FivePointFour

Yesterday at 11:42 AM, I was on the phone with the VP of my department, whose office is just down the hall (we were preparing for a conference call). If you had been a fly on the wall (ick), you would have heard me say, “Hey, wait a minute. That’s not – hey, is this an earthquake? Oh my God, I think it’s an earthquake. Yup, we’re having an earthquake. Um, hello?”

At that point he stuck his head in my office and said, “Are you okay?”

What? Was there some sort of tectonic disturbance yesterday?

We are all okay over here, although it took a few minutes for the rubbery feeling in my legs to go away and then all the phone lines were jammed so no one could get in touch with anyone else. My sister-in-law, who is always on top of these things, had developed an emergency plan for our family years ago. In the event of a terrorist attack or natural disaster, we are all supposed to call Sweet Dub’s Aunt D in Texas. She will then be able to tell us all where everyone is and if everyone is okay. The problem is that in the intervening years, there’s been a rift in the family and Sweet Dub refuses to speak to that side anymore. Since I think the rift (which involves allegations of elder abuse*) is legit, I don’t want to call them either. So instead we were all emailing each other and trying the landlines every 10 minutes.

Here’s some fascinating footage of the quake, if you haven’t seen it already.

Evidently, instinctively, I did the right thing as the quake was happening, which was to not get under my desk and to stay away from the front wall of my office, which is made of glass. I just got down low on the floor next to the desk , because (a) I’m big and pregnant and all and I can’t move that fast, and (2) What if it WAS the Big One? I’d be crushed underneath the desk.

Ah, California. Endlessly entertaining.

* Oh man, the stories I could tell you, which I don’t out of respect for the family. This blog would be about 500 times more interesting. Yeah, sorry about that.