Friends on Bougyman's Ramblings

Bonus Lap

Mon, 25 May 2026 09:46:47 -0500

I thought the weekend
was supposed to end
like a normal thing.
Pack.
Checkout.
Airport.
Goodbyes arranged in boarding groups.
No drama.
No flourish.
Just the slow machinery
of everyone becoming
separate again.
Then Delta offered me $120
to take a different flight.
Direct to DFW.
Tonight.
Which isn’t usually
how a travel problem
introduces itself
as a gift.
The original plan
had too many steps
and most of them were annoying.
Fly to Atlanta at noon
with Mari and Lih. (fun, comfy part)
Get home.
Drive back to Hartsfield tomorrow. (ugh)
Do the security dance again. (ew)
Get on another plane
just to get back
to Orca and Nero.
My dog.
My Jeep.
The two creatures
most likely to forgive me immediately
for making a calendar this stupid.
Instead: DFW.
Midnight.
Orca kisses on my face
before sunrise,
if the world behaves
even a little.
Nero waiting.
Home no longer requiring
a second act
through airport security.
Delta called it a flight change.
I'm callin' it one more lap.
Because here’s where the audible gets good:
I get to go back
to Venice Beach,
to say bye to Pierre.
Yes,
maybe a
_bit_
of a man crush. (that hair, what can I say)
We don’t need to make this weird.
Or maybe we do.
It’s been
that kind of weekend.
And I get
that wonderful IPA
with Mike
before he flies out
to the middle of nowhere. (that he calls "Ohio")
One more little
unplanned pocket of time
inside a trip
that already kept refusing to be ordinary.
Audibles are great…
when they work.
Not _just_ because
they save the play,
but because sometimes
they give you
the part of the day
you didn’t know
you still got to keep.
Then Ron piped up
in the chat,
typing so slowly
we could smell it
before he hit enter.
Which is unfair,
probably,
but also accurate,
and said with affection
for a gentleman
we’re all absurdly lucky to have met.
That’s the thing about this crew.
It keeps adding people
like the universe
has a waitlist
and very questionable
admissions standards.
King Ron.
Mike from Ohio by way of Puerto Vallarta.
Pierre at Venice Beach.
Mari and Lih
still threaded through
the original route.
Me,
somehow paid
to change plans
and given
one more way
to say goodbye…
properly.
This is getting
_way_ too fun
to let it end clean.
So fine.
Bonus lap.
One more drink.
One more goodbye.
And then, because apparently
the universe had not finished
improving the bit,
King Ron actually showed up
at Venice Beach.
Of course he did.
Cause this bonus lap needed another bonus lap.
Had a few with us
until Mike and I
had to call the Uber
and point ourselves toward the airport.
Which is where Delta,
having already turned the day into a gift,
tried to make it weird again.
Apparently,
I only had half a ticket.
Half.
A.
Ticket.
Thanks a lot,
Delta app.
But then Monique happened.
Bless Monique.
She worked the problem
like a person
who understood
that I had already done
enough airport math for one calendar year.
And somehow:
28A.
Twenty-eight.
Which is a thing?
Apparently so.
Back to DFW
at fuck-thirty
in the morning.
Glad Mike’s here.
Glad the bars are open.
Hope I stay awake
until flight one.
One more route
that looks wrong—
until it becomes exactly right.
That checkered flag
can wait a few more hours.

Mile End Finish

Sun, 24 May 2026 21:43:45 -0500

We made it.
All safe.
All sound.
All back in our respective hotels,
the weekend finally loosening its grip
one wristband,
one shuttle,
one tired laugh at a time.
Tomorrow,
everybody starts peeling off
at different hours.
Flights.
Bags.
Checkout math.
The small logistics
of leaving a thing
you’re not quite ready to be done with.
Ron,
naturally,
is staying until Tuesday.
Bonus day in Montreal.
Because of course he is.
And Taha,
local advantage,
does not have to leave at all,
which feels unfair but geographically sound.
The race gave everybody something to carry.
Mari’s driver won.
Kimi.
Nineteen years old
and already driving
like somebody forgot to tell him
how nervous he should be.
Victorious.
Phenomenal.
Rude, honestly,
in the way youth can be
when it shows up fully formed
and starts collecting trophies.
My papaya went rotten early
and only got worse.
One DNF.
One might-as-well-not-have.
The kind of McLaren day
that makes a new jacket
feel less like merch
and more like evidence of poor timing.
Still wore it.
Obviously.
Sharesa,
Ron,
Lih-sia
got Lewis in second,
which meant smiles were distributed
to the Hamilton delegation
with appropriate ceremony.
Everybody had a reason
to point at the track
and claim something.
Even me, eventually,
if only the right to complain
in coordinated orange.
Then Gino’s.
Negroni & Lasagne.
Mile End.
The most notoriously Montrealish
way to end the night
any of us could have invented,
except we didn’t invent it.
We just sat down
and let the city
keep being ridiculous
in our favor.
Amazing tacos.
Fabulous authentic lasagne.
Negroni doing
exactly what the sign promised.
And Lih-sia approved focaccia,
which is not technically
a governing body,
but might be the closest
we came all weekend
to a reliable steward’s decision.
Puerto Vallarta
would have recognized
the taco confidence.
Italy would have had notes,
probably,
but friendly ones.
Montreal just shrugged
and put it all
on the same table.
Of course.
Why would the finish
be normal now?
That was never the operating mode.
This weekend had
broken planes,
wrong shuttles,
perfect seats,
wet track,
clean line,
new friends from Alabama,
old friends from everywhere,
and enough unexpected moments
to make the whole thing feel
like a gift.
I could not have asked
for a better group of people
to spend my bucket-list budget on.
That’s the part I keep coming back to.
Not the cost.
Not the chaos.
Not the schedule
that tried repeatedly
to become a crime scene.
The people.
The table.
The way a trip like this
starts as an idea
and ends
with a crew
you would defend
from seat vultures,
airport math,
bad directions,
and possibly…
your own better judgment.
Montreal isn’t quite over.
Not until the last bag zips shut.
Not until the last person
finds the right gate.
Not until the thread
does its quiet work
after everyone scatters.
But the checkered flag is out on this part.
Mile End finish.
Good food.
Good people.
Papaya bruised,
but still standing.
And CDMX
already louder in my head
than it has any right to be.
(we’ll keep a seat for Ron)

Safety Car

Sun, 24 May 2026 09:02:02 -0500

Day two started
with the dangerous confidence
of people who had already
gotten lost once.
We knew how to get there now.
Mostly.
Which is not the same thing
as knowing the best way,
as the very long line
we absolutely did not need to traverse
was kind enough to explain.
Lesson learned:
Follow Lih-sia’s directions.
Always.
No committee.
No improvising.
No heroic little alternate route
invented by a man
with just enough information
to become a problem.
Still, we made it.
And the day opened up
the way race days do
when the engines start answering questions
nobody asked out loud.
More speed.
More noise.
More bodies moving
in the same excited current.
More of that ridiculous proof
that yes,
it really is
what it’s cracked up to be.
Practice had been the first hit.
Day two felt less like discovery
and more like surrender.
Fine.
We get it.
We are in.
Afterward, back to the Beach Bar,
because apparently
Montreal having a Beach Bar
is now part of the canon.
A quick drink.
A BFF reunion.
And Ron.
New F1 friend.
Alabama.
Added to the crew
for the only reason
that ever really matters:
Why not?
One more member
of the motley little paddock
was exactly what the night ordered.
Then dinner at La Capital,
probably the best taco place
I’ve been to
outside of Puerto Vallarta.
And I don’t mean that gently.
This place could live
in the middle of Cinco de Diciembre
and compete with any of the best.
Cinco de Chinatown, of course,
because it is Montreal,
and apparently
the map here
also enjoys a plot twist.
Tacos in Chinatown.
Formula 1 on an island.
A Beach Bar nowhere near the beach.
The city kept making jokes,
and somehow every one of them worked.
This time, I was smart.
Or smart enough.
I didn’t sit near Mari.
Disaster averted.
Safety car out.
Not because there was no speed left.
Because there was.
Because five feet
can be a very long distance
when the person
on the other side of it
is the one person
you are trying
_not_
to reach for in public.
Because restraint
is easier to admire
from across the room
than from the chair right next to her.
So we behaved.
Respectably.
Comfortably.
Mostly.
The company split the way good nights do
when nobody needs to force one more scene.
The boys went back to the Beach Bar.
The girls went back to the hotel.
No crash.
No drama.
No table turned into a cautionary tale.
Just a clean finish to day two.
And still,
all the while,
I missed Mari like crazy.
Which is a ridiculous thing to say
when she was right there.
Five feet away.
Laughing.
Present.
Untouchable by choice
and circumstance
and the little rules
that keep a weekend from catching fire.
Atlanta is waiting.
That’s the part
I keep circling.
Not Montreal.
Not the track.
Not even the next green flag.
Atlanta.
Where the distance finally gets to close.
Where five feet can become nothing.
Where the safety car
can pull in,
and whatever’s been
held back all weekend…
can finally go.

Track Limits

Sat, 23 May 2026 07:51:53 -0500

Practice day.
Which sounds simple,
if you’ve never tried
to move six people through Montreal
with tickets,
weather,
transit,
wrong turns,
good intentions,
and one very loud thing…
waiting somewhere on the other side of the river.
Mike and I went early.
Two scouts,
brave and stupid enough
to take the chaos first
so everybody else could inherit
the slightly cleaner version of the map.
This was noble.
This was useful.
This took two hours.
Multiple missteps.
Multiple recalculations.
Multiple versions of:
No, wait, I think it’s this way.
Before we even left the BNB,
I had distributed tickets
to everyone.
Responsible.
Organized.
Borderline impressive.
Then we made it to the river
before I realized
I’d given everyone their tickets
except me.
Mine was on my computer.
Not my phone.
Because apparently even competence has track limits.
So: bike back to the BNB.
Retrieve the ticket.
Invent a new bad idea.
Uber to the track.
Montreal heard this plan,
laughed politely,
and redirected us
through fourteen wrong turns
to a casino shuttle bus.
Which, honestly, feels about right.
Formula 1 should not be easy to approach.
You _should_ have to prove you mean it.
The BFFs rolled in an hour later
with a much easier ride,
because the universe
enjoys humiliating
advance teams.
Fine.
They got there.
We got there.
The day got there.
And then: the sound.
Not television sound.
Not highlight-reel sound.
Not somebody describing horsepower
like a brochure wearing sunglasses.
The actual thing.
Engines tearing open the air.
Grandstands waking up.
The whole place vibrating
with that first stupid grin
you get when the hype
finally has the nerve
to be true.
It lived up.
All the way up.
Then some.
Mari was there.
The two BFFs were there.
Mike was there,
Ohio by way of Puerto Vallarta,
because apparently
this story has a shared-universe problem.
Taha made it after work,
boss’s nephew,
local advantage,
subbing in for Gary
after the motorcycle accident sidelined him.
Sorry, Gary.
He got there just in time for sprint qualifying,
which felt like the day rewarding us
for surviving its little obstacle course.
A great time was had by all.
Actual sentence.
Earned sentence.
Then dinner.
And here is where
I made my mistake.
I sat next to Mari.
Simple enough.
Normal enough.
Adult enough,
if you say it fast
and refuse to check
the telemetry.
But proximity has its own physics.
Especially with her.
Especially after engines,
adrenaline,
travel chaos,
survival math,
and a day full of
almost,
finally,
there.
We didn’t attack each other at the table.
This is technically an achievement.
Respectable restraint,
as they say
in all the finest
motorsport dining rooms.
Turns out track limits aren’t just painted on the corners.
Sometimes they’re
the distance between two chairs,
two elbows,
one look held half a second too long,
and whatever small mercy
keeps a restaurant from becoming evidence.
Dinner ended.
Mike and I took our leave.
Cool-down lap.
Or something like it.
We stumbled into
an amazing tiny beach bar,
which is a ridiculous thing
to find in Montreal
and therefore
exactly where the day needed to end.
A beer.
Or two.
A recap.
The kind that only works
when the day was too much
in all the right directions.
Now morning is here,
beautiful and bright,
and the crew has changed again.
Sharesa in from DFW.
Taha for the full day.
Mari taking the morning for some much-needed sleep.
The rest of us
pointed back toward the track,
less innocent now,
better prepared,
still probably wrong about something.
That’s fine.
Practice is over.
Start those engines.
Let’s see some go.