...Or, The Epicenter of Awesome.
Earthquake here today, everyone! 5.8 on the Richter scale, with the epicenter being about 30 miles away from our house. CRAZY.
Here's how it went down:
Silas was napping, and Eva was up in her room doing "quiet time." Those quotation marks are not there for emphasis, but rather to denote how very NOT quiet "quiet time" often is. Hence, when the shaking began, I thought the rumbling was Eva jumping up and down on the wooden floor in her attic bedroom.
Then it got louder, and I started to get pissed-- what the HELL was she doing up there? Then I noticed that things on the mantelpiece were starting to move, and my mind did that crazy slow-motion disaster scene thing.
In order, my thoughts were: Oh my GOD, what's exploding in the basement? Sniff, sniff-- no smoke smell-- it's an airplane crashing, Sweet Lord! Things moving in room...Insanity. No, earthquake! Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield said to stand in a doorway! While in doorway-- Wait! Kids upstairs! Running upstairs-- "Eva, come downstairs with Mommy right now!" Eva: "Everything is rumbling!" Mommy: "I know! Move it!" While she's racing down the stairs, a moment of indescision outside Silas' door-- should I wake a sleeping baby? NEVER WAKE A SLEEPING BABY!
On the way down the stairs, the shaking stopped. I wordlessly complied with Eva's wiley requests to watch a show on Netflix-- girlfriend knew Mama wasn't all there, and lept on it like sharks on a carcass. In between dialing up Blues Clues on Netflix and posting crazily on Facebook, I looked at the clock and realized that the earthquake had cheated me out of 40 MINUTES of Eva's quiet time, and that I was wasting one of my dinner-making-sanity-shows about three hours early.
DAMN YOU, MOTHER NATURE!
(As an aside, did anybody else notice how my mind scrolled through the annals of YA literature for disaster-preparedness lessons? And from Sweet Valley Twins, no less? I can't wait until I spot my ex out on a double date.)
4 comments:
I'm glad you're all okay! It's funny to me that, when I saw your FB post, my first thought was "Wow, she felt an Ohio earthquake all the way in VA?" I guess I am the epicenter of my own world :) And I am impressed that you managed to blog about it already!
I love how you take us through your thought process. This sort of thing is always fascinating to me. I'm so glad you all are okay! And now you can laugh at people who may have once told you that the sweet valley high books were useless.
I LOVE the deliberation (or lack of one) about waking Silas--I think I would do the exact same thing...I mean, the house might fall down, but if it didn't then I would miss out on the nap-break and have a grumpy baby.
Love the Sweet Valley reference.
I've been in 2 earthquakes and both times I thought it was just a large truck driving by :)
Post a Comment