I wasn't swaying -- the bookshelves were

Written last night:
Dear Friends,

I have decided to relax and treat this like a real four-day weekend.

This morning Zing! and I drove 20 minutes away to the Davis Water Treatment Facility. It’s in the middle of a field outside the city. A wildlife tour begins there tomorrow, and I might go. I like to check out places ahead of time because the secondary roads are still new to me. 

Back home, I read for probably two hours — a book about water management in California. (Clark would chuckle at the thought, but water is such a vital force here that I want to know a little about it.)

Then I looked at trees and drew some flowers.

Then, after dinner, when I was at the table coloring the flowers, I felt my first earthquake. Just a little shake. It was unsettling, like maybe I was going to faint, but it wasn’t me that was swaying — the bookshelves were. Just slightly. I thought I was imagining it. Then Zing! looked up in alarm from his pillow on the floor. And then the pendulum on the brass clock went knocking wildly side to side. Then it stopped. 

I can’t imagine getting used to it.

I called Steph and Patrick. Steph said it made sense — she’d just heard their house creak, and it doesn’t normally do that. 

It was real — here’s the Sacramento Bee headline just now:

Magnitude-6.9 earthquake strikes Ridgecrest, California; felt as far north as Sacramento

Glad to say all is back to normal.

Love,

k