4.4 at 4:04

Yep, we got hit with a 4.4 earthquake at, get this, 4:04am.  4.4 at 4:04, how weird is THAT?  Ok, a 4.4 isn't all THAT big but it's an earthquake and it must be reported ad nauseum on the local morning news stations.  I felt the bed shake but I just assumed it was Miss Gracie Lou scratching until TheManTheMyth spoke up and said, "We're having an earthquake" and then I was awake and could hear Thing 2's loft bed rattling away but she slept through it which is not unusual because she is a Professional Sleeper.  

So even though it just felt like a mild rolling to us, there was that bit of fear that this would be The Big One and even though our house has survived every major earthquake, the Sylmar, the Whittier Narrows, the Landers, the Northridge quakes, etc. since the 1950's with nary a scratch, I'm still enough of a shicken to worry.  A couple of months ago a good hard jolting quake hit during dinner and I scampered to the nearest doorway at lightning speed.  I hate those jolting quakes, they feel like a train has hit the house.

When Thing 1 was one month old, I was up nursing him and the Landers quake hit at 4:31am.  I was terrified because it was a good one and I just held him while we shook, rattled and rolled and he never even paused in his nursing.  TheManTheMyth came running to make sure we were ok and then he had to go out of town.  About 2 hours later, when I was nursing Thing 1 yet again (he was a frequent eater, around the clock.  I slept in 2 hour increments for the first 6 months.  It was brutal.) the SECOND Landers quake hit and this time, the the transformer on the power pole outside the house blew up and I thought a plane had crashed into the house and of course I'm all alone with a tiny baby because TheManTheMyth was on his way out of town for the weekend but our next door neighbor came running over to make sure I was ok.  As soon as phones were working, TheManTheMyth managed to call and make sure we were ok.  He had felt the quake on the road and knew it was a Big One.


Two years later, the Northridge quake hit in the wee small hours of the morning and I ran to snatch Thing 1 out of his crib.  He was awake and standing up and said only, "Big Boom!"


When we were growing up, we had a Siamese cat, named "Siam" who seemed to sense earthquakes before they hit.  He would start racing up and down the hallway in an agitated state and sure enough, we'd feel the shaking a short time later.  When the Sylmar quake of '71 hit, he had been running up and down the hall and when the stuff on my dresser started to shake, I though he had jumped up there and was knocking stuff over until I heard my dad calling out, "Earthquake!"  Of course, we thought it was all fun the way our beds were rolling around our room and we didn't have to go to school that day which made that day seem like a holiday.


Compared to the devastation of the Haiti and Chile quakes, our little 4.4 Pico Rivera quake ain't nuthin'  but it gave me fodder for the blog and when one has a dry spell at coming up with topics, beggars can't be choosers.