Earthquake!!!

OK, I've been holding back on the exclamation points lately but I really feel this post deserves the punctuation. So last night, around 8:15pm, I was lying on bed with my laptop, trying to work out the Big Oh for a matrix multiplication formula (that's not as much fun as it sounds!).  All of a sudden the bed started shaking - a fairly rare occurrence these days!- (enough already with the exclamation points!). I was looking around the room to see if anything else was going on but as we've no art up in the bedroom yet, I couldn't tell if the walls were shaking. All the while the bed is going - I don't just mean a gentle tremble...it was  a good shuddering - I was really jiggling (I had my own seismic event going on). Anyway, after about 30 seconds or so it stopped. I immediately checked the interweb for the skinny, and landed on the USGS site which had a link asking "Did you feel it?".

Even tho' I wasn't sure if it had actually been an earthquake I decided to report it and filled out the form. When I'd finished I refreshed the page and sure enough, it had happened.  I was 55km from the epicenter of a 3.8 earthquake.See the site for the quake I felt.

Double Rainbow

We got a drenching last night - it turned our path into a canal - but this morning's rain also brought a double rainbow.

Ciara cycles to school

Ciara was so careful cycling to school, it was great to see her slowing down at all the driveways and walking the bike across the road etc. She said, "Mom, I think I'm more afraid of me dying than you are afraid of me dying". Brilliant. I can't tell you how happy it makes me to have created this neurosis in my child - it's every mother's dream really.

Final Night Home Alone

Console myself on my final night sans famille with a last meal of comfort food and a Halloween magazine.

Jeffrey Slonim

My brother-in-law, Jeffrey Slonim, is profiled in a magazine.
http://www.kdhamptons.com/jeffrey-slonim/

Ellipses

Ellipses might just be edging out exclamation points in terms of my favorite punctuation. There's that tantalizing "h" in the HTML entity for an ellipse - … - what's up with that? I dunno, they're more sophisticated somehow than exclaimation points, less needy, got a bit of mystery about them. Dontcha think …

Soccer Mom of the Match - Part 2

I went to the 'Quakes match against the Chicago Fire as the groupie of Liz, who had won VIP passes to the game as part of her "Soccer Mom of the Match" prize. I could get used to that VIP stuff. We had some great grub and saw a little pre-match wrestling where Q took on some luchadores.

Then we were allowed to go on the sidelines and watch the warm-up. I must say, I think Logan Pause (captain of the Chicago Fire) fancies me, several times he ran towards me (I also must say, the feeling is reciprocated, Logan).

Then the moment we had waited for, the ceremony where Liz was declared "Soccer Mom of the Match". Swag in the form of a Pink 'Quakes shirt.

It was only Liz's name that appeared on the jumbotron.  It looks tiny.

Back to our non-VIP status to see the Quakes win two to zip. (I'll comfort you Logan).