All Shook Up

I have been pondering this post since 5am on Saturday morning and even though we have now had power for 12 hours I have been more worried about getting in touch with family and friends than writing a blog. But I'm ready now. I will start with Friday. I felt like crap and had the most horrible headache in my life all evening. We were supposed to have a few drinks with a friend, but I had one rum and Coke and that was it my head was going to explode. I did stay up to watch the end of the Festival in Viña, but didn't last that much after that. I think the festival was over at 2am-ish. Ro tucked me in bed and went back out to the living room to chat and drink and do whatever it is he does on the computer all day everyday. Ro's sister was in her room on her computer doing whatever it is she does on the computer all day everyday. (Is this just a family thing?? Or a Chilean thing??) Ro's mom was in El Tabo with her mom and sister for the night so it was just us "kids" at home. Tito, Ro's dad was supposed to be home at like 1am, but he came home at about 3:15 and I heard him get in because Ro was outside smoking and his dad turned off all the lights and pissed him off. I couldn't fall back asleep after that so I grabbed my reader and put a new battery in the little reading light dealio and read a few pages. I was laying in bed and then the bed moved. At first it was just small wave sort of movements and I stayed in my room for about 15 seconds during the shaking before I decided this isn't normal I'm getting the hell out of here. I went to the living room to be with Ro because I was already scared and wanted to be by him. Then those small waves got a little bigger. By then Ro and I were in the kitchen and Tito and Rocio (along with her Yorkie, Micky) were also there by then. We were all holding onto each other and then all hell broke loose. There weren't waves anymore it was a rough shaking and glasses were falling and crashing to the floor. The lights went out. We shuffled to the front door. According to Ro and Tito this is the safest place to be. I have never researched anything about earthquake safety, not that it matter I was panicking because I was barefoot and glass was crashing to the floor everywhere. Ro being the Chilean gentleman that he is took off his shoes and let me wear them. Then is came to my attention the lovely outfit of pjs I was wearing. So during this horrible earthquake I was screaming, crying, and thinking about how I wasn't wearing a bra and I didn't have shoes on. I am just glad I chose to wear a pair of pj pants instead just a teeshirt and my underwear wouldn't that have been lovely? Anyways back to the earth moving. I have never heard my SIL swear so much. Through the whole thing there was probably 30 ctms (mother f*#ckers) pouring out of her mouth. Ro was just trying to calm us down, and Tito was holding us into the doorway through all the shaking. Finally after forever and ever it slowed and then stopped. It was maybe a total of 4 minutes, but don't take this for accurate I felt like it was more than 10 minutes. We weren't the only ones hanging out in the doorways the neighbor to the right of us was also there as was the lady across the street. Ro and Tito immediately started looking for lights. Of course my little reading light and ebook Reader were on the bed so we had one little light. I also found a pen flashlight that my mom gave me for Christmas so we had those 2 lights. Tito swept up the glass right away and put newpaper on the floor in the bathroom because the toilet water sloshed out. The water in the pool outside also sloshed out. But really that was the extent of our damages. I would have taken a picture of our room afterwards, but really our room is always a fucking mess so its not like you would notice the differences. Our bed moved about half a foot away from the wall and a nightstand sort of thing we have moved about a foot. The stuff on the shelves fell to the ground, none of the glass broke. Good thing there was a nice layer of dirty socks, shirts, and who knows what layering the floor. Back to where I was. Rocio immediately got us both cigarettes while Ro and Tito checked out the house. Her and I sat outside for awhile until Tito told us to go inside so we don't get colds. We stayed in the front living room a place where nobody ever sits, the couch and chairs in there are mainly for decoration... I think. We plugged Ro's ipod into the battery operated speakers he had so we could listen to the radio. I didn't really listen I just sat there shaking and every time a "reply" as my husband calls the aftershocks, came I freaked out thinking another big one was coming. We hung out in the living room with the 2 little lights for maybe 2 hours. At least we had water so we could use the bathroom, but we were without power. I went to bed and didn't get out of bed until like 3pm. I woke up a few times before that, but my headache was still horrible so I just stayed in bed until it went away. We spent the whole day without power and by then Ro's ipod was dead and we were using mine. For some reason the car charger we had for our 2nd generation ipods didn't work for our new ones. And that was it. At first I didn't think it was that bad that it was going to be something the world was going to hear about. But as the day went on I figured my family heard about it and I had no way at all of letting them know I was okay. We finally got some kind of signal on Tito's blackberry so I could get on messenger. We are okay here just a little shook up. This morning there was a "reply" that was 6.6, but I was so tired I pretty much lifted my head acknowledged that yes, we were shaking and went back to sleep.
So there you go. The February 27th, 2010 Chilean earthquake from my eyes.