Luck?

I got a call this afternoon that my brother, Andrew, had been in a bad accident on I-65, on his way home from college.  My mom quickly told me that he was fine, but for that split second before I heard the good news, I panicked.  It's amazing what your mind can come up with in such a short time period. I immediately imagined my brother laying in an Emergency Room bed, hooked up to a ventilator, grasping onto life with everything that he could, and completely alone, no one next to him to love on him. Fortunately, this was not the case.  He was not injured, and no one else was either.  The police were called and everything went as smoothly as possible.  His accident occurred about an hour north of where Matthew & Elizabeth live in Indiana, so Matthew drove up to get him and is bringing him down to Lexington tonight, which was their plan anyway since the family is celebrating Mother's Day tomorrow.

I talked to Andrew briefly on the phone and he sounds fine...much better than I would be if I was in his shoes.  He said he was "lucky" for surviving the accident, seeing as he was on an overpass and was minding his own business before someone pulled right in front of him and he swerved to try to miss them, and instead hit the median on the bridge, bounced off of that one and went across the two lanes to hit the other guard rail.  The car was totaled, and we probably won't get any money from the insurance company for it since it was an old car with a ton of miles on it, but it's hard to focus on something like that when you consider what else could have happened.  

That being said, I don't think Andrew was "lucky".

Demigod

Either this is the second coming or he is the Anti-Christ.  It's as if he can do no wrong - everything he touches turns to gold; honored and respected, yet feared; loved by the media; completely adored and worshiped by his followers, and irrationally despised by his enemies.  He seems to be perfect.

Who is this I talk about?  (Please don't tell me Obama came to mind).  It's none other than Coach Calipari.  How can a single man come in and completely change the direction of a basketball team 180 degrees around?  How can one man single handedly lift an entire state's mood?  How can he recruit the nation's best to come play at a school that didn't make the NCAA's last year?  How can he, in one month's time, get the #1 recruiting class in the nation?  How can he gain almost 20,000 followers on twitter in one week?  How can he convince a 5 star PG recruit (Bledsoe) to come be second fiddle to another 5 star PG and even higher ranked potential teammate (Wall)?  HOW?

It just flat out doesn't make sense!  It seems impossible.  But I guess with Coach Cal, impossible is nothing.

Welcome to UK, Eric Bledsoe.  Glad you joined the Cats.  It's time to get "sh!t right" in Lexington.  Now let's get you in some speech classes.

Spontaneous Road Trip

This past week was Spring Break #2 for me and my fellow M1 classmates.  We had endured the hardships of Neuro and were rewarded Wednesday - Friday off before tackling the beginning of the end of our first year medical school adventures: the Physiology block.   For the previous two months, I had planned on going to Chicago to visit my brother Andrew (aka mandyroo) who goes to school at Wheaton, and then go downtown to soak in the big city life.  My dreams came to a screeching halt about two weeks ago when I received the following message from my brother, and I quote: 

"Life is full of regret, and today, I must regret to inform you that I simply don't think you visiting me is going to work.  I am simply overrun with work and haven't the time.  Sorry."

My first thought was shock, because what kind of 21 year old male talks like that, but then I realized the gravity of what just occurred.  I no longer had anything exciting to do for my mini-break!  I figured I shouldn't complain about this, seeing as I did get the Spring Break #1 of a lifetime at Disney World.  Also, weighing in the fact that I needed to do a lot of busy work for my PCM class, maybe it wasn't the end of the world that I'd be "stuck" at home for a few days.  

Fast forward two weeks.  I had my finals last Monday and Tuesday.  I spent the next two days lounging around town, watching movies, eating, sleeping, hitting up Sam's Club, and hanging with the boy and fam (note: NOT doing PCM assignments).  I was having a decent enough time, then all of a sudden on Thursday evening I got the itch to travel, and no matter where I scratched, it wouldn't go away.  I convinced Ed (didn't take much) to start looking for cheap flights online.  We spent about an hour trying to find deals, and unfortunately the only thing we could find that was decently priced was to Orlando, but we had been there, done that 2 months prior.  So we axed the flight idea.  I started to sulk, but then Ed proposed just driving up to Chicago and doing our own thing, not even seeing Andrew, since it was obvious he was too busy.  I thought that sounded ludicrous, to go all that way and not see my brother, so I called Andrew up and asked if he would want to meet up with us, if only for a meal, if we decided to go.  He sounded very frustrated, but agreed to go to dinner with us, "but only for an hour".  I found out post-trip that he had actually called my mom and told her how mad he was that we were coming up.  He was incredibly too busy and stressed to entertain us on one of our whimsical adventures.  We Joneses never lack passion.  (I would feel bad about bothering him, but you'll see why I'm not later on in the post.)

Ed and I quickly packed our bags and got on the road that night.  We stayed with my other brother, Matthew, in Indy that evening, then got up and drove the rest of the way on Friday morning.  It was raining and kinda chilly afternoon, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise because not too many people were downtown that day.  We went shopping (spent too much money), found the bean (or whatever that sculpture thing is in the middle of downtown), took tons of pictures, and went to the art museum.  That night we ate dinner at Berghoff's - a German pub and supposedly the oldest restaurant in Chicago.  Then we went to our hotel and I passed out around 9:30 pm.  (Don't worry, Ed and I got separate rooms.)

Saturday's highlights were going to the Cub's game, sitting in traffic, listening to the Derby on the radio, eating some deep dish pizza, and seeing Wolverine.  We ended up spending about 4 hours with Andrew (which I would like to think was on his own accord), so I guess he wasn't as busy as he had thought.  Hmmmm, sounds like he gets way more stressed out about things than he should, just like his sister.  :)

We drove back to Lexington on Sunday, but Ed dropped me off in Indy to meet up with my mom so we could babysit Mary Beth (who by the way turned 1 last week!).  We hung out with the little pumpkin for about 6 hours while Matthew and Elizabeth studied for their finals, then mama and I came on home. 

A few things I took from the experience:

-Being spontaneous is fun, especially when you have a boyfriend who spoils you like crazy!

-Music is good for the soul, especially "The Rose" by Bette Midler.  It should be sung passionately and often.

-Watching a 1 year old sing  "Happy, Happy" as she dances is the cutest thing I've ever seen.  Makes me want to drop out of school and start procreating.

-I despise toll roads.

-I've developed a temper in the last year.  Don't know if it was instigated by the stresses of medical school, or if my eyes were just recently opened to the fact that I have always been like that. Either way, I'm working on it.

-Indiana is boring.  They need some mountains.  Or horse farms.

-Cubs fans are insane.  

-People spend heinous amounts of money on food at sporting events - hog dog ($4.25), medium coke ($4.50), beer ($6.25), bag of peanuts ($4), nachos ($5).  Also, giving a 9 month old a hot dog is not a good idea.  They WILL choke on it.

-iPhones take great pictures.

-I only like to see the famous paintings at art museums.  If it's not by Monet, Manet, Renoir, Picasso, or Van Gogh, then put it in a back corner.  Thanks.

-Parking for 7 hours downtown costs $35.  Really?  

-Twittering Coach Calipari provides me way too much joy.

-I definitely ain't no city girl.

-Men can multitask, however much they like to claim otherwise.  Case and point: Ed watches movies on his portable DVD player....while he's driving.