Mis Plantitos!

This is my summer for trying a garden-in-a-pot-on-the-balcony, also known as a G.I.A.P.O.T.B. I figured putting pictures of my little plants on my blog (along with regular updates) would be incentive to keep them alive. That would be embarrassing to have to post pictures of dead plants.



These be peas:And the last two are cucumber/and/or/squash, but I can't tell which is which right now. Oh well, we'll see soon enough! Hopefully.

EARTHQUAKE!!!!

That's right, everyone, today I felt my first earthquake. I've still got a ways to go if I'm going to catch up with little brother Michael on his mission in CA, but I can now officially add "1 Earthquake Felt" to my tally.

We were all sitting around at work, a little after lunch, when the building shook. Not outrageously, mind you, but it was a different sort of shake than the building construction ones we frequently feel in my office. After the thundery-rumble, everyone goes silent (thinking "was that just in my head?"). Then one by one we each poked our heads out from our offices and said "Did you hear that? Did you feel that?" It was kind of freaky, seeing as how this area is sort of notorious for terorrist threats and the like. But we waited, didn't hear any sirens, and figured.....well, we couldn't really figure anything. Bizarre.

Then the local news reported a 1.8 magnitude quake with the epicenter in Annandale (a few miles south). And if you don't believe me (I probably wouldn't), here's an official link from a .gov site:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Quakes/ld1022071.php#details

If that was a 1.8, I can't image what a 5 or 6, much less a 7, 8, or 9 would be like.

And here is a cool map of folks reporting what they felt.

I have to admit, when stuff like that happens around here, it makes me part nervous, part grateful that nothing came of it, part wishing the POTUS and I weren't such close neighbors, and part thinking I should prepare my soul a bit more :)

Prayers and Presidents

President Bush has declared today a National Day of Prayer. After reading this in my e-mail at work, I googled a bit to try to discover what national crisis we were supposed to be praying about. But there was none (at least, there's not an official one)! Come to find out, the First Thursday Of Every May is declared a National Day of Prayer. So pick your national crisis (or personal crisis, if needs be) and get to prayin'! And hopefully we'll all realize that it shouldn't take a presidential declaration to get us on our knees a little more often.

In other news, President Bush was the main character in a really bizarre dream I had last night. My family took him to church with us! My Dad was in meetings all morning, so my mother and I went to pick him up. Traffic was REALLY crazy, and I was so impressed at how my Mom kept her cool while simultaneously swerving around vehicles AND chatting with the President of the United States in the backseat. Go Mom! I got to chat with the POTUS as well; he was very personable, and just seemed tired of it all and ready to hand over the reigns to someone else. I'm afraid (in real life) that all of our presidential candidates will have worn themselves out with all the primary-ing and campaigning by the time one of them gets to the presidency. And we could really use a president right now who's got some vim and vigor, optimism and enthusiasm.

Maybe President Bush declared this First Thursday Of May a National Day of Prayer so we could pray for the current candidates. Wouldn't that be his worst nightmare, to be handing over the presidency on Inaugaration Day to our new president, and watch them pass out from exhaustion? I'd probably throw my hands up and shout "Too late, the torch has already been passed!" Then I'd high-five the VP and I'd jump on a one-way plane to New Zealand. Ah, yes.

Jejeje

"Women don't want to hear what you think. Women want to hear what they think - in a deeper voice."
Bill Cosby

Oops, Missed Maine

Well, I got within a mile of Maine, but I didn't have even half an hour to go run across the bridge and come back. It's probably for the best; I wouldn't have done Maine justice by running across a bridge and tapping my toe on the other side. Kind of like I probably haven't done Canada justice by crossing the border at Niagra Falls and looking in a gift shop. But I still color in all 3,855,103 square miles of it on my countries-I've-been-to map. You've got to take what you can get in this crazy world.

State Hopping

Well, after this weekend (I'm traveling for work again), I will have been to all of the states you see below in RED. Thursday I'm hitting Vermont, and Friday I'm hitting New Hampshire and Maine. Sweet! The only problem is.....


Can anyone see that speck of white in the middle of my beautifully RED East Coast? That would be Rhode Island. It is now the next state on my list that I am determined to conquer. I just can't figure out why I should go there, other than being able to color it in. Any suggestions? What's kickin' in R.I.? And WHY is it called Rhode Island?

Sneezy

I humbly declare today: Gain-an-appreciation-for-chronic-allergy-sufferers-Day! Glech! I've been having sneezing fits all day, my head feels like it's going to explode, scratchy throat, stuffy nose, can't think straight.....you name it. I don't know what's come over me, but all I can say is, allergy sufferers are definitely under-appreciated. No respect. I mean, look at Sneezy, the Fifth Dwarf (well, I don't really know if he's #5, but neither do you! Thus supporting my claim that he is under-appreciated). Doesn't get any good lines, just sneezes....and sneezes....I think even Sleepy is more exciting than Sneezy. Who wants to laugh at someone sneezing all the time? It's just depressing. Poor Sneezy.

So to all you allergy sufferers out there.....I respect you. I doubt that respect will help you overcome your sneeziness, and I can't even give you empathy because I'm hoping this is a one-day thing for me, but just know that you have won my admiration, and if this does become a chronic problem (heaven forbid), I shall be glad to find myself among your ranks.

I can't believe I just wrote a whole blog post on sneezing.