EARTHQUAKE!

I was just complaining to T-Dogg that nothing exciting has happened in my life recently. At least, nothing exciting enough to make it to the blog. Then, at 4:41 this morning (that's bedside clock time), the house started a-rattling! It was a flippin' earthquake!

Yes, I felt it. Yes, it freaked me out. It didn't help that I was dreaming about terrorists right before it happened (seriously!). I had just come-to and decided that it really was a dream and none of my friends were plotting to explode stuff when the earthquake happened. I had experienced two other earthquakes prior to this morning's. The first was in Midland when I was in the fifth grade. It was in the middle of the night. It felt like my dad had come in the room and kicked the foot of my bed. I think I actually sat up and went, "Da-ad!" The second one was when I worked as a newspaper intern in Indianapolis. It happened at lunch time. I was in a meeting, and we all thought that they had turned on the presses.

Last night's earthquake was stronger (5.4!) and longer (90 seconds!) than those other two. What startled me most was the sound of the thing. It clearly sounded like my house and all the others around it were shaking. I sat straight up in bed and said, "Chad, what happened?" (I can't believe that's what I said. We women have come so far, yet when something unknown happens, I still turn to the closest man to ask for his definitive answer.) My heart was POUNDING, people. So much so that it took me a FULL FIVE MINUTES to fall back asleep.

Bear slept at the foot of the bed through the whole thing. Didn't even budge. That concerns me because I thought dogs were supposed to sense these things before they happened and warn their owners. I mean, in all the big natural disaster movies (Volcano, Deep Impact, Independence Day), don't the dogs always go crazy right before the stuff hits the fan? When the people are running for their lives from lava/asteroids/aliens, I think, "If you people would have just paid attention to your dogs, you'd be in a lot less danger right now." Last night wasn't Armageddon, but it was kind of a dress rehearsal for it, and Bear forgot his lines. So I guess we're going to have to look into some kind of early warning system for lava, asteroids, alien invasion and earthquakes.

UPDATE at 4:15 p.m.: Today at about 10:30 a.m., there was... (scary violins humming) another earthquake!!! PC tells me it was an "aftershock," which means it still just counts as one earthquake. So I am a triple-earthquake survivor, not a quadruple earthquake survivor. Still, anyone wanting earthquake survival tips, let me know. I'm getting to be an expert.