What Will They Think of Next?

Sunday morning as I was getting ready for church, I felt the familiar rumbling of an earthquake. Cool! Earthquakes have never scared me and my first thought was, 'if this doesn't quit soon, I'm going to have to stand in the doorway'. I know, I know, standing in a doorway protects you from an earthquake as much as baby oil protects you from the sun, but it's what I was taught at a young age and it stuck. My second thought was, 'Hey! I have two babies downstairs. I should really make sure they're ok.' This is the first time since Trey's been born that I've felt/have been awake for an earthquake and haven't had to deal with their safety in these circumstances before. It was over fairly quickly so no worries. They didn't even seem to notice that anything had happened and now the mystery as to why my cat made a mad dash through the house, wide eyed and bushy 30 minutes prior to the quake made sense. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law were back at their hotel and I had to call them to see if they found the earthquake to be as exciting as I did. "Did you feel that?!"
"Yeah, what was that?"
"THAT was an earthquake!"
"Oh! Hey mom! We just experienced our first earthquake!"
Ha! Rookies...

It was deemed moderate by the experts, measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale. It was generated out in the desert, about three hours from here and apparently was felt from Los Angeles down to the U.S./Mexico border.

Tonight being Tuesday, was my night to pack the kids up in the car and head over to mom's for some sanity and good cookin'. We had the tv on and all of a sudden the annoying weather alert/testing system pops on the tv with it's chalkboard scratching 'eeeep eeeeeeeep's when I see "Tsunami warning..." What?? Did I just read that right? Tsunami? Certainly that can't be here. The ticker goes by again. "The following counties are in effect for a tsunami warning: San Diego County..." What in the world?? There was a warning from San Diego all the way up to Vancouver, BC. Hmm, that's a pret-ty big area to be warned. Good thing my mom lives on the upper floor. The news reported that there had been a 7.7 earthquake off the northern coast of California and there was a threat of another natural disaster. At first this just struck me as bizarre. And then it became comical. My husband is in a foreign country where people want to kill him and here I am 'safe' at home and about to be washed away by the great Pacific. Alanis, anyone? "Isn't it Ironic..."

So, the warning was canceled and the coast is still here. The state is still attached to the rest of the country and everyone is fine. Visitors joke that we have no seasons here in California, and we joke back, sure we do: flood, fire, earthquake & drought. Well, now we have five seasons. Tsunami!