So there I was (the way all good stories start), plating my dinner, when I heard a noise. It was a little boom, and I turned and looked outside to see whether a tree limb had fallen onto the deck. I heard what I thought was a loud truck in the street, and I glanced at the other window and saw the outline of a moving vehicle through the blinds. I never saw any debris on the deck, but I was in a position to see the little plastic dish tub I used for Epsom salt foot soaks on the floor of the laundry room. I assumed that its fall was the noise I must have heard, and I went back to my pot roast. I sat on the couch and promptly forgot I ever heard a sound.
Then my friends started posting on Facebook. One wrote about feeling the earth shaking, and I thought, "how did I miss this?" She only lives one, maybe two miles from me, as the crow flies, so surely if she felt it, I should have too. I was so disappointed. We had a little conversation in her comments, and eventually I remembered the sound of the truck outside, twenty minutes earlier. I decided that I had felt it after all, but was entirely oblivious. It wasn't until much later, after I had checked the USGS maps, heard that we were upgraded to a 3 from a 2.5, and read much more from friends and tv news social media posts about the boom that preceded it, that I recalled thinking something hit the house. This isn't the first earthquake I've ridden out, but I have a horrible track record of understanding exactly what is happening when it happens. The biggest one that hit me in California, when we lived in the desert, just sounded like a helicopter flying low over the house, and I looked out the windows wondering why one would be so close to me. When we first moved out here, I remember my hand shaking oddly when I was holding the tv remote, but I thought maybe I was just not feeling well. I don't know whether to hope that next time it's big enough that I can't mistake it for anything else, or hope that I just never go through another one again. Considering the uptick in human caused seismic events, I suspect I will have plenty more chances at them in my lifetime.
The last calendar day of winter was much colder and gloomier than it was predicted to be. It was easily ten degrees colder than I was promised. The sun came out late, and I took that opportunity to go see how the front roses are doing this year. The first year I planted it, the peace rose off the porch grew one giant, straight, roseless cane. Last year I cut it to knee level, and got a couple big, beautiful blooms from it that took ages to open. I cut it severely again this spring, and it's finally looking like a bush like it's supposed to. All the roses up front are looking healthy. I couldn't ask for more. Except maybe a second set of hands to help me weed under them. Does anyone want to volunteer?
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