EARTHQUAKE WEATHER

Moderate temperature, neither hot nor cold; slightly increase humidity, not like Texas or Florida, but just a little bit sticky; funny color sky, neither blue nor gray, but a bit of both; and still air, so very still, no breeze, no tremble of leaves on the trees, no movement, just still. That is the description of what people in the San Francisco Bay Area call earthquake weather. Pets get a little bit edgy, they seem more alert, and there is a sense of waiting. It is most frequently experienced in April and October. That is what today was like and the date is October 14.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not forecasting an earthquake, I am only saying that today was still and a bit eerie. So if some time in the next week we see a significant earthquake in northern California, remember you read about it here first.

As for me, I am doing very well. I still require oxygen, but not as much and not constantly. If I am sitting quietly reading or writing I am able to go without my tether for hours. I am not yet up to strenuous work without supplemental air, but as long as I don’t exert myself I am fine. And we all know I am capable of not exerting myself. I can ‘not’ exert for long periods of time, with no effort at all.

I don’t need to exert myself to prepare dinner, so many people have provided me with ready to nuke meals (I can’t use the stove top because of the oxygen), I will have forgotten how to cook when I am fully recovered. Rosann brought me delicious homemade chicken and rice soup that fed me for almost a week. Julie brought me scrumptious homemade sausage lasagna that I enjoyed for four or five days. Today Cindy brought me a wonderful chicken casserole that she and Paula put together for me last night that will provide at least four servings.

My dining room looks like a florist shop or a nursery. Shortly before I went into the hospital I bought myself an orchid plant. It has survived in spite of my black thumb – probably because I wasn’t here to overwater it. Julie brought me stargazer lilies in the hospital. Kathy brought me a live plant of lilies. The flowers are like small calla lilies but in a gorgeous purple. (If anyone knows what kind of plant that is, please tell me.) I haven’t killed that plant either. This morning the FTD man brought me a huge bouquet of flowers from my son, daughter-in-law, and grandsons in honor of my birthday. This afternoon Suzanne, a friend from my days at City of Pleasanton, came by with a lovely pink begonia plant.

Everyone is offering to drive me wherever I wish to go. They seem disappointed when I tell them that the doctor has cleared me to drive and I am no longer considered house-bound.

And my friend, Penny, has served above and beyond. She has shopped for me, dusted furniture, vacuumed floors, helped me relocate furniture, and made beds. What makes this special is that Penny hates housework as much as I do, and she has been doing it at my house.

I have been blessed with an outpouring of caring and kindness and it is not because I am special, it is because my friends are.

Live long and prosper!