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The place now known as the site of the Chino Hills Earthquake is adjacent to my home, which sits next to the hills and State Park. And here is a wonderful bit of trivia: in the great 1953 film The War of the Worlds, the site of the original spacecraft landing is Chino Hills!

On Tuesday I was in bathroom/bedroom getting lovely when the quake happened -- and it was INTENSE. I secured myself next to the sink when it got big, just as my kitty BabyCat dove under the bed. I looked out back through my sliding door as the quake was ending, saw dust clouds from a landslide, grabbed my camera, and took some stills. A landslide occured during the quake; appears house not damaged; lots of things fell in house; some broken; Obama notebooks didn't move; 4-cat group from a pic frame frame landed on top. Quake occured at 11:42am PDT, cat hesitantly came out from under bed at 7:42pm, 8 hours after the quake. FNL 07/29/08

Wednesday 07/30/08: So I'm in my office now, my chest is literally pounding a little with trepidation... after all, the second I sat down yesterday, another EQ came. I think that is the Big aftershock they're talking about, the 3.8. Last night in my office, I found something on the floor, it was the white tail of a ceramic musicbox cat my grandson loves which had been way up on a shelf -- but I couldn't find the musicbox. Finally I found it -- way across the room, under my printer. (It's still there -- almost everything is still where it fell.) That totally spooked me and I was out of there for the night. The worst of the damage -- mostly falling things -- was where he had been playing on the floor the day before. I am going to get all those books and things packed away.

BabyCat finally came out from under the bed last night at exactly 7:42pm, exactly 8 hours after the quake. And he slept snuggled up with me all night -- the first time all summer. He is very nervous today. He's probably feeling all of the aftershocks. I am feeling a few, but I don't always know which are real and which are imagined. FNL 07/30/08

07/31/08 -- I am still nervous from the earthquakes. Last night after a campaign meeting at a beautiful home in Eagle Glen, about 10 miles southeast of my house, I was sitting with some folks outside on a lovely patio. Suddenly, I felt the ground shake and roll. I told everyone, I feel an earthquake! and they all said, oh it's the door or we're moving or it's the chair, and I thought I had EQ-phobia. Then on the way home on the radio I heard that at that time there had been a 3.0 EQ northeast of Yorba Linda -- right by my house! So by the time I got home, my nerves were (and are) shot. Driving over that long, high overpass from the I-15 to the 91 -- I didn't like it.

There was another 3.0 EQ Northeast of my house a couple days ago; I didn't feel it. BabyCat is calmed down to just a notch above his usual high-strung self. He is just hot. 08/07/08