Yesterday when I woke up, I thought the worst part of my week was going to be the hurricane that’s supposed to hit us on Saturday/Sunday. Little did I know… Earthquakes aren’t exactly unknown in VA. At least once a year we get a little split second shake that feels like a big truck rumbling by. It’s always over before you even realize something happened and you don’t realize it was an earthquake until you flip on the news and catch the 2-second sound bite. Well, yesterday was a completely different experience.
There I was, standing in the office talking to a secretary and a teacher and I felt something weird… I thought I had vertigo again for a second…. Then a noise came and I thought something was going on in the cafeteria below us…. Then the entire building started to shake and sway. I didn’t have a clue what to do. See, in VA we know what to do in a fire, a hurricane, even a tornado, but how in the world are we supposed to know what to do in an earthquake?? So there I was, yelling “I don’t know what to do!” and someone yelled to go outside… so I did. According to reports, it’s the first earthquake of a sizable magnitude in Virginia since like 1897. It was a very surreal experience. Later I learned that you’re supposed to get in a doorway if an earthquake hits. Well, if I’m still around in 114 years and it happens again, I now know what to do!
Thankfully, nothing much happened at school… I just had to pick my pen up off the floor when I got back to my office area. At home everything was okay too. Pictures on the wall were a little crooked and things were shifted out of place on side tables, but all and all, okay! My heart goes out to those people in Louisa (about 40 minutes from me) who had more extensive damage. It’s weird when something so scary happens so close to home.
I was still a little frazzled all day from it, so I decided a post earthquake drink (or 4) was highly necessary. A little vino with my gal Stephanie and then some Live Team Trivia with Steph, Zig, Lindsey, Greg, and Scott! No, we didn’t win. No one ever listens to my “wager nothing on the final question unless you’re 100% certain you have the right answer” theory… if they had, we would have come in 3rd! I watch Jeopardy, I know what I’m talking about!
Now it’s T minus 3 days until Hurricane Irene makes her appearance in Virginia (I mean seriously, do we need another act of nature this week?!). Richmond has an interesting history with hurricanes. Sometimes they are harmless and sometimes they cause a lot of devastation. Eight years ago (damn I’m getting old!) Isabel struck Virginia and hit Richmond really hard. Our downtown flooded severely and lot of iconic Richmond businesses (Bottoms Up! and the River City Diner) were destroyed. The floodwalls that were supposed to keep the James River from flooding downtown ended up holding in all of the runoff storm water. It was a really sad day when you see cars floating through the streets past 2nd and 3rd story windows. I guess you can’t fight Mother Nature though! We spend too much time and money over humanizing the earth and maybe it’s time to stop! We can’t keep destroying the earth and being surprise when she starts to destroy us in return. You get what you give, I guess. So, off to the grocery store after work to stock up on bottled water, canned goods, and charcoal for the grill… because when you live in a 61 year old house in a 100 year old neighborhood, your power tends to go out with only a stiff breeze!
Oh, and for the regular followers of my white trash neighbor drama… they are officially psycho. They have installed a security camera at their front door. Like convenience store video recording security camera. What the hell are you doing in your cozy, quite, family oriented, crime free neighborhood that you need a security camera?! I think I’ll call the cops… just to piss them off.
Final thought! I’ve been very sad for the past 6 months, but alas, my mecca is returning:
Hook me up to a vodka limeaid IV, stat!
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