I ordered all my textbooks from various places online, and they're starting to come in. This book right here? Map porn. Just flipping through it makes me swoony.

I spoke briefly to Mom today. She's doing okay, they had to juggle her meds around a bit but she was feeling good and not too dopey. She sounded sleepy but that's cos she'd been sleeping :( I told her to not think of it like she'd been injured, but rather that God was giving her lots of time to knit and to have other people take care of her for a change. My brother is all like, who's gonna cook for meeeeeee? And he's worried; he is familiar with hospital stays and they're sucky, and Mom is going to be in the hospital for at least a week, and then several more weeks at a rehab place. She's up for surgery tomorrow.

Upon further reflection on the other traumatic event of yesterday, I've decided that I'm less scared of earthquakes now than I was before. I know all the socal folks think it was a big pile of no big deal, but we don't get that sort of thing and I really didn't have much idea of the scale between "ground sorta vibrates, you barely notice it" and "stuff shakes around a lot but no big deal" and "OH GOD OH GOD WE'RE ALL GONNA ACTUALLY DIE." Standard buildings seem to be able to handle a 5.9; this is good to know!

Wow, I was just reading through LJ and catching up a bit because I wanted to babble about my mom (who broke her leg above the knee this morning and will have surgery in a couple of days). I will do that later, but for now I gotta talk earthquakes.

We just had an earthquake! This is probably the most severe one I've been in. USGS says it was a 6.0 magnitude centered about 90 miles south of DC and fairly shallow underground. I've been in minor earthquakes before, where the ground rumbles a bit and that's it. Which I know is nothing, and was basically going on all the time the one time I visited southern California. But that was kinda freaky. This one, I could hear long before I could feel it. I heard a rumble and thought it was the stupid kids upstairs jumping around. But it increased in intensity (and volume!) and the floor started vibrating, then shaking and rolling. I heard something drop upstairs from me but I didn't even have anything fall from the walls. But since it came up gradually, I kinda like, holy crap, what do I do next? As I was getting up to mosey over to a doorway, it eased and got quieter. I kept hearing the rumbling even after I stopped feeling it. Good thing I didn't go in to the city today to see the MLK Memorial, which I decided not to do because...

At 8:30 am my brother texted me and told me my mom had broken her leg above the knee and was going to the hospital. She's going to have surgery in another day or two. My mom is not the most physically adept person, but she tries very hard to stay active. When she was around 20, she was in a severe car accident (so severe she was issued Last Rites and she had a "near death experience" before anybody was talking about that kind of thing). Ever since, she has had a very poor sense of balance. She walks twice a day though to try to stay active and keep her mobility. She saw my grandma (not her mom, but dad's mom) age, and at one point had to go in a wheelchair. And my mom said, "and then she never got out of it again." So I'm worried, not just for her safety and health, but because it is going to take a lot of rehab and physical therapy for her to fully recover. I know if she has to go in a wheelchair, even temporarily, it is going to be a huge psychological hurdle for her.

I'd decided not to go with my original plan to visit the new MLK memorial downtown today because I was just kinda freaked out and worried about Mom. This ended up being a good thing because people are losing their shit over this earthquake, all the parks and monuments have been closed and everything is getting evacuated. Look, it was freaky as shit, I'll admit that, but very little got damaged, there's no need to go all crazy now that it is done.