In the wake of the quake

Things I learned from yesterday’s earthquake:

1. Most mothers I know drink too much. When one friend asked on Facebook if we had felt the 8 pm aftershock, which was a 4.2 magnitude, so we should have, almost every one of us answered that we had been drinking wine and felt nothing, but that our children, who (one would hope) had not been drinking wine, insisted there had been another quake.

2. Washington can laugh at itself. To this point, my friend Kim (who is currently offering a prize to those who like her blog on FB), offered this (she didn’t write it, just shared it):

"The Weather Channel says yesterday's east coast earthquake caused by a previously unknown fault line running under our nation's capitol is now being called Obama's Fault, although Obama will likely say it's really Bush's Fault. Other theories are that the turbulence was our founding fathers rolling over in their graves or more likely, that what we believed to be an earthquake was actually the catastrophic effect of a single 14.6 trillion dollar check bouncing."

3. Children have insane imaginations. Caroline, who had been at her school helping some of the teachers get ready for next week, said, with a straight face, “Wow, Mommy, I thought a wild boar had gotten underneath the floor.” (Seriously? A wild boar? Since they’re so common around here, as opposed to say, oh, raccoons??)

4. My dog is really, really old. He didn’t even wake up from his nap, though cabinet doors were flying open, walls were undulating and the entire house felt like it was inside a large, violent salt shaker.

5. My dad pays no attention to my children. Jack ran downstairs and yelled, "Grumpy!" (And I do mean yell, because that’s how we have to communicate with him.) "That shaking was an EARTHQUAKE!!" My dad smiled and said calmly, "Oh, wow. Okay." Two hours later (and I swear this on all that is holy), the man texted me and said, "Your brother just called. Did you know that was a damn EARTHQUAKE???"

Now we’re all talking about Hurricane Irene. Really, I think all the kids due to start school on Monday have formed some massive conspiracy with Mother Nature to make summer last just a little bit longer.

Or the entire west coast is fed up with our natural disaster jokes and is offering one large, cosmic thought:

IN YOUR FACE!