Shake, Rattle, and Roll

(I was going to title this "I Feel The Earth Move Under My Feet" but now we're under a hurricane warning and it wasn't inclusive enough.)

This is one of those weeks that you start to wonder if Mother Nature really does have it in for us, or perhaps the Mayans had a little math error in their calculations of the end of the world.  I really did feel the earth move on Tuesday - of course, I initially thought I was having a moment of vertigo and it was just me.  Then John called and said it was an earthquake, so that was vaguely reassuring.

JC was at marching band practice - nobody quite fogged in that it was an earthquake, but everybody stumbled at the same point in the drill, and couple of people fell down.  They all thought that they just "had a moment" and started the drill over.

And now Irene is causing evacuations in coastal New Jersey and major issues in NYC.  They're shutting down the subways at noon tomorrow.  Do you have any idea how big that is?  They are SHUTTING DOWN all the subways in New York tomorrow.  I'm not sure they even did that for 9/11, people. Atlantic City is a ghost town under a mandatory evacuation order.  It's creepy, is what it is.

Of course, here in beautiful suburbia, sitting on our hill, we are merely under a tropical storm warning.  I'm expecting buckets of rain and some impressive (if not hurricane-force) wind.  We did take the precaution of actually picking up all the junk strewn about the yard and putting the (new!) shade umbrella in the shed.  We had one snap in a storm last year, so no taking chances this time.  And if nothing else, I finally got the kids motivated to help pick up the yard.

And of course, this Sunday I volunteered to host coffee hour at church.  I have a feeling attendance is going to be a bit thin...