The Cat and the Earthquake

Regardless of what the title may imply there is absolutely no connection between the cat and the earthquake. (At least I don't think so - unless cats cause earthquakes...) It's just that each topic is too short for its own blog post so I figured I'd combine them. :-)

When we lived at Fountain Estates in Escondido in the spring of 1969 we acquired a cat - I no longer recall where it came from or what it's name was...
One day I was standing by the sliding door of our ground floor apartment, looking out - when our cat came flying off the upstairs balcony and landed on the side of the slope just past our terrace. It was completely unharmed - but I couldn't figure out how it got up on the balcony in the first place... So the next time I saw our upstairs neighbors I asked them if they knew anything about it. It went something like this:
Me: "Hey - I saw our cat jump off of your balcony the other day."
Them: "Oh... Is that your cat? Yeah - we feed her sometimes..."
Me: "So, does it come to your door and you put it out on the balcony?"
Them: "No - it climbs up the wall..."
Me: "Seriously???"
Them: "Seriously!"
Sure as heck - one day I finally saw the cat do it. It flattened its belly against the (stucco) wall with its legs straight out - and shinnied right up the side of the building... Looked just like a lizard... It was one of the weirdest things I've ever seen... What a cat won't do for a free meal :-)

Next: I've mentioned how seriously prissy my sister was about bodily functions (it made farting in her presence so gratifying). Yeah - she was a obsessive compulsive about cleanliness - maybe that's why she wouldn't touch my laundry :-)

One day the cat was pestering me - acting all needy. I wasn't in the mood so I told it to get lost... Karina felt sorry for the thing (it was her cat anyway) so she called it over, picked it up and started comforting it... And the cat rewarded her by crapping on her thigh - yeah, apparently it was having tummy troubles :-)
Now - unless you knew Karina it's hard to appreciate just how freaking funny that was. The look on her face when the crap appeared on her leg was priceless... She started hyperventilating and yelling at me to bring her a paper towel... But I was rolling on the floor in convulsions - there was no way I could get up... And the more Karina insisted that it wasn't the least bit funny the harder I laughed. She was mad at me for a really long time after that :-)

Next topic:

In the years leading up to 1969 a number of psychics and religious groups had predicted that at the end of April that year there was going to be a major earthquake causing everything west of the San Andreas fault to drop into the ocean. The predictions were so widespread that the New York Times even published a article about it: "Warning! California will fall into the ocean in April."
As I've mentioned before, we were into the whole "psychic" scene back then - my mom even made her living as a psychic later on... So we were a bit concerned about that whole falling into ocean business - just not concerned enough to pack up and leave like a bunch of other "believers" had done.

So it came to pass that on the afternoon of April 28th of 1969 I was sitting on a bar stool at the kitchen counter in our apartment looking out across the valley when I saw waves coming... And no - it wasn't the "water" kind... As it turns out, you can actually see shock waves traveling on land - the trees were swishing back and forth as they passed... Now - I'd had quite a few beers at that point so I wasn't completely sure I was actually seeing what I was seeing - until my bar stool started swaying and everything in the apartment started rattling... Then I remembered all those predictions and I was like "Oh crap!!! Here we go!"
But it wasn't the "big one"... It was just a 5.8 centered about 30 miles away along the San Jacinto fault...

And that was scary enough to make me glad I've never been in a serious quake...