Old Hank Was Out All Night the Night of the Earth Quake

Wow! Never in my life have a felt an earth quake, and sadly, I didn't realize that I was feeling one last night until Willis called me to confirm it today. 

Last night was a different sort of night than I'm used to. The day was actually nice and warm. We sat on the porch when Willi got home from work to celebrate the warmness. Nora liked it. I started getting a sore throat and a congested nose (bah!). Willi and I crashed in bed (and fell asleep) at the same time, which is also new since I'm usually feeding Nora when we go to bed. (I've started getting her to bed earlier than us now since she's sleeping in her room.)

Right at about 3:30 a.m., I awoke to the sound of what I thought, at first, was children, but then I realized it was tom cats fighting outside. Once I was wide awake and realized what I had heard, it occurred to me that the cat wasn't in the room with us (he's usually wedged up between Willi's legs so far that Willi's been known to say the words, "Well . . . the cat slept in my butt again last night"). So, I got up to go to the bathroom and looked around for him upstairs. He wasn't anywhere to be found up here, either. It occurred to me right then that I hadn't seen Hank since we were out on the porch. Mind you, we usually bring him out on the porch with us, but since we've had Nora, we don't usually let him in case he takes off on us. We can't rightly dump a baby to go chasing after a cat anymore.

So, anyway, at around 3:30ish, I realized that the cat had to be outside. I was, in fact, a wee bit concerned that the cat fight I heard moments before might have involved poor Hanker. He doesn't have much left as far as defenses go. He's got no front claws, and we took his manhood away. So, there's that. What's sad, though, is that I stood there thinking, "Well, I don't hear anything now, so he's either dead, far away from the house, or he's sitting by the door waiting to come in. If he's the latter of those, he'll still be there in the morning."

So, I went back to bed. I was also partially motivated to go back to bed because I wasn't feeling well (sore throat and congestion), and I heard Nora and Willis shifting in their beds because I was making all kinds of racket in the house.

At about 4:30, I awoke because our bed was rhythmically shaking—a lot! I looked over at Willis who was sitting up and looking at me. I think both of our faces said at first, "What the crap are you doing over there?"

Then, I think I said, "What the hell is that? Is that Hobbes?"

(Sometimes Hobbes is known to shake our bed. He sleeps in a bed next to our bed, but if his body touches our bed frame when he's -like- scratching or something stupid like that, he can move our entire bed.)

Willis just looked stunned. I think he was still basically asleep, but he says he remembers me asking if that was Hobbes. He says today that he didn't feel the rocking. He just said he heard sounds.

I almost yelled at the dog, but I didn't because I don't think I could've yelled if I wanted to (sore throat, again). Instead, I laid back down and went to sleep (the rocking only lasted a moment or two). Just before I dozed off again, I realized that I had heard the window frames cracking. I also heard the rest of the house settling after the shaking, too, and that doesn't normally happen. Our house is almost a hundred years old. It's done all the settling it's gonna do. I thought briefly, "I wonder if that was an earth quake or something."

Then, I was back to sleep before I knew it, and I was having multiple dreams that involved me having let the cat in during the night (thus, resolving the issue in my mind). Somehow, when Willis got up for work this morning, I managed to remember that I did not, in fact, let the cat in, and I told him that I was sure that Hank had to be outside. (I think the fact that I was able to remember that I didn't let him in was because in my dream, there was a TV in our bedroom.) So, Willi ended up walking around the house to look for the cat. It turns out, Hank was sitting near the back door, pupils dilated and all-freaked-out-looking. He looked unharmed, so he must've won the cat fight if that was him at all.

Willis called me from work this morning to confirm that what we felt last night was, indeed, an earthquake. (Check out this article.)

I said, "Wow. Old Hank was out all night the night of the earth quake."

He said, "The real question is, did one of them cause the other?"

The end.