days_unfolding

The "pretty big" Loma Prieta earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area was 30 years ago today.

I was at work. I was walking down the hall to the printer room, when the whole building started shaking violently. I thought that it was going to come down. I turned around and tried to walk back to my office, bouncing off the walls and getting hit by ceiling tiles. It could have been much worse, but it was scary enough. After what seemed like an eternity, the shaking stopped.

The phone rang. Someone else answered it and said, "It's for you." It was Erik (my ex-husband), checking that I was okay.

Erik called back a little while later. He was at work in Sunnyvale (? Or Santa Clara?), so he was going to stay there a while and let the traffic clear out. We agreed that I'd see him when I see him.

I took the bus to and from work. I wasn't sure that the buses would be running, so a colleague drove me home, which was very nice. The traffic lights were out, but drivers were being uncharacteristically polite.

I was a little scared at what I'd find at home. When I opened the door, I found a bottle of soda by the door. I didn't see the cats at first (they were hiding), but then they went, "Mom's home! Everything is okay!" I was like, "Oh ye of misplaced faith."

Amazingly, the bookshelves stayed up. (They weren't bolted to the wall.) Some stuff fell off of a bookshelf and broke, which I cleaned up. Erik's picture-hanging prowess was put to the test, and none of the pictures came down, although they had turned. The worst damage was a closet door that had come off its track.

The cable was out. The only radio station that I could get was in Santa Cruz, which had quite a bit of damage, so I assumed that there was a lot of damage in San Jose. (There wasn't.) I lay down on the bed with three cats draped over me, listening to the news.

Then the national news came on. I was still in shock, and it hadn't occurred to me that the earthquake would be national news. The news made it sound like the Bay Area was in ruins, so I went "Oh crap" and tried to call my parents. Everyone was doing the same thing, so all circuits were busy.

Erik finally got home, and we gave each other a big hug.

The next day, they told people to stay off of the roads, so we stayed home. My nerves were fried, and during one of the many aftershocks I said, "Stop it! Stop it already!"

I finally got in touch with my parents two days later. Mom came to visit a couple of weeks later, and she said that she wanted to feel an earthquake, and I snapped at her. (There actually were two aftershocks while she was there, but she missed them.) It took me weeks before I was able to go down the hall where I was when the earthquake hit.

I can't believe that it's been 30 years. Back to the current time....

I had lots of snuggle time with Zara. It's my late day, so I had a leisurely breakfast.

Urgh. The Bluehost guy told me to access the email to confirm the domain. I can't access the email, so that's the problem! I hope that we can get this resolved.

I was sitting on a chair with Zara on my lap. She jumped over my shoulder and onto the floor in one leap. I told her that she gets a perfect 10 in the Kitty Olympics. She amazes me.

I'm chatting with my dad via e-mail about IRAs. Scintillating conversation :) But I'm learning some things. It didn't occur to me to roll over my TIAA-CREF account (the higher-education version of a 401K) into a better IRA, but I should consider it.

Mimi was stalking Zara when I got home, and I told her to cut it out. She did, grudgingly, and occasionally she would start to wiggle her butt, and I'd tell her to cut it out again. Etc. Le sigh.