I was relaxing on the couch in the living room. Which is an add-on, and therefore not as structurally sound as the rest of the house. Which never really bothered me. Until last night.
I heard a weird noise, which quickly grew into a rumbling, and then into a full-on shaking. The ceiling was shaking, and then the TV armoire started shaking, followed by the china cabinet. All the glassware inside started clinking together, and I thought it was gonna spill open.
I sat up, and the shaking intensified. Now fully panicked, I ran toward Mark's room, yelling out for him. A photo frame fell off the table; I dodged it and kept running. It's weird how quickly I jumped into Mama Bear mode.
I rounded the corner to Mark's room, where he stood frozen. Seeing me seemed to jolt him, and he ran toward the doorway, where he braced himself. (He told me later he tried hiding under his bed, but his head was too big to fit under it.) I grabbed him, and then suddenly, it was silent. The shaking had stopped.
All I could hear then was my heart beating loudly.
"You okay?" I asked Mark, and he nodded.
I breathed out, relieved. A more together person would've taken their child outside to safety, but it ended so quickly, I didn't have time. It was the scariest quake I've felt in a long time; usually they are rolling, wavy; this one was jolting, like someone literally grabbed the house and started shaking it up.
I could tell Mark was scared, so I hugged him and told him it was okay. We called my parents in San Diego (120 miles away), and my dad said he'd just felt it.
My cousin Kathleen called and said the glasses had fallen off her counter and the pictures off her wall. She sounded as jumpy as I felt, and we laughed nervously. Turned out she was right near the epicenter.
I checked on the rest of my family, who were all safe. The only one really affected was my nephew Johnny, who woke up mad.
Mark sat curled up with me for about an hour afterwards. Poor little guy was scared half to death, and was now wide awake. I stroked his head and told him it was all right, and then finally, around 9:30, I put him to bed in my room. (He refused to go to bed in his own room.)
It was about this time that my cats also freaked out. You know how they say animals are always the first to know? Well, my little slacker cats were laying down on the job. They freaked out afterwards, meowing strangely, and creeping around the house with puffed-out tails and raised hairs on their backs.
Mark called out that he was still scared, and Frankie half meowed/half growled. I placed Frankie on the bed, and told Mark to pet him. It worked. Soon enough, both of them were curled up into each other and fast asleep.
(OK, disclaimer: This picture is what they looked like, but is not from last night. It took them both so long to fall asleep that I did not want to wake them up -- or "kick the dinosaur," as my dad would say. :-)
And I was left alone with the news, and the seismologists, and the people calling in to the news to report their experiences. I watched for a few minutes, and then eventually took a deep, calming breath and switched over to the Survivor finale.
Whew...another day in paradise, huh?
No comments:
Post a Comment