Disaster and Mayhem In the (Not-Middle) East

A few minutes before 11:00 this morning, I’m sitting at my desk doing my daily Fish Wrangler tournament and pretending to work, counting down the minutes until I can leave.  I’ll go to the gym, but everyone thinks I’m going to my Therapist (or to my ambiguous bi-tuesday-ly appointment) (Deb is off this month.)  Suddenly I receive a text message from my sister who lives in Albany, New York.

“I think we just had an earthquake.  How do I find out?”

I refer her to USGS.gov which is where I always go when I think there’s been an earthquake.  If you look at the map of the US on that website you’ll see literally hundreds of little colored dots all along the west coast.  Depending on the week you might see one or two dots in other parts of the country.  (And honestly?  The vast majority of those dots on the west coast went unnoticed.)

Anyway, I refer her and then I go to look for myself.  Before I even get that far, I see a breaking news e-mail from MSNBC saying “Pentagon and the Capital Evacuated After Apparent Earthquake.”  I click on it and sure enough, 5.8 earthquake in Virginia.

I text my sister back:

“5.8 Earthquake in Virginia.  You have all the fun.  :)”

I start reading the stories, because as we know by now, disaster and mayhem is kind of my thing, (hey did you see that outdoor concert stage collapse?!?) but there wasn’t much to it.  The earthquake was shallow so it was felt over a wide area.

I report to my co-workers on this unusual event.  Unusual, to us, in that it happened on the other side of the country.  Not long after that, K tells me that a friend of hers, who used to live here, but now lives in Philadelphia felt the earthquakes as well.  The friend works with another California native and the two sit and watch as their co-workers decry the end of the world…

Later, K and I have this exchange:

K:  “OMG! Fox news had a new crawl on ‘No tsunami expected after east coast earthquake.’  Really?”
Me: “Of course!  Tsunami’s are all the rage.”
K:  “It’s the new black?”
Me:  “Tsunami’s are the new black.   That’s what I’m going to call my book.  I’m sure I won’t get in any trouble with Jen Lancaster.”

And then:

K:  “They are cancelling schools tomorrow back east, now.”
Me:  “It’s the end of the world you know.  Nobody want’s to be in school during Armageddon.”

Later, I discover that in spite of my making light of the situation, there was indeed some devastation back east; showing here:

Photo found here.

Excuse me while I briefly get political here.  Someone I don’t know was retreated by Wil Wheaton on twitter today when he wrote:

@markos god is punishing VA for not allowing gay marriage. RT by @wilw

It’s really only funny because, let’s face it.  If this had happened in Iowa, Pat Robertson would be saying “God is punishing Iowa for allowing gay marriage.”

I wonder if the rest of the country knows, California is pointing and laughing at them right now?