Hugo has a co-worker who banks at a branch who has a teller who has a co-worker who has a friend whose husband works for Cal-Tech, and the teller told Hugo's co-worker her that her friend's husband told her friend that Cal-Tech is predicting a huge quake in California within the next 48 hours.
Maybe, THE BIG ONE.
Yah, so that was about 48 hours ago, and so far so good, but still. It was kind of exciting, thinking about it.
Right. I know. You remember reading about me freaking out about the last earthquakes we had a few weeks ago.
This isn't an indication of me being inconsistent with my stories or views. This is a case of anxiety being inconsistent with who I really am.
Truth is, I am a person who loves weather weirdness, the power of natural disasters, and the things on our planet that indicate that I am very small, and not in charge. Things too big to control. And in a way, things that are an exhilarating challenge to survive, or experience and come away from unscathed.
Anxiety comes in and messes it all up for me, but for this post, we're going to pretend that anxiety doesn't happen. We're going to imagine a life void of fear, where I can take in the wonder of shifting plates underfoot.
They're calling the recent quakes an Earthquake Swarm.
We haven't felt a one of them. They've been down near the U.S./Mexico border, too far to feel in L.A.
BREAKING NEWS
I had to stop writing yesterday to walk to Lee's school so that I could pick him up. There were magnificent thunder clouds over the mountains. This post fresh in my mind, I snapped some pictures.
Made me homesick for Nebraska, and her awesome thunderstorms. Oh, how I loved them.
As I walked, and looked at the mountains, I kept having this thought go through my mind. It's earthquake weather.
Nobody believes those of us who live in earthquake country, but there is such a thing as earthquake weather, or something we just can't quite put our senses to that sets a day apart from others when an earthquake occurs. It's probably the same things animals experience before one strikes. We're just too lacking in our awareness of that sort of sense, so we don't have a name for it better than, well, earthquake weather.
I stood with my PTA moms yesterday, talking so aggressively that we completely dismissed the rumble.
Hugo called me asking whether we felt the quake.
My friend Monica checked her app since I was on the phone with Hugo. Sure enough. It was a 4-pointer. About 15 miles away. We never felt it.
Nobody felt it. Not the school secretary in the office, not the principal directing parking lot traffic, not the crossing guard.
Facebook lit up with friends closer to the epicenter. They felt it.
And Hugo felt it. He was in Glendale. Nearly 50 miles from the epicenter.
Isn't that cool, in all its strangeness?!
Isn't it cool, that I was covering this topic before the closer quake hit?
I hate anxiety, and what it has done to increase my freak-out, and decrease my nerd-out. I love being a weather nerd, and I want to just run with all that love, and go somewhere exciting.
My brother was recently at the Minnesota State Fair. Had his picture taken by something cool:
It's the Tornado Intercept Vehicle (TIV) from Storm Chasers, one of Abi's and my favorite guilty pleasures, and one of my brother's, it seems, as well.
My cousin Karen, brother Gregg, and I are planning a secret vacation away from unsuspecting spouses, so that we can storm chase. We'll say we're at a conference, or something. Abi might want to tag along, too.
My other cousin, Kevin, welcomes us heading down his way during their next hurricane. He has to stay for all of them, since he is the EMS Assistant Chief of Operations for the city of League City, TX. He takes weather-nerdiness to levels Gregg, Karen, Abi, and I only wish we could attain. Whether it's a love for extreme weather, or duty remains to be seen. He doesn't have time to wonder. He wrote the disaster/evacuation plan for League City, which sits about 25 miles from the Gulf of Mexico.
It runs in the family.
My PTA responsibility this year is Health and Safety, and maintaining proper survival supplies on campus is one of the jobs I oversee. Making sure that we are prepared as a family, and making sure our school is prepared as well helps to keep the anxiety at bay, should a disaster strike. We can't control them, but we can prepare for them. Because they will strike.
Until then, we just keep our eye posted on the earthquake app, and we keep our ear to the door of the baker's nephew's neighbor's best friend's wife whose brother's professor's grandfather works at Cal-Tech, and knows something's up. And we fill the tub, and hold on, under a sturdy table.
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