was letting her know that the firmly planted hip of a six-foot tall American woman is not to be trifled with! (Yes, I’m aware I just ended a sentence with a preposition, and I’m not the least bit sorry.)

That night, after the race, we turned up in the dining room at a much more civilized hour only to find a no-kidding, real-live, ugly American man, planted in front of the host’s lectern demanding that his party be seated immediately. The host told him that the first available seating would be at 10:00 p.m. Then, seeing us waiting in line, the host excused himself and politely escorted us to our table. When we left the restaurant at 9:30, the ugly American and his party were still waiting to be seated.

Last week, through some kind of glitch, our new AMEX card didn’t arrive until AFTER the old one had already expired. As a result our connections to several different services were temporarily interrupted, including Apple TV, the current home of Formula 1. With the Monaco Grand Prix hanging in the balance and unwilling to spend the whole of the weekend trapped in Password Panic, I called my new friends at Nerds to Go. (Not Nerds on the Go as I mistakenly called them last time.)

Josh, the same guy who saved my bacon a couple of weeks ago, paid us a house call and put everything right. It wasn’t cheap, but boy was it worth it! And I’m so glad we didn’t miss the race.

Thanks for the memories, guys!