Shake, rattle and poo

This morning I awoke to find piles of poo droppings scattered around the house. They trailed out from the laundry room where we keep Chum's litter, into the hall way and family room and then I found the last pile under the dining room table. It was like an Easter egg hunt in the springtime only instead I was searching for poo clumps in the hot summer. Surprisingly Wrig's had left most of the poo in the family room alone UNTIL he saw me get the tools (paper towels and spray cleaner) to remove it. Then it was a mad dash to gobble it all up. I was too tired (ok, hungover) to stop him and was trying my best to hold my breath while picking up the pieces because I felt as though I was about to lose my cookies. Between the two of us, we got it all up which triggered the neat freak in me so slowly, I continued to clean the rest of the house.

Chumley was darting from room to room and would all of a sudden plop his body down hard and shoot a leg up in the air while maniacally licking his rear entry point. I assumed there were still some remnants clinging to life so I would casually walk over to him and try to pick him up but he was onto me and kept running away as soon as I'd get close. He'd run to the dining room table then launch himself to the couch and then squeeze through the kitty cut out door of the doggy gate and run amok on the kitchen counters. I know this is beyond disgusting for most of you (or actually probably ALL of you) but this situation is not exactly what you would call out of the ordinary in this house, hence my cavalier attitude in posting it here. Just know that I do clean the food prep areas on a consistent basis so no need to worry about anything foreign in home cooked meals at my house.

Tom had returned from golf shortly after 10 and we were sitting in the living room playing with Wrigs as Chum was watching from his little sitting area near the stairs. I told Tom about Chum's incident this morning and how I think he still needs some help cleaning it all up so I sneakily headed over towards Chum. Since Wrigs was close behind there was nowhere for Chum to escape so I was able to nab him. I held the squirming boy facing belly out towards Tom so he could inspect the area in question. Tom moved his tail out of the way and poor Chum howled and thrashed around to get out of my grip but I held on tight until Tom gave me the thumbs up, everything looked normal.

No sooner did I place Chum back on his perch when the ground shook with force! I was standing in the middle of our living room and it felt as though the wood floor was going to pop and snap into pieces. Tom jumps off the couch, Chum FLIES up the stairs and Wrigley starts barking like a mad man. It lasted maybe all of 5 seconds? Maybe longer? But OH MY GOD we were all frozen in what seemed like an eternity. I thought to myself, "THIS IS IT! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" Ok maybe I didn't just think it, maybe I screamed it at the top of my lungs for the duration of the quake, I don't really remember but it literally felt like our house was picked up and placed back down on the ground. Nothing was broken, nothing even fell off the shelves but chandeliers shook, doors & windows rattled, and the floor I was standing on felt like it was about to cave right in. Once it was all over I told Tom I bet the epicenter was right beneath our living room floor so we rushed to the Earthquake alert page and saw that it was a magnitude 4.7 centered about 12 miles away and was felt as far as Northridge, San Diego, Palm Springs and Big Bear. It was quite a jolt.

This was a quake wake up call for us both because we realized we are not as prepared as we had thought. We have canned goods and water stashed away in the garage, as well as an earthquake survival kit but we have to secure some of the heavier items (like our tv in the bedroom and many things piled on top of each other in the garage) and have easy access to important documents in case we need to claw our way out of rubble. Of course I pray to God that never happens but mother nature is not something we can control so we need to do as much as we can up until that point of no return. Those of you here in California, please make sure you're prepared and for those of you in the rest of the world, I hope you have preparations in place in case of natural or man made emergencies. Disasters strike with little or no warning and I just want all my loved ones to be safe.

This link to Fema's website on disaster preparedness is something everyone should take the time to read.

Are you Ready?