Earthquakes and Hurricanes, Oh My

It seems that Mother Nature was so excited I'm back in Virginia that she just couldn't contain herself.  This was the second earthquake I've felt.  The first actually, was about four months ago in Rwanda.  This one was much bigger.  Not big enough for me to think we were in any real danger, but big enough that I got Baylor up from her nap and went and stood in a doorway in case anything fell off the walls.  Definitely the biggest consequence of the event for me was dealing with a tired, grumpy baby for the rest of the day.  I was awakened two nights later by an aftershock, but by the time I really had a grip on my mental faculties, I figured it would be over before I could get Baylor and go downstairs so I just stayed where I was and went back to sleep. 

Hurricanes, though, are a more familiar natural disaster for us Virginians.  We never get the brunt of the storm, but often enough get the edges of the storms to know we'll be without power for a while and have to spend the next morning clearing limbs and debris from our yards.  I have a blister and some splinters from my efforts this year.  I remember one time in high school getting out for a hurricane and it ended up changing direction so we had the day off because of some light rain.  My mom told me of a time when I was seven or eight when we lost power because of the storm for several days.  It was really cold so my dad lit a fire in the fireplace and we all stayed down in that one room.  My mom put a roast, potatoes, and carrots in a pot in the fire and cooked dinner.

It's a lot more inconvenient to live in the States without electricity than in Africa.  It seems that it is either hot or cold without air conditioning or heat; there are too many cars on the road without working traffic lights so there are extra accidents; people usually have electic stoves and ovens so you can't cook; and of course, most people don't have back-up generators so you lose much of what's in the fridge and freezer.  But that is a nice excuse to eat all the ice cream.

Thus far my time in Richmond has been surprising, hopefully I won't be encountering any tornadoes or floods here in the near future.