Bossy, please dont be afraid!

I dont want to scare any of you, especially Bossy , because I am (hopefully) on her corporately sponsored, "Bossy's Exellent Road Trip", but California is a hot bed of earthquakes.

The other night, while doing my "night owl" routine of catching up on all the news-junkie-political-goings-on, I got a bit dizzy. It was as if I was swaying, ever so slightly. I quickly glanced at my glass of water, sitting on the desk, trying to catch any minor ripples or swishing, and there were none. But I didnt give up that easily, you see, I'm a native Californian, felt my first earthquake at the age of 5....

...it was February, 1971, and I was sleeping, dreaming of kindergarten, which I loved, or maybe dreaming of my new snow cone maker or Suzy bake oven, but undoubtedly dreaming of something when my mother came into my room, in the middle of the night's darkness, to wake me up. (now, wouldnt you just let your sleeping child sleep? but anyways....)

Grandma J: "We are having an earthquake!"

Me: still groggy, "No we arent"

GJ: insisting, "Yes we are!"

Me: "I dont feel anything."

GJ: "Look, the lamp is moving" with her hand, suspiciously close to the fancy 1970's lamp, dangling from the ceiling by a clunky chain, at which she was pointing.

Me: "You pushed the lamp."

GJ: "Ok, wait til tomorrow, you'll see."

And that was my recollection of the 6.7 Sylmar quake.


but, back to the other night....I knew that dizzy sensation, it had a rolling effect, the same feeling that you get when you are a adrift in a boat on a quiet lake.

So, fingertips already on the keyboard, I clicked over to the US Geological website to check out our earthquake map, to see if there had been any slight tremblers.

Lo and behold, there had just been a decent sized (5.4 on the Richter scale) shaker near the California-Mexico (wide open come cross me!) border.

The really fun thing about the website, is you can submit your own experience...did you feel it? was there damage? etc.....all of which you rate on a scale. Soon, you can see who felt it, via maps or zip codes...and how strong it was across the area. I was suprised to see that even though we are 250 miles away, at that late hour, in my little zip code, 6 other people had reported feeling the effects. Kind of cool in a "surfing the web" kinda way.

As I was clicking through the website that night, suddenly, but unfelt by me, a second earthquake was recorded at same site!! When I woke up in the morning I checked again, and there had been several more.

That was a few days ago, and just look what the map looks like now

I told my honey, "If I were a betting wife, and just be lucky Im not, Id put some big dollars on a big quake around this part of the globe, and soon!"

And then, this morning, I saw that further south in Mexico there was a big quake. Glad the continent shifted to the south and not the north....but by the looks of the map, things have not yet settled down.

I dont want any of you to go and get worried....we get quakes here, and almost always they are harmless. It's not half as scary as living along the south-eastern shores, that get hurricanes cruising through each year....or the tornadoes or ice storms, or even snow storms that cause destruction across the rest of the country. No, our quakes are not too bad, and considering we get to live in near-perfect weather conditions, year round, (a balmy mid 70's) today...it's not a bad deal.

But, I did just want to throw it out there, sort of as a pre-"I told you so" sort of way...that we may be getting ready for a bit of a shake up around these parts.