That reminds me a little of the Barry Manilow song, but guess what guys? I made it through the week. Wednesday was rough. It sure doesn’t take long to feel exhausted. But we switched up some stuff around the house to make our mornings a little easier, and so far, it’s going pretty well.

The topic of the week has been our weather. The dryness is a bit ridiculous now and I fear that water rationing is around the corner. Which makes no sense because if our yards die and turn to dead brush, they’ll go up in flames and then the fire department will use a ton of water anyway so why not just cut back? The talk is that we won’t be allowed to do ANY outdoor watering. That’s just not possible in dry California.

Also, today is the 20th anniversary of the Northridge quake which screwed me up in many ways. I lived at the epicenter and we lost everything. We were renting, but we lost most of our stuff since we couldn’t get stuff out before it was red tagged. I lost my place of employment which was also red tagged. It was rough. I had also just finished my B.A. at CSUN and yet, my records were not easy to access and confirm. I had also just applied for a job there. It was an interesting time.

This was the parking lot that I used to park in. Since the quake hit during a holiday, I was not there! That parking lot was the first multi-level parking structure for the campus and as you can see, it was a goner.

And this is a picture of the building I work in now, but right after the quake. It took a long time for the campus to rebuild. People worked in portable domes for many years afterward.

I should note, that there have been four small earthquakes this week. As soon as I get home, I am just going to put some things together (just in case). Before the Northridge quake, I remember there being a series of small quakes and it’s making me a little nervous. It’s hard to keep an earthquake kit up to date. Things expire, even fabric becomes brittle and after rotating stuff out a few times, I felt it was very expensive to keep it up. So now, when I notice a pattern, I try to put stuff together.

And just so we don’t end this on a bad note, this is the library today. I work underneath all that concrete at the very bottom. No windows for me but the “garden” level held up pretty well and seems like the most stable place to be. I like to think that anyway.

I can’t believe it’s been twenty years.