(no subject)

Well, Kathykat and her daughter came to rescue me after my frantic poor-me post. They spent the whole day here, making food, cleaning my kitchen (!), playing with Blue and giving him a bath... I got the laundry sorted, a bunch of things put away, a few work emails and calls made, and best of all: (1) I *finally* got through the big stacks of unused clothes in my closet and put together 5 big plastic bags' worth to give to the CP foundation tomorrow. I already put them out on the sidewalk; I sure hope the truck comes to pick them up like they usually do. And (2) Evan and I almost got the entire crib cleared out, and (3) I found my book of to-do lists! I am so grateful to Kathykat I could just cry. I didn't know people still did things like that for each other in the Big City. Kathykat is teh awesome.

(no subject)

I finally figured out which earthquake it was that gave me such a phobia. I thought it might have been the Sylmar one, but I was only almost 5 then. Turns out it was centered in Santa Barbara on 8/13/78 at 3:55pm, magnitude 5.1. So I was almost 12, and my brother was 9. Man, that earthquake scared the living crap out of me. I was in the church gym with my mom and brother--Mother was preparing for some church function in the kitchen. I heard a sound like someone was throwing gravel on the roof of the gym, then it quickly escalated to sounding like a jet was about to crash through the roof. We went running, and the ground was moving so crazily that I felt I would fall--my feet weren't landing where I thought they would. Mother ran through the kitchen, and the cupboards opened and rained cups down around her head as she escaped. We went out and sat in the middle of the newly asphalted parking lot, where I watched the ground shudder more mildly for a while. Then it subsided into weird shifting and resettling movements. It was like sitting on the tongue of a dragon. Have you ever looked in the mirror and tried to hold your tongue tense, but perfectly still? Your tongue muscles just keep shifting and rippling a little, never quite settling down. The ground was just like that for a long time. It was the strangest feeling to have nothing solid underneath my feet and bum. Very disconcerting, and I'll never forget it. But the panic of the initial roar, running, and the cups crashing down is what knocked me over into phobia panic.