Poor White Trash Seismographs, or...

How I coped with my first earthquake.

Welcome to tornado alley, have an earthquake on our Mother Nature special! What a way to try to keep working on a backlogged deadline!

"Mrs. Smith is a 42-year-old lady..."

We live on a fairly busy street. The first week we lived here, a truck came by, its smokestack flapper just the right height to tear down the power line from our house to the pole, taking our meter assembly along with it.

With the first shake, I thought, "Wow. That's a really big truck," but then realized there wasn't any sound with it. By the time I convinced myself it wasn't a truck...

"...who comes in for impaired glucose tolerance, hyperlipidemia, and anxiety disorder..."

The second tremor hit.

I watched my monitor scootch across the stand. I sat, just a millisecond, and let it register. Crash at Scott Field? No, stupid. That would be over already.

It's hard to walk on a shaking floor. I know it didn't last that long, and by the time I made it to Mr. Sapphire's office, asked him if this is an earthquake, it stopped.

I ran to the stairs and yelled for the kids. Tiger's Eye and ManCub have a truce and are sharing a room. I heard Tiger's Eye yelling for his brother to wake up, soon joined by KitKat.

The quake woke 2/3 up, and got ManCub's attention enough to where it took a mere 2 seconds before all three of them came downstairs.

4:36 a.m., 120 miles from the epicenter, we just kind of looked at each other. I told them to make themselves comfy on the couch, my bed, and the recliner, but no way. We just lived through an earthquake. Time to play Supersmash Brothers on the Gamecube.

They were up.

I got little work done.

It didn't scare me as much as I didn't know how to respond to such a thing. I wanted them in the front room, by the front door so we could get out. When my neighbor lady called a short while later, just to make sure us non-native Californians didn't exhaust our Ativan supplies, I told her I moved all the kids into the living room, by the exit.

"Don't do that, baby girl! You goes out the door, there could be the ground openin' up. Swallow you whole, doncha just knowit!"

Give me my tornadoes back, please! I have developed a sudden preference, nay, fondness, for family time in the basement!

We also chatted about how our cats knew something was up. She has a nice fat baby and he lit across the house just before, and my Mr. Purr walked around for a few hours prior to the event like something was stuck in his whiskers. The dog? Nothing, I told her.

"Only cats hear quakes. They hear stuff dogs cain't."

I trust the Californian. The cat is under constant surveillance.

KitKat had a stressful week, which meant her stomach pains became a mitigating factor against all she needed to accomplish. With both parts of her Constitution test out of the way, having a hard time sleeping before the earthquake, and the excitement after, she stayed home.

Nice, but I hadn't been to bed yet.

I'm not always of the opinion that I'm a *good* mom. I love my kids, I provide for them, and they always have clean clothes, but sometimes I think I'm shorting them because I work so much. I mean, I'm always here, but I'm not here for them, in my thoughts. Five minutes at a time doesn't substitute in any way for quality time, but it's sometimes all I have to give.

My motherly instinct, though, trumped. I absolutely could not sleep until Mr. Sapphire came home at 2:30. I didn't know what to do in an earthquake. Leaving KitKat alone didn't seem right.

We like Fruit2O around here. I bought some last weekend and haven't gone around picking up all the bottles yet (ManCub blamed). In this case, it worked out pretty handy. When the next tremor came about noon, KitKat and I hung out, hugging, watching a partially filled bottle until the water stopped sloshing, and then found the two other bottles and placed them in strategic parts of the house.

When her dad got home, I told her, in case of an earthquake, just put a pillow over my head. I didn't think I'd have the ability to feel another one. I'd just imagine Mother Nature rocking me to sleep. I incorporate things into my dreams like that.

And I slept for 15 hours. My bladder hated me. Hey, I stayed up 23 hours, on top of five hours of sleep, on top of three hours of sleep, on top of six...

I fully intend to get the house clean, but I think I'll keep my PWT seismographs on display. Aldi has them on sale again this week, too :)