I love Elvis and grew up with his music — thanks to my parents — but he’s not the focus of this post.

So I have the displeasure of being gifted genetically with extreme earthquake sensitivity. I can feel ANY little tremor. It is not a gift, believe me. It has been driving me crazy all weekend; I’ve been on a heightened state of anxiety. Why?

Unfortunately, ALL WEEKEND LONG we’ve been having earthquakes. Fullerton, at least certain parts of it, have been particularly hard hit. See this link for a wrap up.

In our house, we had many things fall off the shelves (pictures, etc.), but luckily, nothing broke. I was sitting at our dinner table with my husband Saturday night when the first one struck. We had just put the kids to sleep. It was a little after 8 and registered a 3.6, I think. We commented on it . . . it was a roller as opposed to a jolter. And we left it at that . . . until an hour later. That was the bigger one . . . the 5.1. That was freaky scary, and a jolter. The whole house groaned and creaked. I ran to a doorway, which is what I have been taught since I was a kid. The kids we freaked, too, to say the least. Thing 1 and Thing 2 were content to settle back into bed after giving the house a cursory look, but Mr. T needed a little more coaxing. He decided he didn’t want to sleep on the top bunk in Thing 1’s room, so he went back to his own room to sleep. But after the next aftershock, he asked to come upstairs to sleep in the spare bedroom. (It normally is only used for gaming and TV watching.) So, we settled him in and then after the NEXT aftershock around 10 p.m., he wanted to move into bed with us. I don’t blame him. It is the same thing I would have done when I was his age (four). He snuggled in and I put my earphone in my ear, tuned to the news.

It was until at least 12:30 a.m. that I could hear sirens across the city. About two miles up the road, I learned later on the news, water manes broke and homes sustained some structural damage. The were helicopters circling in the sky, probably from the news, but also probably the police helicopters searching for problems. I couldn’t sleep; I kept waiting for the next aftershock. They occurred at least once an hour. All. Night. Long. My nerves were shot. (That, and Mr. T is horrible to sleep with. At least two times during the night I had to move his feet out of my side.) As dawn began to break on the horizon, I relaxed a little — or was I exhausted?? — and drifted off to a troubled sleep. At least if we got shaken by an even stronger earthquake, it would be daylight and I could see.

The next day, Saturday, we were groggy. When could I lay down again and take a nap?  More aftershocks. Ugh. But they tapered off, at least. After about 9:30, I only felt one every two to three hours. Even later, I started thinking we were finally distancing ourselves from the earthquakes. I was wrong. I was in the middle of watching The Grand Budapest Hotel when we got rocked again. It was a 4.1 I think? (It actually made for a nice effect; we were at a part in the movie when our main characters were traveling on a train, so it was almost as if we were lumbering along on the train too.) Then again at 11:30ish. Seriously. Enough is enough.

There was another one tonight while we were eating dinner. Luckily, these aren’t lasting very long. The whole house jolts violently, and then it is over. So that’s good. Still disturbing for people like me, though.

(sigh)

If you want to keep up with our earthquakes, you can visit the best source: the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) site that tracks all earth movements.

Until then, here’s to a shaky night!