I wish I were clever and could whip out a schmaltzy blog page with buttons to click, links to visit, and catchy phrases. Right now, I don't have time and quite honestly, I don't have the oomph to do it. But I wanted to get some of this stuff down where you can see it and get up-to-date with what is going on here

     As most of you know by now, on Satuday, Februrary 27 at 3:34 am Chile was hit with an earthquake which was 8.8 on the Richter scale. Believe me....you KNOW when one of those hits!  We KNEW what it was...no one had to come to the door to tell us! But, there is absolutely no way we understood completely what it meant. At the moment it hit, we knew our KIDS weren't home and that was all that mattered to us at the time. We KNEW we were ok, John's dog was ok, my dog was ok and the puppies were ok. We KNEW that the apartment was still standing (once it got done dancing). Besides that, we were clueless.

      Ok..wait a minute...let me back up. Before the quake, John and I were sleeping peacefully...ok...our kids would say we NEVER sleep peacefully cause we both snore! lol Anyway, a "tremor" woke me up and I woke up John, asking him..."You feel that"...duuuuhhhh. I'm not known for being the brightest at those times! He said..."Yup"...he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer in the middle of the night either! Then the tremor took a deep breath and whooooooooosh...all hell broke loose. I can't think of any other way to describe it...sorry.

     John says he heard sounds coming from the building that it was NEVER meant to make! Groanings, creakings...of course that could just have been my bones complaining!  I recall an underlying GROWL or rumble...Like a semi was permanently driving past WAY too fast! The monster just kept getting stronger.

     For the past 25 years we have been waiting...subconsciously anticipating this moment. We had talked about it, rehearsed it, planned what we would do...you know...go to bathrooms with no windows, stand in door frames, get under a heavy table...we knew ALL the popular ideas. What did we do?  We stayed in BED!  For Pete's sake it was 3:34 am and I am NOT getting out of bed even for a MONSTER! Of course, John DID give me some wise words of wisdom...COVER YOUR HEAD WITH THE BLANKETS!!!!  Oh yea...THAT will protect me from falling debris! hahahahahaha Ok...I'm mean...he was trying to keep stuff from getting into my eyes.

   The fact that we didn't jump to attention and run to get under a table infuriated the monster it seems.  He had been trying just rocking the bed REALLY hard, but since we didn't get the hint, he started bouncing the bed up and down.  Now THAT was interesting!

     We just bought a new bed frame and it is too narrow for our headboard which was just propped against the wall until we get a "ROUND TUIT".  You all know what I mean!  Well the monster grabbed that thing and began to beat me over the head with it!  I pushed back and got it under control as the bed began to walk away from the wall and then to pivot nearly 45 degrees. 

     Meantime, Napoleon decided he  didn't want to be alone way over there at the foot of the bed. Can you BLAME him? The book case had just dumped it's load to the left of his bed, and the television had just fallen off the chest of drawers to the right of his bed.....he began to worm his way up between the bed and whatever else was between it and the wall at the time.  I was trying to keep the headboard in place, hold onto the bed to keep from falling off, and pet Napo and calm him down as he tried to fit between the headboard and the bed. ANOTHER less the stellar example of middle of the night intelligence. We pulled him up onto the bed with us. Interestingly enough, NOTHING fell ON his bed at ALL!!!!

    Ok...just as the monster began to lose his strength, he pulled the plug on Viña and as the bed came to a stop, the creaking and groaning ceased and we were plunged into darkness.  That´s SUPPOSED to happen. It's for our safety.  Yea right! hahahahaha

    Now you have a blind man, a paranoid dog, and a lame old lady in the middle of a trashed room, with no light, broken glass and NO idea where the flashlight is...not that John cared...he´s insensitive that way! <GRIN>

    What would you imagine was the first priority after the quake stopped? Hug each other and cry a little? Grab the phone and start trying to reach the kids...nope. We both had to go to the BATHROOM!  There are priorities in life!

     Unfortunately it was no easy task to get to the bathroom. We had to crawl over my computer, another computer that I had for a special project I was working on, a heap of books, videos and cds that had fallen off the bookshelf, the tv, the fan, close closet drawers and doors after pushing shoes, purses, the dog food bin  etc. back into the bottom, and then we made it to the bathroom. Of course we couldn't see anything but we SUSPECTED something had broken...probably my perfume. It hadn't smelled that nice EVER!  After dealing with the essentials, I, in another fit of extreme intelligence, rushed into Juani's room to make sure she was ok...duuuuuuuuuuuh. Did I think she was still asleep and hadn't NOTICED????  After a few seconds I realized that she had gone to spend the night with a friend. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.....checked on Ben....it's 3:40 by now..he should be home...NOT.  Ana was going to spend the night here that night...no sign of her! Our kids are bohemians!

     Next order of business....rummage around in the drawer and see if I can find a flashlight.....hmmmmmm. Looking for a BIG thing...the flashlight I have in mind is one of those big bruisers that uses one of those huge square batteries. Did not FIND said big flashlight that I bought cause it would be PERFECT in an emergency. I did however find a little tiny one that came taped to a bottle of something or other as a free gift. YEAAAAAA....oooooooooooooh...no battery.  Sigh. Oh..wait...YEAAAAAAAAA I found bag of batteries and they WORK!  Praise God from Whom all Blessings Flow!  I wonder if God has ever been thanked for AA Duracells before????