Don’t Drive Dumb

By Chris O’Brien

That’s right, folks. I’ll be your guest blogger tonight- mostly because my wife’s commute involves driving in the opposite direction while pointing and laughing at the schmucks sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on the opposite side of the median. I, on the other hand, have the joy of experiencing the daily aftermath of drivers who decide to explore the literal implications of the song “Jesus Take the Wheel”. 

The thing about this town that continues to shock me is how dangerous the drivers are. I don’t mean aggressive- I grew up in the DC metro area, where your commute is often more like a dogfight between WWI flying aces. No, in Nashville most of the drivers are very safe and courteous. A lethal minority of the population, however, chooses to leave their higher mental function behind when they slide behind the wheel of a 2,500 lb. killing machine. This post is designed to recognize the top three of Nashville’s finest geniuses, all experienced (by yours truly) on highways and byways right here in town. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the “Don’t Drive Dumb” Awards!!!

Honorable Mentions: 10% of drivers here have no idea what a blind spot is, or how how to check it for that matter. They prefer to procede with a Russian roulette approach to merging. An additional 50% of this town is unfamiliar with how to utilize headlights during rainy conditions.  

3rd Place: To be fair, this driver had no control of this what happened while it was happening. As he merged onto the interstate towing a 2-axle trailer, one of the wheels rolled off as he veered right, and it kept on rolling. And rolling. And rolling- in a straight line- easily crossing the 100 yard median and rolling perpendicularly through 5 lanes of interstate traffic. I was able to watch (as I exited to go in the opposite direction, thankfully) as dozens of cars and trucks slammed on their brakes to avoid what would have been a comical gag in any theater. I can only assume it ended in a seven car pile-up. Really, all this guy had to do was check and see if there was a SINGLE lug nut left on his tire before leaving. 

2nd Place: On two separate instances, I have spent an hour on my 12 minute commute home because a pair of geniuses on 24 between 65 and 40 got into a very minor fender bender and then decided to take up HALF OF THE FAST LANE waiting for the police to arrive and inspect the “crash”. I can only imagine the conversation once he arrived went something like this: 

Police Officer: “Congratulations! Half an ounce of goof-off will buff those scratches right out! Now, unless either of you wants to call your lawyers to pursue malingering claims of neck injury, GET OUT OF THE ROAD. You’re blocking traffic from here to Louisville.”

(That's right. I picked a picture of a donkey blocking traffic. Kids, ask your parents to explain)

 

And the Grand Prize goes to:

(Keep in mind, this is a totally true story, which happened this afternoon and prompted the writing of this post...)

As I drove south on 65 through downtown, I saw in the distance a driver, stopped just past an exit ramp, with his reverse lights on. This is a common, albeit unsafe decision: when one retraces their steps after missing an exit to avoid the hassle of getting off one exit down and backtracking. As I pulled even with them, their lack of experience in the gear of reverse became painfully obvious. They started to back into the right lane, and at the point at which they slipped out of my rear-view, they were entirely into that lane. In Reverse. AT SIX O’CLOCK ON A WEEKDAY. 

...I don’t want to live on this planet anymore...

And there you have it! The winners of the first semi-annual Don’t Drive Dumb Awards!

Thank you all for participating. I'm sure the exponentially more entertaining and lovely Laura will be returning with a new post soon. And remember: DONT DRIVE DUMB!!!!!

Spring Break Blues

God decided that there would be no snow days this year. So I was pretty pumped about spring break 2K12. Then God decided that my spring break would plagued with illness and injuries. The last 6 days have been filled with fevers, antibiotics, and Chris practicing his new "wound care" skills on me. My principal already vetoed a re-do spring break.

I'm somewhere between suffering and perseverance on the Romans 5 scale.

So instead of ranting about how much my life sucks (again), I cleaned out my camera with some awesome pictures from the last few weeks.

We took a trip to Knoxville in February. Itchy always knows when he's getting left at Grandma's house and prefers to ride all the way to Murfreesboro like this. One of these days, we're going to actually give in and take him with us.

The view of downtown Knoxville from Mark and Spargo's balcony. Gaaaaahhhh I miss this city. I can smell Downtown Grill & Brewery just looking at this picture.

Chris and I went to our first concert in Nashville. The theme was "plaid."

The lovely Catherine Moe, Heather Mullins, and I hosted a bridal shower for our BFF Leslie. When you live with 7 girls in college, you become a champ at hosting showers.

The gorgeous spread of food...clearly the most important part of any shower. The only thing I contributed was ham and cheese sliders, which I totally stole from a co-worker of mine. 

My beautiful friends,college roomies, and 4/5 of my own bridesmaids. Heather, Leslie (almost) Woodall, Catherine, and Liz!

Just like when we were in college, Liz spends the night and we end up wearing almost identical outfits. Blue dresses and cowboy boots!

Literally took this picture 4 minutes ago. Itchy decided Chris and I were being lame, so he treated himself to a game of fetch. He launched that red thing down the hall, then ran after it as fast as he could. This is him returning it to...himself?

Two minutes later... he got hot and "cooled off" on the couch.

Pardon the inappropriateness. He's such a guy sometimes.

Well, there ya go. Today is the first day I've had vital signs since last Friday. I celebrated by making, not one, but two trips to the store today because that sneaky Redbox movie played hide and seek right before my first trip. I also made sausage balls and a fanciful dinner of fish, edamame, and garlic bread. I even did all the dishes afterward! I may live after all! 

Come on, summmmmatime.

Birthday Blog

It's the moooooost wonderful tiiiiiime of the year!

It's my birthday!

I celebrated with my parents last night. You can probably guess where we went.

26 birthday dinners in a row, baby!

Oh yeah. I'm 26. I don't want to talk about it.

My parents celebrated by giving Itchy the most annoying greatest dog toy ever. He has already torn one squeaker out and is determined to tear the other out by bedtime.

Wait...why did Itchy get a present on my birthday??

You may have noticed that chair in the background of Itchy's picture. Made you look!

But seriously, that's my new ROCKING CHAIR! My parents gave me a rocking chair for the future grandchildren my classroom. Except, we all know I'm not hauling that to my classroom. It will be camping out in the future nursery Chris' study room for a while.

Today, I received the biggest chocolate bar known to man and a Disney princess Valentine card from my students. Ah well...one for two.

But Chris' family surprised me with the most beautiful flowers at school!

My kids got all googly-eyed when I brought them in. Even they know that not everyone gets beautiful flowers from in-laws. I'm lucky. :-)

The best part of the day might be a little bit of a secret. Chris bought me all the fixins for a future small business that I've always dreamed of creating. But I don't want to let the cat out of the bag until I know if I'm good at it or not. 

Now to relax and enjoy a birthday that doesn't involve hospitals, softball games, tanning bed incidents, or anyone being in New York City...twice. All stories for another day...

Leap Year

I can't NOT post on February 29. I mean...the internet probably won't even exist anymore in 2016, right?

Today was not the way I wanted to spend my extra day in 2012. Overall, I'm really excited about 2012. It's an even year, so duh. It ends with "12" so, duh, again. The summer Olympics are this year. (Did you know spell check makes you capitalize Olympics? Adding that to the proper noun list in my classroom...) It's an election year, which is not all that happy but exciting nonetheless. I get to be in Leslie's wedding this year. Chris and I get to spend the summer in a super cool place. I am excited about also getting an extra day in 2012.

But today doesn't count. I did not just spend my extra day at school til 5:00, crying on the couch about how hungry I am, and then passing out at 7:00.

Therefore, I will be redoing Leap Day in June. I'm thinking two June 12ths. Since real June 12 is on a Tuesday, I will be celebrating June 12.1 on a Sunday, when Chris is off. I will eat pizza rolls and cookie dough ice cream. I will stay in bed until 10:00 and play with my puppy til 12:00. I will go shopping, because money isn't real on Leap Day. I might even drive to Knoxville and back. I have 24 extra hours and I can spend 6 of them driving to Knoxville and back if I want to.

Leap Day 2012 is going to be terrific.

Cursed with Crazy Neighbors

Chris and I have had some pretty unbelievable neighbors during our married time. I'd like to introduce you to some of them. The headings they are under are the names by which we referred to them.

Lonely Dogs
These were a young married couple who lived beside us in Knoxville. They were actually pretty great neighbors, except that they had 2 dogs...in a 700 sq. ft. 1-bedroom apartment. They both worked during the day, which caused their dogs to be very cramped and lonely. Those dogs barked ALL. DAY. I probably would have never known this had we not had 134 snow days last year. I spent most of those days with the TV really loud. In the end, we're not too mad at Lonely Dogs, because for all we know, Itchy could bark all day while we're gone and no one has ever told us.

The McSextersons
This was a young Asian woman who lived beside us. And when I say beside us, I mean our bedrooms were connected by a single wall. At first we thought a seal lived in the apartment beside us, but then it turned out just to be Ms. McSexterson and her boyfriend. Needless to say, we lost many nights of sleep.

Ms. and Ms. McSexterson
After the McSextersons moved out, a very nice young lady moved in. After her first night, which was basically deja vu from the McSexterson era, I decided that I was going to nip this right in the bud. I left a somewhat comical note on her door, politely telling her that we could hear every sound through the bedroom wall. There were no noises that night, but the next morning, we spied our new neighbor giving her lady friend a kiss as they left for work. The night noises eventually started again and we referred to them as Ms. and Ms. McSexterson. Lesson learned. We made sure the bedroom in our next apartment was not connected to the neighbor's bedroom.

Domestic Violence Downstairs
Super awkward screaming matches from the couple downstairs in Knoxville. We knew waaaaaaay too much information about their relationship, but the door slamming bothered us the most. It happened so frequently that one day, their apartment was broken into. Chris and I were home at the time and heard their door get kicked in, but we assumed they were fighting and slamming doors again and didn't even get up to check. We felt pretty horrible when we found out.

Club Upstairs
A few college students moved in above us. They had super loud parties, and apparently never had class on Fridays. Every Thursday was Thirsy Thursday at Club Upstairs.

So that was Knoxville. We were surrounded on all four sides by hilarity. Our apartment in Nashville has been much better...with the exception of the last few weeks.

Belmont Girls
The girls next door go to Belmont and have been awesome neighbors. One of them mentioned one time that she "could just steal my dog, he's so cute." I was a little weirded out by that, but I'm choosing to believe she wouldn't actually do that.

Non-Existent Neighbors
The neighbors on the other side of us are so quiet that they are practically non-existent. They're my favorites.

Dogzzz
We've had two different neighbors downstairs. The first, I refer to as Dogzzz. They had two shih tzus that barked allllll the time. Then one day, one of them bit me. As in, my neighbor let the dog run UP the stairs on its retractable leash to where I was standing, waiting for them to pass. It bit my on the leg, and the owner LAUGHED. Fortunately, they avoided a law suit because it was mis-matched clothes day at school and I had 2 pairs of socks on over some leggings. I was protected.

Club Downstairs
I think Club Upstairs has moved to Nashville and FOUND US. They now live downstairs and have upped their parties to include loudly screaming the name of whoever walks in the door. So far, we know Jerry and Javon (possible Chavon) are frequent guests.


In our years of apartment living, we have developed a set of rules for anyone who aspires to be a good neighbor.

• Don't own a dog.
• Never speak.
• Don't invite anyone over.
• No relationships.

We have unrealistic expectations.

Living on Love...Literally

As most of you know, I am a teacher and Chris is in physical therapy school. I like to think we'll look back on this time of our life and remember that it made us stronger. But right now, it's not a lot of fun. We can't afford luxurious vacations or fancy dinners. Not that we have time to go anywhere anyway...we don't have a single day off together until Christmas. (Not including weekends.) So we've learned to be creative about spending time together. I thought I would share some of the ideas we've come up with in case you find yourself in a similar situation, or are just looking to save money.

1. Cooking together. Chris and I like to make this a game. We call it "See how many spices Chris can throw in the pot before Laura catches him." It's fun.
2. Redbox. $1 for a relatively new movie. It's worth waiting a few months to save $20 on a movie.
3. Heart to Heart. MY FAVORITE! We talk about real things in our head, heart, and life. The only rule is the person who suggests Heart-to-Heart night has to provide the topic.
4. Grocery shopping. We also make this a game called "See how many items Chris can throw in the cart before Laura catches him." But seriously, I love that Chris is willing to shop for groceries with me, ensuring we both get meals we want for dinner and we make less trips up to our third floor apartment with armfuls of bags.
5. TV marathons. Lately, it's been Friends on DVD, but in the past we have done marathons of Modern Family, River Monsters, Scrubs, How I Met Your Mother, and The Muppet Show.
6. Playing with the dog. Because Itchy's just the darn cutest thing we've ever seen. He's also recently moved from watching objects hit him between the eyes to attempting to catch them.

I would have included "Working Out Together" because we've tried that 3 times. However, the workout room at our apartment complex was locked every time we went, so we gave up. Let this be a lesson to all of you. You burn us 3 times, and we will quit you forever. We quit the gym.

So there ya go. Love doesn't have to be expensive...but we sure are looking forward to a cruise in 2014.

Completely Irrelevant Ramble About My Life

I have been SO tired lately. Like...fall asleep sitting up tired. I get to work at 7:00 every morning and usually don't get home until 5:00 or 5:30. Because I bring home the big bucks. Okay, so I don't get paid for any time after 2:45, but I want to keep my job. But 10 hour work days are getting pretty rough. When you're a teacher, there is NO down time. When I worked at Kay's, there were always times when no one was in the store and I could stare into space and day dream for like 10 minutes. (Sorry Dad.) But in teaching, the only mental break you get is your 1 restroom break for the day. So you gotta make that 30 seconds count.

I'm not really complaining about it...I've just noticed that I've been waaaay more tired than usual lately. Hopefully it's just all the sad, cold winter weather we've been having.............

I miss snow days.

On a completely different note, I have the best husband to come home to. He lets me ramble about standardized tests and new curriculum adoptions without a single rolled eye. He wakes up at 5:45 when I do and starts studying so that he's also tired at my grandma bedtime of 9:30. (I have 14 minutes left.) He immediately starts making dinner when he sees me walk in the door with my "I've had it up to metaphorical here" look. And because I got extra lucky by marrying a (future) physical therapist, he works out the softball-sized knots in my back. Listening to the naming of each muscle fiber is a small price to pay for the physical therapy magic.

I love him.

My kitting is going well. My Hunger Games reading is not. My brain just stops working at 6:00 and Teen Mom is about the most intelligence I can handle. I cooked 3 homemade meals this week and got burned out, so we went to Sonic tonight. The scary one on Nolensville. But it was great, and even though it's not the same one, it reminds of the time my friends and I went to Sonic 78 days* in a row in college.

I like 2012. I am suuuuuper excited about the summer olympics and Leslie and I's traditional viewing party. The 2004 opening ceremony was on TV the night my parents left me in my dorm by myself for the first time at UT. We've had a special connection ever since.

My class is going to see Aladdin (play) on Tuesday. I already know I'll be disappointed because Mark Jennings will not be playing Aladdin. Also, Mark Jennings is literally the only name I could have said that Chris would be okay with.


*Number may not be exact but it's pretty darn close. The carhops knew our names.