Everything Went Shaky Shaky

Today was the first day this summer that I felt inclined to go to campus and collect the stuff that had accumulated in my part-time faculty office cubicle (see my mess above). The department admin. asst. sent us all an email telling us to clean it out before the end of the week because we are all going to be shuttled over to some other office. It happens every semester. I am a gal without a permanent office. It is the major complaint of part-time (or as I like to think of it, adjunct) faculty. One day in all of the summer that I trek out to campus and what happens? Oh yeah, an earthquake! Centered like 10 miles away. I was in an elevator when it happened, holding a big box of papers for shredding. I thought we were plummeting, but when I got out of the elevator, which opened its doors mid-quake, it looked like everyone on the floor had experienced something as well. The building was retrofitted, so it continued to sway for a minute or so. Yikes! People filed out of buildings, alarms went off, it was a big mess.

The phone lines were jammed, but when I found out it was centered in Chino, I called my family anyway. I know that Corona is very close to Chino and I had to make sure my stepdad was ok. He's wheelchair bound, so I hoped all was well. Once I found out he was ok, I could breathe easier. In my haste to get home and check on my puppy, I locked my keys in my trunk. God, I'm such a spaz. Luckily, AAA came quickly and I hurried my ass home. My pup was frightened, as I had expected.
Only one casualty in my apartment, a beautiful glass polka dot vase that we got as a wedding gift. Smashed to pieces. I loved that vase. Damn. By the time I got home and called everyone I know, I got a text message from my university telling me that classes were canceled, which generally means there was some damage somewhere. I'm glad I walked away unscathed.

When I knew everyone was ok, my thoughts turned to Dr. Kate Hutton, the earthquake lady. She's a CalTech seismologist that is on the news whenever there's anl earthquake. For as long as I can remember, she's been on my television right after a quake. My friend Brande and I had discussed this a little over a month ago. We looked up her Wikipedia entry and saw that she was described as a "lesbian icon" who has been out since 1984. Both of us were very impressed with her "icon" status. I wish I were an icon of something. Anyway, since we just talked about her not long ago, we sent dueling text messages to each other, not saying "Hey are you OK?" or "did you feel that?" but "I bet Kate Hutton's on tv right now!" Hope everyone reading this is doing well and didn't lose anything important in the quake.

Dr. Kate Hutton, Cal Tech Seismologist