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HERE I SAT, DEAR READER, quietly reading my email, when the good solid earth started pantomiming the ocean! Yes, at first the floor of the house just shook, but then it rapidly progressed to riding the waves (not white-capped ones, but some pretty impressive action when one considers how long the earth's been sitting so prim and properly still!) "Hmm," I thought, and I looked up at the ceiling, "Perhaps I should take myself outside!" and I promptly did. (Oh, my goodness, it was a fabulous day to be outside!)

Well, then the ground stood still again. And the house relaxed back into its bump-on-a-log, sedate, not-blinking-an-eye mode. I went back inside and waited for the local radio station to stop playing its classical music and thoroughly explain the earth's misbehavior.

While I was still waiting, my telephone rang. "Hey, Mom," said my son, who was calling from two-hundred and thirty miles away to the south, "Would you do me a favor?"

"Of course," I replied.

"Well," he asked me, "would you get online and look to see if we had an earthquake in this area?"

"But, wait...but....what?!! We had an earthquake HERE!!" I exclaimed in disbelief.
That, Dear Reader--is when the earth's hijinks really rattled my bones, got me all shook up!




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(O, Nostradamus! Tsk, tsk)