"Shake, shake, shake, Señora, shake it all the time" ~Harry Belafonte

Yesterday a jolt in the earth in VA found it's way allllll the way up central NY. Pretty impressive! I didn't feel it, I was on my way into work, but everyone in the office experienced it. I sure heard about it when I got in tho. And I had the funniest reaction to it: I got homesick.

Earthquakes are so very California. I have been through a dozen or so, that were worth mentioning. Only one of them was really scary. Most of them were enough to say, "Meh....it will be over in a second."

I suppose one should fear the earth, taking it upon itself, to dance and flow as if suddenly liquid. The pictures on the wall, tuned askew and the various books and nick-naks flung akimbo.

Just another 6am wake up call for this second generation California girl.

I use to hear them, actually. Right before they would hit. A low rumble, the earth clearing it's throat, perhaps? Maybe it was more the vibrations that I could sense. But I could call them.

I remember working at Barnes Wholesale and I was sitting and jawing with a co-worker. There it was, the thundering moan of ancient earth turning under the crust that we call home.

"Earthquake." I said in almost a whisper.
"What?" said my co-worker
"We are about to have a earthquake."
"Shut up. You know if we did right now I would jump up an run my ass right outside screaming. I can't stand.......SWEET JESUS!"

I stayed seated on the small sofa in her office, she dove under her desk. When things stopped rocking, she poked her head out.

"Next time you get that juju thing going....walk away from me and don't say NUTHIN!"

I was in senior English when the class room started rocking. A scream from the class room next door and a thud. The sound of 20 sets of knees hitting the ground, shortly after. My teacher looked at us and we scooted back and forth in our desks. "Should we get under?" I reassured her, "It will end in a second." So we waited. And it did.

There was no way this 5'10" girl was going to squeeze under that tiny desk.

The teacher next door, poor thing, was from the middle of America and it was her first earthquake. She pretty much abandoned her class and dove under her own desk, leaving her students to follow on their own.

I've been in bed for most of them. On the toilet for one, when I was a lil kid. Walking across a college campus for another. The cars, bouncing and moving closer and closer to each other. Their alarms, defining. Their owners left to figure out how to get into the cars with the doors touching. I was in our family cabin in the mountains for another. The wagon wheel lights swinging.

There are two kinds of earthquakes: a roller and a shaker. One you can ride out, like being on a boat. The other will bring things off the wall. In 1994 the biggest in the history of my 44 years hit Northridge, CA. While it started out lightly waking me at 4am with its rolling action, it soon changed it's temperament to a shaker. So much so that I finally felt scared.

"HIT THE DOORS!" I yelled from my room. Instructions for my two sisters, who I could hear awake, next door to my room. They tell you to brace yourself in a load bearing door frame for safety. It was the first time ever that I had felt I needed to do just that. We camped out in our doorways like it was forever. 20 sec, tops. Pictures dropped, books flew, my parents scrambled down from upstairs.

We were fine, the house was fine, but a lot of other people weren't. The 6.2 magnitude quake was the worst on record since San Francisco.

Maybe I don't miss them too much. But they beat a hurricane or tornado, hands down. I mean, at least you know where you stuff is. In the other two you have to go two counties over to get it.

A grandmother pretends she doesn't know who you are on Halloween. ~Erma Bombeck

How early can I start talking about Halloween?

Well..it's my blog so I can start right now if I want too, so there :P

I'm already stalking my favorite sites that stock up early for the best holiday evah. I have a long history with Halloween. I think it might have been a favorite holiday of my grandmother. She loved to put on a mask to hand out candy. I have a picture of her with plastic, bloodshot eyes and vampire teeth.

On Halloween, we would hit our own neighborhood, but then it was off to my grandparents to really do it up right. Nan would put out apple cider and donuts. A long gone tradition of an older generation. Decorations that collectors hunt for now, adorned her house: The plastic arched cat with the pumpkin on its back that lit up, and probably a fire hazard. Paper pumpkin candy bags, in burnt orange,black, and a dash of bright yellow. It's googly eyes looking scared. Noise makers and rattles with sexy dancing witches on them, striped stockings and wide brimmed hats. Skeletons in the window, when you walked up to her backdoor, their joints sporting shiny brass brads that let them pose in a spooky greeting.

After bleeding the 'hood of all it's candy, we would travel across town to a family friends house, where 'Crazy Aunt Joan' would be in full wicked witch of the west garb. I would have to be ushered around back, too scared to go to the front. One year she let me pop the balloons on her back that made her witchy humps. Finally the spell broken, my fear gone with each pop.

When Nan passed, leaving a gaping hole in my life, my mom asked if there was anything I wanted, I knew exactly what I would like to have. I wanted the big orange serving dish she would put the candy on each year. It rested on the tall entry table, heaped with treats. She would answer the door, grab for the enormous plate and administer goodies to the kiddies.

We would root though our haul in our bags and sort out what we didn't want. A tangle of salt water taffy, DOTS, gum, black licorice, and donate it to the big orange plate. Then off we would go again, to fill our bags.

Halloween is in my DNA. In fact I think it was just last year, in a sad display of Halloween things in a drugstore, there were those same plastic, bloodshot bug eyes. And I smiled and thought of Nan.