Earthquake

Mother's remaining pieces of china. The bowl is from aunt Amy's china pattern and the lid is from mother's.

The few remaining pieces of Aunt Amy's Bavarian china.

Our recent earthquake was immediately designated a 5.6, quickly upgraded to 5.8 but finally came in at a modest 5.4. My multi-story office building in Orange Co did quite a bit of shaking, creaking and groaning but there was no damage - unless you count a few frayed nerves. I called home immediately - or rather tried to because all phones, even cell phones, were out for quite a while. I wanted to make sure DH was fine and wondered how my mother's and aunt's few surving pieces of china had fared. Mother had a service for 12 of Hertel Jacob Bavarian china and her sister had Green Leaves Bavarian china. They bought it at the same time and lost almost all of the pieces at the same time in the 6.6 Sylmar quake of 1971. Mother had enough pieces to give me a complete service for 1 and the lid to her serving bowl. Aunt Amy also gave me a complete service for 1 and her serving bowl which had lost its lid. Though the lid and bowl are no longer a match, they look okay together and that's how I use them. Every so often DH and I use the dishes and they mean so much to me because of all the family history associated with them.

The networks covered our minor quake extensively and I remember one woman saying everything shook for five (5!) minutes - nope, more like 30 seconds which actually is quite a long time earthquake-wise. Have you ever experienced earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes?

I should add that we were living in Washington state at the time of the '71 quake. My sister, who didn't live too far from our parents, said everything in her kitchen fell out of the cupboards. One of the few items not broken was a gift bottle of alcohol and though she didn't drink, that day she said she did.