st-st-st-st-st-sticky & sweet!

The phone call.
Near the end of last May, I received a phone call from Desiree, who asked me whether or not I would like to attend a Madonna concert with her and Shannon, once Madonna launched her Sticky & Sweet tour this fall. My response: "UM, YES!" I think Madonna is the first artist I ever loved, as well as the first artist whose song I chose as my "Official Favorite Song" ("Like A Prayer," which would be supplanted in a few years by Garth Brooks' "The Dance," because, give me a break, I was 13 and I lived in Western South Dakota, where we BREATHED Garth Brooks for a good 4-year span). Heh, my first favorite cassette tapes were The Immaculate Collection and Erotica, and I've been a faithful purchaser of Madonna albums since 1990. Have I gotten this across yet? I love Madonna.

Desiree and Shannon had chosen the San Diego location, because, um, they planned to have a friend who was living there at the time of the concert. I re-assured her I definitely wanted to be in attendance, and then asked her if Samantha could come as well. Here's why:

1. Samantha is a HUGE fan of Madonna and has been wanting to go to one of her concerts forever.
2. The concert is Nov. 4th. Her birthday is Nov. 3rd. This would be a great birthday thing for her.
3. Singing Madonna songs in the car together has been our thing since "like high school."
4. Having another huge Madonna fan there would totally enhance the whole awesome girly experience.
5. Because I wanted her there!

When Samantha came home from work that day, I asked her - she wanted to come as soon as the words came out of my mouth. Or, to be technical, the instant she received my text message pertaining to the idea, on her way home. Next ensued a hullabaloo concerning the desire of Samantha to spend her birthday day with her boyfriend Darin, yet also her desire to attend the concert. This involved some finagling, but in the end, it was decided that Darin would accompany Samantha to San Diego, leaving her to us ladies in time to attend the concert together. "All is well that ends well."



The security code.
So much has happened since we bought those tickets. An exciting and illuminating summer, and then an introspective autumn... I didn't realize at first, that the concert would take place ON Election Day, so I had to plan ahead to go a-voting. There were plane tickets to buy. There were accomodations to arrange, since the accomodations we first planned for, were not going to be available. However, my dear friend Marty more than provided for us. Although he was going to be out of town, he left his flat and his truck for our use, during our whole stay. He's a very nice man. We had a clever plan to allow me access to his building via the building security code, and then to retrieve his keys from his unlocked truck in the garage below the building. There was absolutely nothing that could go wrong with that plan!!! Heh.

Except that I had a crazy couple of weeks approaching the concert, in addition to a fembot costume that required construction, and then a super fun Halloween party to attend. This is terrible, but it was very late when I started to pack on Saturday night. I slept about one hour.

I was happily listening to my iPod while journaling, on the plane from Mpls to Denver, when I realized that I hadn't written down the security code for the building, OR the address and apartment number of the building. My pen stopped the happy scribbling. My face blanched. My brain tried to do that thing where it was saying that "no, no, there must be some way that I have access to that code...er--no, um - this isn't happening...right..." Also, I realized that since I had requested these items from Marty via work email, he had replied to my work email, and I had additionally forgotten to forward his email to my personal account. MOTHER F***ER! I used an internet kiosk at the Denver airport to email him some frantic messages, and then stayed on the computer to see if he would magically get to his email and reply to me in time - he didn't. (He did not have cell phone access.) I finally had to log off, and board my plane. The San Diego airport, incidentally, did NOT have any internet kiosks. "Oh but we have Wi-Fi, and you can use that with your laptop!" said the older woman at the help desk in SD. Yeah, I didn't want to haul my laptop along, so that was of no use to me. The San Diego Airport are a bunch of Classists!

I decided to f*** it all to hell, and made my way to the taxi queue. Once outside, the sky was grey, and it had started to rain. The cab driver was a sweet man, of the typical Eastern African origin, I believe. He kept gently remonstrating and, alternately, thanking me for bringing the rain into town, and he patiently took a couple wrong turns as I explained that M's place was on Cortez Hill - and oh - wait, that street! and - yeah, I think we need to turn there! Good thing I'd made a couple visits to that location previously, in the last year. Once at the building, I circled the edifice in an attempt to locate a vulnerability. I went to main lobby door, and tried a couple made-up codes, just for fun. They didn't work. Next, I harassed a mother in a car outside the building as to whether she was a resident - I figured I look innocent enough to plead the "my friend gave me the code but I forgot it and he's not here!" card, if I had to. Unfortunately, a resident she was not. My next plan involved loitering near the garage door until a vehicle drove in or out, pretending to be engrossed by my cell phone. This one worked.

I waltzed in after an SUV that was entering the garage. It took a certain amount of coaching in my brain, to make my legs keep working: "just do it! just do it! keep walking! you don't care what anyone thinks!" I glanced up at the security camera. Okay. Well, whatever. I was in. I walked in circles for a little while before identifying M's truck. I couldn't remember the make/model, just that it's a huge white truck with a Ducati sticker spanning the rear window. (M doesn't even own a Ducati. It was on the truck when he bought it. Last summer, when we were driving home from a wedding in Santa Barbara, bikers on Ducatis kept waving and honking at us. They are true enthusiasts.) Anyway, I found the truck, verified the ID by peering around at the back window, and snatched the keys from inside. Once in the elevator to go upstairs, I had to consider which floor. I went with the fourth. I didn't remember the apartment number, but LUCKILY, I did remember that it was the very last unit in the hallway, on the right side. I almost panicked again when the keys didn't work immediately, but eventually, the key turned and the locked clicked. I stumbled into the flat and collapsed on the couch. *Finally.*



The truck alarm.
The flat is inhabited by a couple of men (M and another M) who have spent very little time at home in the last month. It needed to be be vacuumed/dusted/Windexed. I cleaned (I enjoyed doing this, actually, since I felt so appreciative of M&M for letting us stay), and when this was completed, spent some time relaxing until Desiree and Shannon rolled into town. At some point I intended to go to the grocery store, so I headed downstairs to the truck. When I got in, I noticed the orange button that reads "Security," flashing. I didn't see anything that I could do to make the light stop flashing, so I simply turned on the ignition. A deafening alarm coming from the white truck suddenly blared throughout the garage. I frantically looked for something I could push or destroy in order to make the noise stop. There was nothing! The alarm finally stopped. My face red hot, I ran to the elevator, then ran down the hall, back into the flat, and sat down to write some urgent emails to M. Again.

OF COURSE he didn't see the email/reply - or the earlier email for that matter - before I had to leave to pick up Desiree and Shannon at the airport. I'd been lying comatose, nearly napping on the bed when Desiree called to say they had arrived. I checked my email. Nothing. Wearily, I returned to the truck. This time, after the first alarm had finished blaring, an alarm of a second tone, even louder and more frantic-sounding went off. Then a third. A man at the other end of the garage putting away his bicycle, stared down at the truck for a while, but didn't bother to approach, in order to investigate what was amiss. Finally, all of the alarms stopped. I left the building and drove to the airport, which is conveniently adjacent to downtown.

The dome light.
It's very simple to get from M's place to the airport. I drove up to the terminal just fine, although I felt rather tiny in M's massive truck. Just when I was trying to locate my friends, and avoid slowly crashing into the cars and taxis around me, the dome light in the truck came on. I looked for something to turn it off; the "Dome Override" button worked a couple times, but at some point (this is all within a 10 second span) the button stopped working, and the dome light stayed on. Suddenly, I was at the end of the terminal, I couldn't see the girls, I could hardly see out anyway, because M's truck has these EFFING tinted windows (again, on the truck when he bought it...I don't even think they're LEGAL in Minnesota), but with the dome light on in the cab, it was basically impossible for me to see out. And there was a cop car right next to me, so I just kept on driving. I needed to turn around and go back through the line, but the lane spit me out onto the road toward Point Loma instead. Crap. So I had to drive about a half-mile toward Point Loma before I was able to take u-turn. This was extremely uncomfortable, as everyone could see into my cab, and I could barely see out.

On the road back to the airport, I randomly stuck the two tiny Post-It notes I'd brought along in case I needed directions, onto the dome light. This helped a little. I stopped at a long light, and opened the (container thing in between the two seats - whatzitcalled?). M had a ton of crap in there, including black electrical tape. How perfect is that?! Men are awesome sometimes. I've never carried around black electrical tape in any vehicle, in my entire life. I yanked off pieces of tape, tearing it with my nails and teeth, and plastered it over the dome light. By the time the traffic light turned green, I could see again. Voila! I pulled into the terminal, this time with the windows down, and easily located D&S. As Desiree settled into the front seat next to me in the truck, she echoed my feeling of being physically overwhelmed. "Oh my gawd, Mitch. You look TINY in this honkin' truck!" I regaled them with expletive-laced breaking and entering, car-jacking, and destruction of property stories all the way home.



The electronic mail.
M had replied to a couple emails by the time we arrived back at his place. He'd been greeted by several messages of varying panic/random news-sharing.

• Subject: emergency - "I forgot to write down the building code."
• Subject: dude - "There is chardonnay in the fridge and I really, really want it..."
• Subject: READ THIS FIRST ALERT ALERT - "Please email me to tell me how to turn the f***ing alarm off on your truck."
• Subject: more alarm shenanigans - "This time like five alarms went off. There was a dude doing something with the bicycles who kept looking down over at me, but did nothing. Moral: your neighbors don't care if I'm stealing your pickup. There wasn't any gadget I could "hold down" on the box security thingy? on the lower right - still alarm alarm alarm."

At some point, he'd replied, telling me the following: "You have to hold down the second button on the alarm until you here it beep." IT?! What IT?! The second button ON the alarm? WHAT was the alarm? There was nothing labeled "alarm" or resembling an alarm anywhere...just this security box, on which there weren't any buttons or levers or anything to manipulate. Although I did attempt to pull it off the truck. It was screwed down. SOMEHOW, with the assistance of Desiree, we discovered that holding down the OPT button on the key fob would prevent the alarm from blaring on. We think. Actually, I don't even know if that's the correct thing to do, or if we just accidentally disabled it, but since it *seemed* to work once, I used that method for the entire stay, and there were no more "alarm shenanigans." Although after being told to "hold IT down" and trying to take direction about doing things with "IT" from Desiree, I issued a NO MORE PRONOUNS proclamation, for the rest of the trip.

After conquering the truck alarm, we drove to a dive-ish Mexican place called Pokez in downtown San Diego for some much-needed sustenance. I had the flautas. I love Mexican food in Southern California.

Pacific Beach and Point Loma.
The next morning, I drove to a bakery and picked up a Chocolate Fudge Fantasy cake for Samantha, and some birthday tulips; as soon as I'd accomplished this, and purchased a much-needed coffee, she sent a text to signal that she'd arrived at the airport terminal (having rode back to the airport to see Darin off). I picked her up and listened to her weekend stories as we drove back to the flat. The day was brightly sunny and beautiful. I love driving along the harbor from the airport to the downtown area; this was the first thing that I did on my very first visit to San Diego eight years ago, and I remember how lovely and exciting the city seemed, with the bay on the right, and the hillside downtown landscape on the left. I hope they never re-locate that airport.

We didn't have an agenda for our non-Madonna time; since the day was so beautiful, I offered to drive them to the beach. We arrived at Pacific Beach, and played in the sand, walked up and down Crystal Pier, and ate sandwiches at Kono's, which hadn't raised their prices in 570 days. We continued along the boardwalk, went in and out some surf shops, and then walked back south along the beach, examining the goods at the various beachside shops. One can only take so many pictures of the beach. After a couple hours, we left Pacific Beach, and since I had the idea to go to the Point Loma Lighthouse, and nobody objected, we headed thence, and I impressed them all, and myself, with my keen sense of direction. ("Yeah, San Diego's easy," M says to me on the phone later. "Um, I think you mean, San Diego is extremely difficult to navigate, and I am super amazing," I replied.)

Until I tried to drive onto the Submarine Base. Whoops. Knew I should have taken that left onto Talbot from Rosencrans. Since M has a military decal on his truck, the guy at the gate inquired as to whether I wanted to drive onto the base, setting Desiree into amused hysterics that we would be allowed to do this. I instead asked him for directions to the lighthouse, and he obliged. Talbot! We arrived at Cabrillo National Monument and the Lighthouse near dusk, but had enough time to tour the grounds, the lighthouse, and read some of the history displays.



Educationed out, we returned to the flat and relaxed. When Samantha was on the phone with her dad, D and I had a secret conference about when to present her with the cake. After the phone, we sat her down and blindfolded her with a tie from the closet. Thank you for the use of the tie, M or M! We sang "Happy Birthday!" and she had to blow the large candle out. One of the Flickr photos depicting this event is titled "blindfolded woman," and has received a lot of attention...I'm thinking the title is too S&M-y, and am considering changing it.

*Then we ate cake.*



The 30th birthday.
Since it was Samantha's birthday, I didn't object when she made us watch Prison Break, her favorite show. She obliged us with a description and history of the characters. "Oh, that guy is so creepy. He used to be locked up in the prison, but he escaped by handcuffing himself to Wentworth Miller, when they were escaping, and then, in order to get him detached from Wentworth, they chopped off his hand! So he took his hand to this surgeon guy, and had him sew it back on. But then he was captured and handcuffed again, so to escape, he ripped off the reattached hand. So now he has a fake hand." Samantha has a huge crush on Wentworth Miller.



We wanted to go out dancing for Samantha's birthday; however we discovered that clubs in San Diego aren't open on Monday nights. We ate late night appetizers at the Yardhouse in the Gaslamp Quarter, and then headed to the a bar recommended by the server - one of the only places open. My goals: Get Samantha drunk, and Let There Be Dancing. This would ensure that she ended the night happy. People were dancing inside the bar, and the music was fun, so we entered. And were soon swarmed by men. (Later, M says to me "I told you there would be Marine and Navy guys out!") Desiree wouldn't let any man talk to us unless they bought us a drink. She demanded that the male particularly talking to me, go fetch me a drink immediately. I said to him "Oh please, you don't have to buy me a drink. Don't listen to her." But he did anyway. Whatev.

The dancing was fun, but at the end of the night, I was ranting to Desiree to do her Bossy Thing, so we wouldn't have to talk to our new man friends very much longer. She shifted into gear and got us the h*** out of there, which I appreciated. I walked back to the truck arm-in-arm with Samantha, who'd had four drinks and had insisted on a JAG BOMB, and listened to her talk about how she "wasn't that drunk," and how (loudly as we passed) "that man over there has his hand down that girl's pants!"
"That guy I was dancing with, his name was Tyler. Tyler is a nice, normal name. My sister one time dated this guy whose name was CHAMPAGNE. I don't know, it was some alcoholic drink!"
"Oh...I am sooo drunk."
"That guy Tyler, he asked me how old I was, and I said 'how old do I look?' and he said '22,' and I said 'close, 23,' so he said 'that means you're only one year older than me!'" Desiree had been telling everyone we were in the 23-25 age range.
"F***. I like that word. Amanda says that word all the time, and I should say that word more. F***. Remember Amanda, how in high school, Dave used to accuse us of saying FOCK? FAWWWK!"
While this was going on, Desiree was calculating out-loud the number of free drinks we'd acquired. So sexist!



Almost concert time.
On Tuesday - Election Day! - we did nothing. Well, we did go to the mall to shop for some last minute Madonna Concert accessories.



We returned from the mall, and ate dinner and drank wine. I played Madonna music from my iPod while we prepared for the concert (and treated the girls to my rendition of the entire Erotica album). A lot makeup. A lot of jewelry. A lot of cleavage. I turned on CNN and set the volume on mute, while also checking the election counts on the computer. At some point I joyfully yelled out "Hey! Obama took Pennsylvania!" Shannon kept getting electoral updates from her husband, Tony. As blogged earlier, it was while we were in the truck on the way to the concert that she screamed out about Obama's victory. AND we were going to the MADONNA CONCERT! The night was on fire.



Until we got stuck in traffic, a situation that somewhat deflated the enthusiasm over "Material Girl," which was playing in the truck. The parking garage I'd intended to use was full; we were diverted to the garage on the far end of the convention center, across Harbor Drive from Petco Park, which was the venue for the concert. It was super annoying getting to the garage, paying $10 and walking a mile to the stadium; we should have just walked from Cortez Hill! Samantha was worried that Madonna would come on stage before we got there, so I hurried ahead with her. Luckily, although our tickets said 7:30, Madge didn't show until 9 pm, which was actually the perfect amount of time for us to get there late, stand in line for the bathroom, go back down and stand in line for merchandise, and return to our seats, with minutes left to relax.



MADONNA! Sticky & Sweet.
I know that I've joked elsewhere on this blog about Madonna's supposed resemblance to a certain Master of the Universe, but you know, that's really just her arms! When Madonna came on stage, she looked beautiful. Actually, she looked radiant and happy the whole night. Wait. Let me back up. We first saw Madonna sitting in a throne that rotated to face the crowd. As the throne rotated, her head was tilted slightly down, at an angle, and as the chair turned, she looked up with this sexy smile on her face. Really! She looked so seductive and powerful. Madonna is a woman who was born in control. I think I actually gasped when I saw her, and felt at that moment, that perhaps I would have been willing to pay more to be closer to the stage (I have a rant about concert tickets, but will save that for another time!). Samantha also said, after the concert, that she would see Madonna again in a heartbeat, and would pay whatever it costs to be right next to the stage.



What I LOVED about her performance, aside from the music, the theatrics, or just being there, was that Madonna enjoyed herself. She smiled the whole time, even when she was singing. I know part of this is due to the fact that everyone had just discovered that Obama is now our new President Elect (in fact, the first thing Madonna said, after screaming "Hello San Diego!" was "I'm SO F***ING HAPPY RIGHT NOW!"), but I believe that she loves to see her fans, and she loves to perform. She kept saying little things to this effect all night. When singing "You Must Love Me," from Evita, she commented "And thank god you do...," after one of the refrains.



She played about ten songs from her new Hard Candy album. I only know this because Samantha was counting, and stated so after the fact. There were a bunch of old classics, too. Some of them, like "Borderline," she played to a hard rock arrangement, and performed herself on the electric guitar. (Samantha: "She learned to play the guitar for her Music album.") "Like A Prayer" was performed with the traditional arrangement, and it felt like a joyful celebration. Probably my favorite moment.



A few people were holding up Obama signs. The crowd camera showed a woman holding up one sign that read "I voted No on Prop 8. Madonna, will you marry me?"

(BTW, major BOO! on Prop 8, California.)



Most of my still photos of the concert were blurry and dark; I had better luck capturing the essence of the concert with the videos, including (in the "Like A Prayer" video) capturing the man next to Samantha who was going ballistic with the dancing. He trampled on her bare toes, and she was displeased by that circumstance.

The performance for the last song, "Give It 2 Me," from Hard Candy, was amazing. It's a high energy dance number, and Madonna and her dancers moved to a long version of the song, jumping around the stage, all wearing t-shirts with Obama's face on the front. For some reason, Madonna wore dark-rimmed glasses during this number. Madge can do whatever she wants, really. Including jumping rope during her songs (this feat was performed earlier, to Desiree's exasperation). At the end of the song, she kissed us goodbye, and exited the stage, the large screens then reading "GAME OVER." I can forgive her for not giving us an encore - that's really more of a band/singer-songwriter thing. And besides, she probably needed to rest. We came home singing Madonna songs, and caught up on the election night news.

*Shannon and I took our picture!*



On the way home.
We flew home the next day; this time Samantha and I had the same flight. More misadventures ensued, as I decided to make life exciting by leaving my cell phone at the gate, and fighting my way through the still boarding passengers to get off the plane...and not knowing the whole time if it was actually at the gate, or Starbucks, or if someone had taken it... SO not like me to leave my cell phone in places! OR to not write down security codes! I am normally a very-prepared person. I must be PMS-ing. Oh - and then the US Airways personnel messed up our seating arrangements, but finally I have come to a misadventure that is too banal for even myself to bother relating. Now it's just the crazy end to a few crazy - and wonderful - days. *Sigh!* Madonna...

Later -
Marty: "I went to get in my truck, pushing the lock and unlock buttons, and it worked just fine. The alarm didn't go off. You seem to have a different relationship with my alarm, than I have with my alarm. I don't know why you were hitting that OPT button. Look, I'm not going to say it's BECAUSE you're female, but you ARE a female."