Have a great Tuesday anyway!

yes, I am trying to stop over thinking things and to just enjoy living and being in the moment. it's hard to stop obsessing over things and just let go sometimes.

I used to live in the LA area, and experienced many earthfarts, and except for one that lasted (by my own personal reckoning) 2 1/2 hours, they didn't bother me. It's weird, but you do get used to them. I'm back in Indiana now, and when I was awakened by the entire house rattling, especially the roof, my first thought was that it was a tornado, and it was gonna tear the roof off and I'd be doing an "Auntie Em" across town. Tornadoes still scare me way worse than earthquakes.

I love your plans for old age. Personally, I'm going to start the Hippy Hippy Shake Shake retirement home. There will young cabana boys to wait on me hand and foot in thongs. I will also be drinking fruity drinks with umbrellas with my meds, sitting by the pool all day long in the sunshine. Who cares about wrinkles when your 80? I vote that you let the new wrinkles make friends with the old wrinkles and lie about your age. When your 85, tell people your 95 and they will say "My, she is looking good for 95." I guarentee!
So stick by your smoking pause and I vote you start pickling your liver with vodka when you start smoking again.

Great tip about velcro-ing your eyeglasses case to your bedframe! I've lived in earthquake country all my life, and -- in addition to not sleeping with a bookcase above your head, and securing the old Ming vases with a dab of museum wax -- that's the best piece of advice I've ever heard!!!

ive been in several earthquakes here in oklahoma; all of them since 2003. a few of them i didnt notice but my kitties did (those were in the last year)

ps smoking is yucky. i hope theres chocolate in your kit lol

"While earthquakes may seem like the earth's version of a Silent But Deadly fart, one which causes mass destruction and has no known warning signs, the upside to earthfarts is that no one is clearing the grocery store shelves of bread, milk and vodka two weeks ahead of time."

Earthfarts? You are made of The Funny, along with The Awesome. love it.

Yes, that cone of uncertainty. Gotta love it. It either puts people in a panic or it makes people stop watching. AFTER they bought all the Beanie Weanies off the shelf.
Of the 3 things we buy are water, bread, peanut butter, and jelly. Wait.
Of the FOUR things we buy......
ah nuts. Just always look on the bright side of life.
Or you could be a Mel Brooks fan and prefer a big musical number......
Oh and btw, I had to watch both scenes on YouTube.
I'll be singing *the inquisition* the rest of the day. I wasn't expecting that!

Hey Laurie!

I posted about my "rude awakening" with our Midwest earthquake: http://dizzymslizzy.blogspot.com/2008/04/very-rude-awakening.html

Check it out if you get a chance . . . Dear Hubby and the cats were quite amusing! :-)

dizzy ms lizzy

Most Californians I know (myself included) considered anything under a M5.5 to be entertainment. It's a free e-ticket as long as nothing flies off the wall. And watching my parrot and cat freak out are priceless.

I live on an island in the San Francisco bay area & we are fortunate enough to be somewhat protected by the cushion of mud under us, but having lived here for 43 years I've been through lots of small and not-so-small earthquakes like the '89 one--when it happened I thought, "Gee, this one's going on for a long time", had no idea of the horrible death & destruction that occurred until the power came on & I saw the news about buildings & freeways collapsing. You just learn to hope for the best. I have no earthquake kit, no earthquake insurance (can't afford the deductible anyway), but I do use lots of earthquake putty to anchor my breakables. It's always amusing to hear the reaction of people from other places should they happen to be here when one happens!

The first earthquake I experienced was in southern Ohio in 1986 or 1987. Then I moved from Ohio to San Francsico and got to the point that I wouldn't even get out of bed for an earthquake. Everyone from home asked, "Aren't you scared of the earthquakes?" I replied, "At least you don't know when they're coming. I'll take an earthquake over a tornado any damn day."

sure, my one chance to feel an earthquake and I missed it.
I had a dream about you last night-you were standing in line behind me at the grocery store and I was stalling so I could talk to you longer. That's all I remember!

We don't have earthquake season, but there is fire season (which seems to have already started)! You are much braver than I am, Laurie! In 8 years here I have only had a couple of small earth tremors and I was ready to move immediately! Give me a good old hurricane anytime. You can board up and get-the-hell-out-of Dodge if you have to.

I guess I really ought to have an earthquake kit. Then I can camp in the backyard if my house is uninhabitable? Yikes.

About 20 years ago there was a small quake here on the right coast - I was sitting in my rocking chair when it suddenly began to rock left to right instead of fore to aft. I called for earthquake insurance later in the day and there hasn't been an appreciable "event" here since. But I love the earthquake kit - it's similar to the one I put up every year for hurricane and blizzard season.

love you - have a good Tuesday!

I see no problem with going back to smoking when you're 60. I don't smoke myself, but hell, I figure after you reach a certain age you've earned the right to throw caution to the winds.

Kind of like one woman I heard about. She was in her mid-80s, and went to see her doctor, who pronounced her healthy. He then went on to scold her for her diet (which contained good stuff, like lots of heavy cream) and that she needed to eat in a more healthy fashion. Her response was "Why?"
"Well, so you can live longer."
"Why? Do you get a kickback from the nursing home?"

I totally understand the glasses thing! I can't see a thing without 'em. I like the velcro idea. It would work here in Florida for hurricane season. If I were in bed during a hurricane.

CAP, you rawk in a big rockin' way! What a fabulous post! All of it - the earthquake kit, the SBD earth farts, the blindness (Lasik totally rocked my world, btw - it was worth every penny and then some), and the dyed hair and preposition-ended sentences.

And that is all I need to say about that. Thank you.

As a native Virginian and a resident of the DC metro area, I have all kinds of kits. We have the regular old Emergency kit, (flashlights, batteries, blankets, knives) the Terrorist kit, (just add duct tape, plastic wrap, water) and the Nuclear Fallout kit (all of the above, plus enough Chef Boyardee for a lifetime). But, no tornado kit. What is up with that!? We had an earthquake a few years back too, (It was like, a 2.1. We almost died!) I think good old VA is going down...

And PS, my dad keeps glasses EVERYWHERE in the house. With the silverware, by the computer, on the TV, in the bathroom cabinet. One pair will surely survive nuclear fallout! (But he has a pair in the kit anyway...)

Since you shared your plans for your retirement, I thought I would share mine. I hope you enjoy.

I have intentions of being a crazy cat lady after my second husband dies. My first one will be the one I marry for money, a la Anna Nicole Smith (RIP), and then when he dies after two years of marriage, I will enjoy my life a while before I marry a man I actually like. As I am only 20, I figure I've got plenty of time. Then, when he dies some 15-20 years before me, I will live on the outskirts of a small town with at least seven cats, one of which will always be named Lucifer. I will wear an ankle length black cloak and write historical fiction. I also plan to be a cougar somewhere in there, so hopefully I will age well. If not, I've got cats.

Being old will rock!

Earthfarts... desperately trying to suppress guffaw here in cubeland...

New England has very few noticeable earthquakes, although supposedly we have a lot of very quiet seismic activity.

When you are 60 I will be 72, and I already have plans for my hair -- I'm hoping Amy http://www.spunkyeclectic.com/shop_fibercolors.htm will do hair instead of fiber just once if I ask her nicely. Come visit, and we will horrify Newbury St. (Kinda Boston's version of Rodeo Drive: simultaneously funkier and stuffier, but seriously expensive and with *many* killer shoes.)

bord & bred with Georgia tornadoes, yessirree! and like every other good redneck, i always head outside to watch the tornadoes form and play with hail ... until trees start falling, then we run into the basement.

haha Earthfarts, picturing us all living on top of a great big ole butt...

Having lived through the 7.2 Loma Prieta (that was quite an adventure, lemme tell you!) I have also been advised to add heavy boots and work gloves to the preparedness stash. If'n it's a good one, you're likely to want to help with rescue (or may NEED to help) and your bedroom slippers just aren't going to do it. Of course, that advice doesn't mean I've got them nearby.... hmmm, perhaps time to re-prepare. (Still live on California coast!)

Ok, "gyrating off into the mystic" is officially my new favorite term. If I have one more bad day at work, I may do just that!

I live in the Midwest and my earth most certainly did not move, due to the quake or otherwise. Alas.

Julie, I will be your roomate in the Hippy Hippy Shake Shake retirement home.

Laurie, I too have paused my smoking habits. I think 60 sounds like a good time to revisit this habit. Send the smoke toting stripper to me when you are done!

And you're supposed to keep a pair of comfortable (i.e. ugly) shoes under your bed and in your car just in case. I lived through Loma Prieta in San Francsico proper in 1989, and still, the thing I dread the most about the next Big One (or the real Big One according to some) is walking around for days in ugly shoes.

I have only been out of CA for seven years. Was never really scared of earthquakes. I am now in Texas and any mention of a tornado, I freak out. Those scare me more, too.

You need to read the poem "When I Am Old I Shall Wear Purple."

You can read it here: http://labyrinth_3.tripod.com/page59.html

If you haven't read it before, it's really worth it.

For your rockin' 60s, may I recommend One Life's Joint Flex. It's a great blend of nutrients that will stop all the joint pain. I know, I'm 64.

I'm right there with you about the glasses. I fear that the aliens will invade and I won't be able to see a thing. Or they'll come when I have my contacts in and I'll be stuck wearing the same pair of disposable contacts for months until I have to choose between taking them out (and subsequently angering our alien overlords with my extreme nearsightedness) and living with dry, uncomfortable lenses in my eyes.

Though really, if the aliens are going to come all this way, are they really going to be so wasteful as to kill anyone who can't see past the tip of their nose? Can't I just toil in the mines anyway? Enslavement by aliens would probably be a little more palatable if it were blurry, anyway.

LA has a football team, right, or why's David Beckham there?

Hey - what about the quakes in Nevada!! It's one thing to have one big one sneak up on you. It's quite another to be shaken (not stirred) for two months straight! For the last five nights I've been shaken awake at least twice.

I lived in O.C. for ten years until I moved up to Reno three years. I've experience more earth movement in the last two months than in the entire time I live down there.

Weird, eh? Never pegged Nevada for being a siesmic center! :-)

"When I turn 60, I am going to have a truckload of cigarettes delivered to me by a scandalously young male stripper, I tell you what. My sixties are going to ROCK."

WORD.

By the time you are seventy, seventy will be the new twenty!

..We have an earthquake kit. No one knows what's in it, but we DO have one! ;-D

By the time you are seventy, seventy will be the new twenty!

..We have an earthquake kit. No one knows what's in it, but we DO have one! ;-D

I like your plan for when you get old, except for the smoking thing. Blame it on a grandmother who died of a combination of osteoporosis and emphysema related to her life-long smoking.

Earthfarts don't scare me as much as tornado's do. But then I was in a building a mini-tornado passed by a few years back, and live within the TV viewing area of the recent ones in VA. VA isn't supposed to get tornado's. Hurricane's yes, but not tornado's. Gah!

I grew up in Los Angeles and as a result, am terrified of earthquakes. Now we live near Lake Tahoe, and we've had rumbling minor earthquakes all week and I'm FREAKING out about it. I think I'll go eat the ding-dongs from my emergency kit to make me feel better.

As a Midwesterner thank you for the earthquake public service message. Guess I'll add it to my tornado kit- crank-powered weather radio, flashlight and blankets in the basement.

I have to comment on yesterday's Vinegar Man report- my daughter works with and now sits in the cubicle next Dog-Odor Woman. She said yesterday the woman used her phone and when she picked it up to use it she gagged from the residual smell and had to wipe it down with hand sanitizer. I told her the advice you had gotten about the Febreeze dousing, but we figured that might cause problems in the workplace. Yikes.

I remember listening to my 9 y.o.tropical niece one time talk about how cyclones (hurricane) of a category one or two level were just fun!

I think that when I turn 70, i'm just going to start smoking pot again. who's gonna arrest a 70 yr old grandma in a pheasent skirt, who lives with 10 cats. The blue haze around me will match my bluish hair do.

Great post...and reminder to get the earthquake kit going. My house is on the end of a small valley that was (is) created by two faults. I don't know why I think I'll be exempt. I'll get right on it.

I actually (sickly) am looking forward to my later years when you never know which pastel shade my hair will be!!

(has to be pastel--how tacky to be old and have primary colored hair. Like yer foolin' anyone!)

I just glanced back at your kit list and saw "Tang and vodka." Brilliant! Thanks for the reminder to check the kit. Mine probably still has bulging cans of chili and kitty stew from the 90s.

And Laura, can I reserve a room at the Hippy Hippy Shake Shake Retirement home? I'll bring mojito mix.

Good call on the earthquake kit! I should get one since they keep predicting that WA is going to get "THE BIG ONE!" soon. Well, as long as I've lived here we've had 2 and the biggest was around 5 or 6 something, not too exciting and nothing broke, note even the glass stuff at Safeway!

Anyway, don't forget to refill your water every once in a while. Because just in case it ever does go off after an earthquake, you don't want to be stuck w/ the stuff you put in the jugs how many months/years ago?

My favorite part is HOW you are going to get the cigarettes...scantily clad young strippers...amen and pass the lighter.

I'm going to try and slot the phrase "gyrating off into the mystic" into my conversation 7 times today. It is beautiful.

Hi Laurie! About your earlier book post. Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult is awesome, but Picture Perfect and The Tenth Circle sucked. There is another good one by her about a teenaged couple...don't remember the name of it now.

I lived in California for 3 years and never felt an earthquake. The only one I've ever felt was in Iowa in 1987. I sleep like I'm dead, so I didn't feel the last Midwestern one at 4 am either.

Thanks for posting daily. This is the highlight of my day.

They say to have cash in your earthquake kit. The banks might be closed and you will need cash to buy important items like chocolate, vodka and toilet paper. Be prepared for price gouging.

When I was 10 yrs. old, I lived through an F5 tornado and was so scared I pee'd my pants. (My brother STILL brings this up at least once a year. After 32 yrs., he still find it amusing.)

Another time, I was standing outside under an 80 ft. party tent when a tornado blew through. It was a very surreal, "we're not in Kansas anymore" experience when the folding chairs and flower arrangements went whirling past. By the way, I did NOT pee my pants that time. (It was only an F1 tornado.) My brother NEVER mentions that one.

ok ignore my asking about chocolate. i couldnt get the kit link to open earlier and for some reason i decided to come back a try again. maybe i shouldve mentioned that instead of sounding like a dumbass. oh well...if anyone asks, i drink LOL

id add wet wipes, just in case

Don't you have yarn and needles in that emergency kit? I would.

I felt that earthquake here in KY. It woke me up at some unholy hour. I just sat on the couch and watched the ceiling fan swing back and forth for a few seconds, then I started calling people making sure they were okay. I can safely say that I don't particularly care about repeating the experience though. That was the first earthquake that I've ever been in (to my knowledge).

All the years I lived in Callyfornya I never had an earthquake kit. I just figured I'd be in one of the roving bands of hungry and thirsty people who go from house to house foraging.

It's a tough job, but someone has to do it, otherwise what did 'Mad Max' teach us?
.

Okay ya'll, an earthquake ain't a real quake until it throws you out of bed when you are asleep, so that you wake up with your face in the carpet, the cat running down the hall squealing and your mom yelling for you to get in the doorway from her bedroom down the hall....

That was a 7.3- when I was a kid- I think the "Landers quake"

And when I was 7, the Whittier Narrows quake totaled my hometown. I was on the schoolbus when that one hit.

So yeah my parents have an "earthquake cupboard" and they pay through the nose for insurance. But they remember how half the city was totaled when I was a kid, so they just look the other way and pay.

Tell those crazy midwesterners that we already should have that "earthquake kit" only we call it the TORNADO KIT where your power is going to go off for 6 days after the oak tree falls on the transformer lines.

Seriously? People here want an earthquake kit and don't have tornado/storm supplies?? Come on kids, be safe.

Lisa, in Winfield IL, hit by tornado in August 2007.

The midwest totally has houses left on the freeway, only they usually are left as a result of a tornado.

I live in North Carolina and my couch was shaking from that midwest earthquake. Let's just say that this ol' mountain girl was a bit surprised :-) I guess the old folks around here were right when they said we were on a fault line...

And the tornadoes? That we don't have here? Deathly afraid. I don't think I'd live long enough to see houses left on the highway: my heart would have exploded the second I laid eyes on a twister!

My husband STOPPED smoking at 60. It's amazing how young 60 is once you get there! I think. I have a few more years to go.

Everyone one thinks I'm weird, cause I think it would be fun to feel another earthfart. Not a large one, just a little rock and roll. I'm from Idaho, so we don't get much excitement.

My kitchen clock crashed into the sink this afternoon, shattering it's glass and denting a pan in the sink. I joked that we must have had an earthquake...even tho I didn't feel any shaking....sure enough, it just came on the local news! There WAS an earthquake centered in Paso Robles this afternoon. No damage, unless you count my dead clock! Now I am really going to get that kit.

*rolling with laughter!* Earthfarts! I love it! You rock! And you certainly will at 60!

*rolling with laughter!* Earthfarts! I love it! You rock! And you certainly will at 60!

Earthfart. **snort**

Here in Wisconsin, we have Earthquake Kits. In the winter they are known as Blizzard Kits. In summer, they are known as Tornado Kits. Although I will have to seriously consider adding some powdered cheesy garlic mashed potatoes. And a sterno thingy.

I must say, as a CA native (who survived the '89 Loma Prieta just fine), there is such thing as earthquake weather. Really! It just doesn't actually happen when there's a quake.

Somewhere around the anniversary of a quake, when it is unseasonably hot just like it was on the date of original quake, people start talkin'. And then no earthquake happens, and life continues as usual.

Ok, maybe not so much weather as gossip. Never mind.

Have you ever thought about having the old eyeballs lasered? I was also as blind as a mole without my glasses (-4 left eye -5 right eye, with astigmatism). And now I can see perfectly. This was 2 years ago now - and I swear it was the best money I ever spent.
Over here in England it's pretty boring - no real earthfarts or tornados. We do however seem to also get the boring weather. Forecast for this week is overcast with rain - all week. Joys...

Love the SBD comparison! Very funny. Luckily we don't have to fret about earthquakes here, on the whole. And when we do they're minute. The last time there was one (I forget which part of the country it was in), it was about 2 or 3 on the Richter scale and people were complaining that they had a few things fall off the shelves.

Oh, brilliant. So much about this entry that made my morning funnier. :)

Also, congratulations on 16 months not smoking! And I totally do NOT mean that in an "ew I can't believe you used to smoke SIGARETTES R GROSS!!!1!!" way.

My first 15 minutes into work, I opened the door to the staff room and immediately walked away from it. It smelled HORRIBLE. Knowing on Monday the just the staff bathroom was smelling funky, I was quickly and completely grossed out. I really thought it was going to be a bad day. The coffee machine is in the staff room after all.

Then I read your blog.
The Cone of Uncertainty made my day.

(Oddly enough, this is the second reference to Monty Phyton I've read today)

It is exactly because of my irrational fear that I would become food fodder in the event of a devasting earthquake that I got laser eye surgery! Now I can see!! Do you hear me, mama? I CAN SEE!! Though I don't have an earthquake kit so I guess I'll be able to see while I starve to death. And so it goes...

I'm a native Californian who was near the epicenter of Loma Prieta, and earthquakes don't faze me. Tornadoes, on the other hand, scare the crap out of me. The sky is NOT supposed to turn pea-soup green and BUBBLE. Gaah.

First of all, to Sarah up there: Nevada is something like the third or fourth most seismic state. Quakes are very common there.

I'm a native Californian - Bay Area - and I also lived through Loma Prieta. I lived 20 miles from the epicenter on the Greenville fault. Like most Californians, I loved earthquakes and figured they were cheap entertainment up to about 6.0. One of those hit when I was in line at the drive-through at the bank (remember those?). I actually watched the Lucky grocery store pick up off it's foundation, move over two inches, and drop back down. The bank I was at was in a trailer, and it was rolling back and forth. Highly amusing, especially watching the teller holding money fanned out in her hand and looking like she was about to pee on her feet. We were hit with a 6.3 the next day - whoopie!

However, the day the "big one" hit (and we all thought that's what it was), I heard it coming. A really big quake sounds like the rumble of a freight train. I thought, "Oh... a quake" and continued to fry chicken. The next thing I knew, my kitchen floor was rolling and rippling like an ocean wave, I was on my ass on the floor with hot oil all over me, and everything was flying off the walls. I managed to crawl over to the window (we're not especially bright in the midst of a quake - who needs all those stupid instructions on what to do during one of them?) and saw waves from my pool coming up three feet over the side. Then the power went off. What scared me about that one is that I was going to go to Berkeley that day and got a bad feeling about it, so I stayed home. Had I gone, I would have been coming home on the Cypress at the exact time it collapsed and wouldn't be sitting here right now. We didn't get power for four hours and didn't know where the epi was until then. It's scary not knowing anything. When I saw it and then saw the scavengers taking souvenirs from the rubble while people were screaming from the structure above, I threw up. I've never been so saddened; to this day, I can't watch footage of it. I'm still not scared of quakes - after all, I've lived with them my entire life - but I live on the Hayward fault again and know that should a large one hit, there will be massive damage and loss of life, as the Bay Area is much more heavily populated now than it was back in 1989.

I don't have a preparedness kit, nor do any of the people I know, but it's not a bad idea. While I still enjoy quakes, I'm getting a little more sensible in my old age.

And yes... I smoke and will continue to do so unless I'm next to an open gas pipe.

Hate to break it to y'all, but the BIGGEST earthfart fault (love that new word!) runs THROUGH THE MIDWEST and ends in North Carolina. Biggest damn' earthquake ever recorded was in NC and rung the church bells all the way in other states a few hundred years ago. And since there's no frequent "little farts" (tremors) to relieve the pressure of that big fault, well, let's just say that, like your obese coworker after he's been in a loooong meeting just after his favorite mega-burrito lunch...those earth farts don't get any smaller when mother nature's been holding them in!!
FYI- it also helps to hang pictures with the wire wrapped around the nail in the wall, to anchor your big furniture to the wall, and have baby-latches on your kitchen cupboards. Just sayin'.

Gee - and here I thought Earthfarts were mineral hot springs!

Interesting that toddlers and earthquakes require homeowners to take the same precautions! ;->

C'mon over Baby, whole lotta shakin' goin' on.....

Ha! I was reading on unclutterer and found the blog below. I thought of you and your earthquake kit!

http://unclutterer.com/2007/07/23/extreme-minimalism-monday-bucket-o-food/

You are always SO funny. I just had a mental picture of an earthquake-caster, holding a microphone and dressed in a yellow raincoat, standing on Santa Monica Boulevard and pointing urgently at the ground. "Look, it's shaking!"

Sigh. Here in the middle of the Cone of Uncertainty, it's time to refresh the hurricane preparedness kit.

My glasses live in a little sling-purse that hangs on the bedpost for a slightly different reason: so the cats don't knock 'em off the nightstand.

You are going to be Maxine when you are old? Cool!