Drive

On October 29, I dropped a video from Melissa’s show in Chicago with the “we missed it” title and said I’d be back to talk about that – and then I never came back and talked about that. And now, it’s December and I have different stuff to say about it. Funny how that happens.

We thought one of the good things about moving to the Chicago area would be that we’d get to see Melissa more often. We were kind of excited to see two shows in Chicago and two more within driving distance.

But, the two Chicago shows were during RJ’s birthday weekend and they were 18 and older shows. Bah humbug to 18 and older shows. I can see that’s going to be a problem with living up here. The kids will never get to see her.

So, anyway, we couldn’t go to the shows at Shuba’s. So, I thought we’d drive to Indianapolis or Bloomington and see one of those shows. But something happened (work maybe? damn election!) and we totally forgot about the shows until after they were over.

I could not believe that neither of us even thought about Melissa until it was too late. That has never happened. Not in eight years. We always know exactly when she’s in our area and exactly how and when we’re going to see her. It was so damn depressing that I posted that brief blog post and decided I would just forget it, forget it ever (or never!) happened.

But, the election ended and more stress arrived to take its place. As I was having a mini nervous breakdown on Twitter one afternoon, someone tweeted a link to a Melissa video and I started surfing around youtube, looking at new uploads. Just for the hell of it, I clicked her tour schedule… Atlanta. Figures. Charlotte. Figures. Nashville. Fig… hey, wait, maybe we could do Nashville…

I arranged the days off. TW arranged the days off. I used my club points and booked a free night in a very nice Holiday Inn Express in Nashville. I booked the dog into the kennel and we did it. We drove the eight hours to Nashville, checked into the hotel, took a brief side trip to a yarn store because TW ran out of knitting projects on the drive down, and then hit the club.

Awesome. Except for the chick who could not stay in a seat and had to not only walk back and forth in front of my camera but had to STOP, BEND OVER and talk to her friend … in front of my video camera. Not only does that make it hard to see, it makes it really hard to record.

Whatever. We had a good time. It was warmer in Nashville. We got to hear a lot of southern accents. We ate at Waffle House. We drove home the next morning and arrived in time to pick up the kids for Tuesday night dinner. And, I’d totally do it again.

I don’t normally video tape Melissa singing Drive. But, she’s been having such a good time with the whole Beyonce’ thing that I couldn’t resist. Enjoy.