#yeeeah let’s goooooo

[archiedrawsstuff]

I think I need your hands to lift me

I think I need your light to shine

There lies a trail of fire behind us

From a warstruck, weary time

(I already captioned an image with those lines, but now it’s different)

[despair-to-future-arcs]

[Part 3]

Date: September 5th, 2010

YAHOOOO, THAT WAS THE BEST YET!

Heh, glad to hear that - I gotta say that you improve, nice going!

I know right, hey how about we do something fun since we did all this practicing and stuff!

Oooh, I got a pretty sweet idea! Why don't we play some games like racing, tag, hide and seek too! It's a lot of fun!

Have you ever found an eight-leafed clover by the riverbank? I think we can search for one too...

Or how about this other game called 'Will I Get There?'. It's super thrilling!

Ibuki forgets lots of stuff really fast, so she tries to write memos for important things, on days I play that game, I go outside without thinking about anything.

When I do that... Surprise, surprise! No matter how long I'm out, I can't get back home! I just think of fun stuff all the time, and after I've taken a bunch of shortcuts and detours... I usually end somewhere I've never been before.

Ho-Hold on, what I...aren't you going a bit fast?

Oh sorry, do you want me to start at the beginning? Sorry about that, like do you know the games I mention...

Well... I heard of tag and hide and seek, that seems like something little kids play, right? Also about the 'Will I Get There?' So like, your traveling around?

Yeeeah something like that, I did remember I nearly walked onto a fishing boat and almost ended up in a foreign country. I think my parents were pretty freak out about that one and I got yell at so never again...

Ah, but sometimes I like to spend time relaxing, too. The other day, I woke up in the morning with a powerful hankering to look at the stars which is pretty cool too.

So I just waited all day till the stars came out!

You... sure have a lot of energy, huh? Do you former bandmates do those as well...?

...No, not really - most of them don't do that.

Honestly, a lot of those activities might be too much for some people so I just tend to do them by myself and my parents are usually working a lot which I'm okay with...it does get a bit lonely to admit, not that I mind it but I did wish I had friends back them.

But now thanks to Mahiru, Hatomi, Mikan, you and Tomoe - I'm not alone anymore!

I see, that's good to hear...

Sooo what about you? What do you do for fun or to wind down?

Honestly,... I haven't been able to do much since my family has been busy but I do like going to the movies and arcade when I'm not practicing

But if you want, we could try out some fun stuff like maybe go to the amusement park or some other activities.

Wait, you... you want to do stuff with Ibuki?! Like seriously, you really want to do all that stuff with her!

Yeah, I mean... I don't get out much but it would be nice to spend time with you.

Ugggggh, your like - totally gonna regret this decision!

*grabs Shoji's hand* LET'S GOOOOOO, OFF TO IBUKI AND SHOJI'S BIZZARE ADVENTUREEEEEEE!

Wh-Whoa whoa! *gets dragged off*

*Ibuki and Shoji went off to have fun and do many thing that by the end, Shoji fell asleep when they went back home...*

Shōji Yokō's FTEs

[Part 1]

Date: April 10th, 2010

*walks out of the recording studio and seem tired* Woo, geez my voice is tired - I guess you were right about the genre change needing a lot of work; I figure death metal require screaming but you don't scream.

*gives Ibuki a water bottle* Here, I recommend you drink this - it'll help your throat from growing tired.

Oh hey thanks, so I should be drinking water?

Well it's warm, it'll help with your vocal range and you don't hurt your voice at so just drink that and will keep practicing.

I was often advise to drink warm water and unsweetened coconut water but I had a bad experience with coconuts so I tend to avoid that stuff.

Oh really? Sorry about that, well if not that then try herbal tea, low sugar plant based milk such as soy, low sugar and low acid juices and low sodium bone broth - usually those would help you out.

Oh yeah, I think my mom told me to drink that stuff before a concert so I don't strain my voice.

She even say don't drink milk either which is too bad since I really like milk.

Well your mom has some good advice you should take it next time.

Also just do breathing exercises to help with the range of your voice too; it should make singing a lot easier for you and I suggest hums as well to help with your throat muscle.

Whooa, despite being the Ultimate drummer you sure know a lot about vocal stuff; do you do singing as well?

Well... not really, it's just some tips I heard when my band perform at Tokyo Radio Tower and concerts, and I don't see myself singing all that much...

Oh but I did remember a time when the lead singer in our band was really sick and couldn't make it, it was a really important show too.

Holy crap, really?! What happen did you guys do?

Yeah, I think since mine and his voice were similar we decided I perform in his place.

I... will admit I was nervous since I never sung on stage at all or knew how, I didn't want to let anyone down; especially as this was on the spot too... I had to improvise...

But after getting comfortable and practicing a bit with my voice, I was able to learn to sing and the concert was a success.

Dude, that is like totally awesome man! It's no wonder your an awesome vocal coach, you got practice!

I remember my band mostly pick me because my singing voice was good for pop music even if it wasn't a genre I wasn't into but I wanted to perform.

Oh, right... you don't like pop music and prefer death metal, right?

Yeah and I had to perform pop music but I started to grow tired of it and wanted to change but we all had different genres we like.

It's why we all split up due to creative differences; we just wanted to take the band in certain directions but we weren't sure.

Yeah I kinda get that, it's usually hard to decide what music you want to do.

But hey, it's good to get out there and experiment, so glad to see you trying a different genre.

Wow, thanks Shoji - your the best!

*drinking the water* Ah, it's really refreshing after practice, thanks a bunch dude.

So are we gonna keep practicing like this?

Well yeah, gotta get practice in, but you should take breaks every once in a while.

You got it captain, I sure am enjoying this a lot more then I thought I would! Let's keep going after this break!

*After Ibuki takes a break and drinking water, she goes back to practice*

[3one3]

The Sequel - 862

Scudetto

André Schürrle, Juan Mata, other Chelsea/BVB players, and random awesome OC’s (okay they’re less random now but they’re still pretty awesome)

original epic tale

all chapters of The Sequel

Christina was keen on short veg-out sessions during transitions between the horsey part of her day and other plans. Her mind and body needed a reset period on most days. Usually it involved sitting in bed or on the couch and allowing herself to become fully absorbed in a deep dive into Instagram, or the news from around the world on her Twitter feed. Occasionally she flipped through a magazine, or took mindless Buzzfeed quizzes. So it didn’t surprise André to find her half sitting and half lying on her side on a pillow mountain in bed with her phone and some music when he went to tell her they needed to leave soon or they’d be late for their appointment at Ferrari, and probably get stuck in traffic too.

“Are you at least dressed to go?” he asked on his way across the room to join her. His tone wasn’t plaintive or concerned. His girl reacted like she didn’t expect him to be there. She began to turn around, and put her phone face down on the comforter by her legs.

“Yeah,” she yawned. André set himself on top of the comforter too, and leaned over to smooch her temple. “I just sprayed dry shampoo all over my head and I like to let it sit for a few minutes before I brush it out. It absorbs all the ickyness on my scalp or something.”

“It smells like cake.”

“I know. What time are we leaving?”

“Few minutes. Are you not excited? What’s with this music?”

“It’s called “Tethered”, and I like it, so shut up.” She fake-punched him in the stomach and glanced at her phone. The song was quiet, seductive, and packed with floating synth lines. It was moody, dramatic, emotional, and she more than liked it. There was no way she could even come close to being able to sing it, so she mouthed the powerful hook at her partner from her pillow. “Round and round in my mind, there’s a truth I can’t ignore. I spent so many years, wandering from myself until you came along. Yeeeeah, you got it. I have never needed nobody, nobody but you, nobody but you. Yeeeah, you got it. I have never needed nobody, nobody but youuu.” The thing was, she’d been lying there texting Juan, and thinking about Juan, and wishing she could be lying next to him with her head on his thigh while he did things on his laptop, like read those emails she was sure he got that told him about every cool or interesting thing happening everywhere in the world on any given day. That wasn’t what she wanted to be doing with her down time. It was what she craved nonetheless. It’s just because I miss him. It’s because I’ve had so little time with him lately, she argued while André watched her face and her eyes roamed up and down the trim on his oatmeal colored cardigan, where there should have been buttons.

“Is it new?” he inquired, thinking she silently sang the song to him because he was the one she was feeling emotional about.

“It came out in July. I like a few songs on the album. He has a beautiful sounding voice and he can do so much with it. My favorite one is like an 80’s pop song over an up-tempo Weeknd funk-ish beat. There’s almost something kind of Rick Astley about it.” Christina couldn’t help but laugh a little at the thought of the “Never Gonna Give You Up” singer. “I’ll put it on in the car. It’s fun.”

“Do you feel like fun? You’re smiling, but you seem...I don’t know. I know you like to chill and do nothing...are you just tired?” The player waffled on his impression. While it was normal for his favorite Olympian to relax and listen to non-dance or party music, her energy read as somber to him rather than calm or chilled out. He struggled to put that perception into inoffensive words, or match it to his belief that she was enjoying those lyrics as they related to him.

“We’re about to go shop for a Ferrari. How could I not feel like fun?” A no-teeth grin lit up her face and assuaged his doubt.

“What song will be the first you listen to in the new car when you get it?” The first song in a car is always so important to her, he remembered, recalling her stories about the first song from her first couple of cars and also the lengthy and out-loud debates she had with herself about what to play first in the cars they got together. It was particularly hilarious to him that the soundtrack for her first drive as a BMW owner- a major milestone in her life, and a big goal ticked off her list- was one hit wonder Petey Pablo’s easily forgotten “Freak-a-leek”, with impressive rhymes such as “Do you want it on the floor? Do you want it on the chair? Do you want it over here? Do you want it over there?” Christina claimed she just liked the bass and that her 330 had way better speakers than her old car.

“I don’t know. It’s kind of criminal to listen to music over a Ferrari V12.”

“You’ve ruled out all of the V8 cars already?”

“I told you. I want an f12tdf.” Why doesn’t he listen? I didn’t say to him “hey let’s go test drive all the Ferraris and choose one” when we talked about this on Friday. I said “hey I’m going to go order my f12tdf this week”. You can’t buy a car that costs that much money and not know which one you want. It’s not like picking out which trim level to get for you boring Honda minivan. I want a 6.3L V12, 7-speed F1 dual-clutch gearbox, the wider tires, the rear steering, the extra downforce, and all of the reluctant driver assistance programs that make it truly terrifying to drive. I want Dirk in car form. I won the medal and now I get the toy I want. You have to really want it. You don’t need a Ferrari if you don’t even know which one you want. Leave it for someone else.

“I know, but maybe you’ll like the convenience of the more practical ones,” André shrugged, none the wiser about her internal rant. “You already have a racing inspired car.”

“An old R8 with a bunch of aftermarket parts is not even in the same league as-“

“Okay, okay, calm down,” he laughed. Christina took a deep but subtle breath through her nose to prevent herself from responding according to her first instinct. “Shall we go? Ready?”

She nodded and went to the bathroom to brush out her refreshed hair, and to text Juan back. He was waiting.

“Give me a reason to visit soon.”

“G spot orgasms.”

“One I can explain to Schü.”

“He needs them explained? No wonder you love coming here.”

“Don’t. Not fair. Not nice.”

“Tell him the truth.”

“I’m not entirely sure what it is.”

“Chriiiiiiiis. Let’s goooooo,” André whined from the bedroom.

“Coming!”

“Yes you do.”

“Nah.”

“Yeah.”

“Ferrari time.”

“Tell them you want Sebastian Vettel to deliver it to you.”

“I don’t think my gold medal is important enough for that. I’d have to out-do Phelps or something.”

“We should go to Monza together.”

“Can you?”

“Yes.”

“Make it happen!”

“Todaaaaaaaay, pretty girl,” the German told his girl from the doorway with another hurry-up gesture. Christina chucked her brush on the vanity and stuffed the phone in her jeans. They told Lukas they’d be home in a few hours and headed out. The footballer did the driving because he didn’t like being on the road that long as a passenger. His co-pilot handled the soundtrack. In addition to the other song by her new favorite artist, she queued that “1000 Nights” song she thought about earlier, “I Like Me Better” (when I’m with you), and a bunch of other tunes the driver assumed where generally a reflection of the love she was currently feeling for him. The love and longing themes in the songs were actually invisible to her, or inaudible, as it were. She didn’t notice the current running through her selections. They were just new-to-her songs she picked up from various places recently, like the radio, Apple Music’s recommendations tab in iTunes, and a certain Chelsea player’s music catalogue. Any significance was lost on her.

André noticed, and assumed her musical mood reflected the meeting of her sense of closure on the Olympic dream, the ensuing emptiness and uncertainty about her next big goal, and a need for love and affection missed over the end of her busy summer. He thought she was unknowingly asking him to spend more time with her and be more close. A certain loneliness set in for him after his first Premier League title, and after his World Cup victory in Brazil and their little wedding and honeymoon. They got home and she went diving head first into the German equestrian team and he was expected to step up and be a big player at Chelsea after a shortened preseason. That was tough for him and he didn’t feel good inside, especially about missing Christina all the time when she traveled. He wanted to help her avoid the emptiness- the hangover from winning gold and silver medals. Happily, he could see and sense her excitement when they arrived at the showroom. Her heart being set on the limited edition track-ready model didn’t mean she wasn’t seriously looking forward to test-driving the full range of super cars. The player arranged for her to have a go in each and every one available, including some of the Maseratis offered by the same dealer. They were there for an experience, not just to buy a specific car.

And what an experience it was. The dealership and sales managers welcomed the Germany athletes with fruit-infused water and swag bags that included caps “just in case” they wanted to don some cover while testing out the topless California and 488 Spider. They built up through the range, sampling the “tame” V8 in the former and the classic, quintessential one in the latter. The footballer liked it best in that Spider, and the equestrian appreciated it more in the regular coupe. They were both curious about the practical 4-seater Lusso, just to see what a practical Ferrari was actually like. Both found it oxymoronic. Both believed a Ferrari should be ferocious and tremendous to drive, totally flash and stunning to look at, or both. That shooting brake style Lusso was neither.

Christina got most excited about the 812 Superfast- the platform upon which her precious f12tdf was built. Only 799 lightweight, more powerful, more extreme versions were built, and she knew none of them were at the Düsseldorf dealership for her to try, so the regular 812 was as close as she would get that day to experiencing “her” car. It was a sexy, sexy thing in white, with wheels and tires that completely filled their arches, the swoopy roofline of a classic long, wide bodied Maranello super car but edited just a bit at the back to give it that true GT silhouette and stance, the cleanliness and simplistic beauty of the front end, and the sculpted carve outs from the front quarter into the door and stretching upward all the way to the rear deck. The rear was perfectly balanced from exhaust tip to exhaust tip across the tidy diffuser and also bottom to top, where the two pairs of lights mirrored the pairs of tips underneath. Every angle offered something to feed the different senses and tick all the enthusiast’s boxes. The V12, beautiful in and of itself under the glass and derived from the old F12 Berlinetta, which was once one of the rider’s favorite racing cars, was tweaked to offer 80% of its maximum torque very low in the rev range, ensuring insanely powerful and consistent acceleration from even a stop or slow roll.

The power just kept coming, and flicking through the gears was so satisfyingly quick that the limitations of the road and traffic were devastatingly disappointing. Christina just wanted to put her foot to the floor and continue on until the car ran out of extra grunt to propel her forward. At the end of her stint, she struggled between wanting to remain behind the wheel and feeling desperate to shove André into the seat so that he could understand everything she said about it. She’d always wished she could hop off Dirk and hand his reins to her husband so that he could experience the same wonder, and that was impossible. That 812 was something he could share almost exactly the same way she did, and his smile was just as big after he enjoyed 5 minutes at the helm. His only lamentation about it was that he knew immediately how much his girl must have loved it and he didn’t get to watch that from next to her because the sales manager had to be in the car. He didn’t get to see her lose her mind over the wonderful and expensive toy. Luckily he had an ace up his sleeve that could give him that joy on Tuesday evening instead of having to wait until they actually owned one and could hit the road in it together.

“Would you like to walk around back into the service center for a look?” Nicolas, the manager of the whole dealership suggested after the sales manager replaced André in the 812 to return it to its prominent parking space in front of the showroom. The two athletes nodded that they’d like to see the cars being worked on. Christina loved to check out “naked” cars because she actually understood the components revealed, and she whispered to her shopping chaperone that there might be some interesting customer cars in for service, like a LaFerrari perhaps, which was too special and in-demand for the dealership to even have one on display. He wasn’t that excited by the prospect of spotting one since his club’s first-choice striker parked one at Brackel all the time. Driving the different models was more fun for him than simply studying them. “So the f12tdf is still the Ferrari for your heart, Chris?” Nicolas questioned.

“Definitely. I hope you can get us one,” Christina sighed wistfully. I know they haven’t all been pre-ordered and sold, but I know they aren’t exactly readily available, she reminded herself. I’m glad the regular 812 is amazing, because if I have to “settle” for that it would be totally okay. I thought it wouldn’t be worth it to do that. I love that thing though, she added, glancing back over her shoulder in the direction of the white coupe. White was her secret favorite color for most Maranello-built cars, but she always thought that it would be a shame to have “a real Michael Schumacher Ferrari” in anything but classic Rosso Corsa red- Italy’s official racing color, and the hue of all the Formula 1 title winning Ferraris including Michael’s, and Sebastian’s, hopefully. If they can’t get us a red one it would be okay, Christina thought. I don’t really love the yellow but I could live with it. White or silver or black is fine. It would be amazing to go to Monza with Juan IN A RED FERRARI. God, yes, she grunted silently in her head, thinking about the Italian Grand Prix in a week and a half. For a half-second she considered the prospect of taking delivery of her car at the factory on the Friday before the race, but realized that is probably the dream of many a Ferrari customer and impossible to arrange last minute, so she went back to the colors. She was also falling back behind the two men, and her blonde man slowed to put his hand on her back and urge her forward as they rounded the corner of the main part of the building. “Do you know how many of each color are left? Or are the remaining ones in the allocation not actually built yet so you can still choose paint?”

“Your husband thought you might like red,” Nicolas replied with a knowing and exceptionally warm and friendly smile as he stopped just a step or two from the sensor for the automatic garage door separating them from the service bays. He waited for them to catch up and then moved the few feet to activate the door, which lifted speedily to reveal a stunning Rosso Corsa f12tdf absolutely sucking up all the available oxygen in the vast, clean service department as the bright lights glinted off its hand-designed and crafted fenders. Christina’s eyes grew in sync with her chest as she tried to fill her lungs. She could see all the extra vents in the rear fenders, and a more aerodynamically aggressive front end greeted her with the same warmth as the Ferrari guy’s grin, but also with an invitation, like a challenge. An actual squeal came from her body once the surprise passed, and André and Nicolas laughed at her as she did a mini hop on her sneakers and hurried round the back of the car.

“This one is for you, Prinzessin,” the BVB man confirmed, just in case his sometimes-underestimating wife hadn’t figured that out.

“It was just delivered to us only an hour before you arrived, so we had time to clean her up inside and out but we haven’t done the mechanical checks and verifications yet or topped the fluids,” Nicolas added, building toward an apology. “You cannot take delivery today, I’m afraid, but we’ll have your f12 ready for you to pick up any time tomorrow- as early as first thing in the morning, if you like.”

André assured him that there was no need to hurry. He would bring Christina back in the afternoon, after training. She was already installed in the alcantara driver’s seat and working out the best driving position, which was difficult because of her size and the lack of infinite range of adjustability. André was not offended that she was in there pushing buttons and feeling textiles instead of hugging him for getting the car there for her. He knew it would come, just as he knew she wouldn’t change her mind about which one she wanted. His only worry between communicating with Nicolas on Saturday and that very moment in the service department was, as he said to Tim, that the Olympian would decide she didn’t deserve such a thing, or that the expense was too great and not worth it. He was fairly certain that she wouldn’t change her mind once the actual car was sitting there in front of her though. As he watched her wonderment through the front windscreen, he’d already forgotten that he thought it was a wasteful expense and that they didn’t need another fragile, impractical car for which they had no room- the arguments he made when Christina announced that she was rewarding herself with a Ferrari. She stressed that it was something she wanted to get for herself, and that she was going to pay for it. She wanted to sign the papers. That was important to her. The charter money from the boat was in fact all hers, since the boat belonged to her. He got the down payment from that fund and would let her sort the rest of the financing and paperwork herself, for her satisfaction. He knew exactly how good it felt to sign on the line for an expensive token and know that his hard work and talent paid off. She worked just as hard and was just as talented and seldom got the satisfaction of using a big chunk of her earnings to obtain something special or meaningful- not even any of her horses, and the boat didn’t really count because it was a gift. Unsurprisingly, her mind quickly turned to the price tag. She waved him over for a private word.

“Babe, can we afford this?” she whispered cautiously when he squatted inside the open door. There was no key fob in the car so she couldn’t drop the window. I have literally no idea how much it costs, she was thinking. It’s not published. I just read on Top Gear that it’s “at least £240,000”. What if it’s like half a million dollars?

“Yes, you can,” he whispered back, laughing. “I have the deposit check in my wallet from the corporate account. The rest you can pay monthly, or wire it all now from savings. Whichever you want. It’s cheaper to pay up front without interest, but it makes more sense to spread it out if you think you might want to trade it in in a few years, you know? Same as the others.”

“Yeah but how much is it?” Christina asked, feeling awkward and hoping Nicolas couldn’t hear her. He was talking to one of the service techs. The place was quite busy but she didn’t notice.

“About €340,000.”

“Wow.”

“You want to gift yourself, pretty girl, so it’s up to you. You really want it, right?”

She reached out to touch the black alcantara on the door next to him, and the red double stitching, and glanced over at the packed gauge cluster through the wheel. The tachometer was featured in the middle, flanked on one side by a digital speedometer and an array of other little gauges and graphics with systems data on the other. The car was off, so the rider had to picture it lit up from memory. In her mind it was practically a Formula 1 car steering wheel display. She momentarily imagined turning a knob to adjust brake bias, and then realized her wheel actually did have a knob just like the many packed onto Sebastian’s, for traction control settings.

“Yeah, I really want it,” Christina mumbled.

“So get it. Your car; your deal. I just called to make sure they could get you one.” André rubbed her thigh kind of idly and watched her eyes move around. He could tell her mind wasn’t made up. “You like the black interior, yeah? It’s right off the factory line so there was no choice. I think it was someone else’s order and they canceled too late. A blue one is coming available in a couple of weeks but it’s very dark, not like the Smurfy color.”

“I love the black. This is exactly what I would have ordered, probably. Actually I don’t even really know the options because I was afraid researching the car would ruin my chances of getting the medal. It’s so perfect...”

“Well come on out for a few minutes to do the paperwork and then you can sit in it again.”

“Okay. Help.” The rider let her considerate shopping date help her out of the very low car and the very grippy seat, empowered in her conviction to treat herself and not feel the least bit self-indulgent about it. Plus, she was secure in the knowledge that André wouldn’t encourage her to spend the money if they shouldn’t. He was even more responsible about money than she was, though they were still paying to maintain a large equestrian estate outside London and had no plan for what to do with it yet, largely because he couldn’t make up his mind. Christina actually really wanted to spend Christmas there, but there was nothing in the house- no furniture, electronics, towels, plates, pots, etc.

“Ready to add another fine prancing horse to your stable?” Nicolas asked the couple. Christina nodded and allowed him to show them through the work bays and the service department into the showroom and then the sales manager’s office. It took about 40 minutes and a call each to Tim and their financial manager to complete the purchase and registration documents. That was about 30 more than the BVB forward could comfortably tolerate, and he was eager to get a bite to eat somewhere nice in Düsseldorf before heading home. His wife was similarly eager to get home to eat with Lukas, but he did such a nice thing for her and she wasn’t going to make demands- at least not beyond holding up their departure for an extra 5 minutes so that she could go say bye-for-now to her new car and take a couple of photos. They went straight to Juan.

He congratulated her and suggested she drive the f12tdf to Monza for the Italian Grand Prix. He said she should meet him in Strasbourg on Saturday evening. It was about halfway between her and the circuit, or 4 hours or so on the motorway. He could fly to the charming old Alsatian capital after the match at Stamford Bridge, and they could spend the night there and then leave early in the morning for another 4-hour trek down to the historic home of the Tifosi. His Monday was a free day as well thanks to the international break, so they could take their time returning north along the French/Swiss/German borders and explore a little. Christina thought that sounded like an amazing idea, but not one she could say yes to. André would hate it.

She still wanted to go to the race though, so her counter offer was meeting him in Italy on Saturday evening with a car rented from the airport in Milan, staying the night, enjoying Sunday at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, and then departing Milan on separate flights Sunday night. The Spaniard negotiated for a second night there. His sometimes-girlfriend was firm. He accepted her original terms and said he would figure out how to book everything, which would be difficult so late. His only remaining point of debate was whether he should try to get regular general admission or grandstand seats, the generic Paddock Club package, or attempt to work one of his many connections to the paddock to secure them access as guests of one of the teams. IWC could help him out with Mercedes, for example, and Fernando Alonso for sure would have supplied McLaren credentials. Christina wondered if being a brand new Olympic medal winner, German international footballer’s wife, and very new Ferrari owner could be parlayed into an invitation from the “home” team to be their guest. Juan told her that finding out would be a job better suited to her agent, and promised to talk to him about it. They’d worked together on the Dirk video, so he knew how to reach him. She consented but asked him to wait until the next day to call, so that she could talk to André first. “Thanks for helping me get my dream Ferrari, and by the way I’m going on a Ferrari-themed overnight getaway with Juan next weekend” didn’t appeal to her as a topic for discussion at dinner.

Approved topics included where to photograph her new car, what shoes to wear when she drove it for the first time, where she was going to park it at home, and what to name it. Her sporting hero and favorite Ferrari pilot named all of his Formula 1 cars. His Toro Rossos were called Julie, Kate, and Kate’s Dirty Sister, the last of which inspired the genre of names adopted for his Red Bull Racing cars- Lucious Liz, Randy Mandy, Kinky Kylie, and Hungry Heidi. There was an Abbey and a Suzie mixed in. Abbey and Suzie were the least successful of the bunch. Abbey won a title but it was the closest of his 4 consecutive Championships, and Suzie was terrible. It surprised Christina that he didn’t revert back to the “sexy” names when he moved to Ferrari. His first red car was Eva, and she was disappointing. His second was Margherita, and only slightly better. The current car, named Gina, was currently leading.

“I have trouble reconciling the rearing black stallion with a female name,” she complained over a bowl of fettuccine with pancetta, roasted summer vegetables, garlic, olive oil, and a healthy dusting of Parmesan. There was no way they were eating anything but Italian that night. André really wanted to go to one of the many exceptional Asian restaurants there but his wife was having none of it, primarily because she was sick to death of even looking at sushi, smelling soy sauce, or watching people eat with chopsticks.

“I have trouble reconciling why people call it “the prancing horse” when it’s not prancing,” he shot back.

“Wanna hear something interesting?”

“Always.”

“Seb started naming his cars because American pilots did that with their planes in World War II. The Ferrari scudetto- the logo- comes from this Italian pilot who painted it on his planes during World War I. Apparently their air force didn’t have like separate regiments yet, so technically he and the rest of his squadron were still part of the Italian cavalry. Some say that’s where the horse comes from. Others say he saw a downed German plane with the horse on it, and that the plane actually had the emblem of the city of Stuttgart on it, because it’s basically exactly the same as the Ferrari logo. Now, follow along because this is really getting in the weeds. Stuttgart itself, the name I mean, is derived from Stutengarten, which means “mare garden”, which is the same as a stud farm. Scuderia, as in Scuderia Ferrari, also means “stud farm”, technically. Legend has it the mother of this Italian pilot asked Enzo Ferrari to put the horse on his racing cars for good luck. His first chance to do so was the 1932 Spa 24 Hours. He put yellow behind the horse to nod to his hometown, Modena, ‘cause I guess yellow is big there. That’s why the yellow paint is always called Modena, by the way, in case you couldn’t put that together. So he won the race and the “prancing” black horse on the yellow background with the “S F” for Scuderia Ferrari went on all the cars. Isn’t it kind of funny that Seb names his cars because American pilots put names on their planes and now he’s driving a car with a logo derived one way or another from the pilots and planes those guys were fighting?”

“Do you think he knows that?”

“Oh absolutely. He knows everything about Ferrari, I’m sure. He loves motorsport history, and he loves Ferrari.” Christina nodded emphatically and then twirled some pasta on her fork with a piece of salty pancetta on the bottom of the prongs.

“So are you going to give your car a name like Luscious Liz or like Gina?”

“I don’t know! I don’t like girl names.”

“You should call it Casper-Sky because you thought the sponsor was Casper-Sky like the ghost and clouds and not Kaspersky like the Russian cyber security company,” André sniggered. She knows so much useless but fascinating stuff like the logo story but she doesn’t know how to read the sponsor on Vettel’s car and suit and everything. It’s amazing. She didn’t know until Kaspersky was in the news because of the American elections. I remember her face when she heard it on the news and the light bulb went on in her head, he laughed to himself.

“You should shut up and eat your fish.”