Quaking Earth & Quivering Furball

Yesterday Alex and I awoke about twenty before the alarm started buzzing. Hmmm. Allow me to rephrase that: I was awakened by Alex, who was beneath the comforter, sitting on and clawing my chest, about twenty minutes before the alarm started buzzing. The Furball has never done that before. I was reminded of this cartoon movie that I posted sometime ago:

It wasn’t until Alex and I returned from our morning adventure that I understood my cat’s behavior: two earthquakes measuring 5.2 and 4.6 on the Richter scale shook the Louisville metro area, the first one occurring just about the time that Alex decided to crawl beneath the comforter and awaken me in such an unorthodox manner. Thankfully, to the best of my knowledge, no major damage was caused by the quaking earth, although I do have some blood on my chest from the claw scratching by the quivering cat.

On to our adventure: with Alex (unhappily) in his cat carrier in my left hand, the small oxygen tank on my left shoulder, and my walking stick in my right hand, we piled into the CR-V and by 9:00 a.m. were on our way to visit Dr. Caryl, the veterinarian whom Alex (and previously Muffin) loves.

This week Alex has again begun scratching, licking and cutting into his skin as he did last summer so I needed to get him to see his vet as soon as possible. With no appointments open until Wednesday of next week, Dr. Caryl was willing to see Alex yesterday as soon as she finished her morning surgery.

At the animal hospital, as with last year, Dr. Caryl determined that Alex is again suffering from allergies, just as I and almost everyone who lives in this damned Ohio River Valley are. Mr. Furball received cortisone shot and some antihistamines and antibiotics that I have force him to swallow administer to him twice a day for the next two weeks. Then we return to the animal hospital for his annual booster shots that he couldn’t receive today because they couldn’t be administered with the cortisone.

How does a furball spend a sunny and warm day after a morning trip to the vet, other than sleeping off the medicines he received!

Addendum—10:30 a.m., April 19^th

People seem surprised that we should be shaken by an earthquake here in Louisville. But, this is the third quake I’ve experienced while living in the Ohio River Valley.

To the west of Louisville is the New Madrid Fault: to the east are the faults associated with the Lexington/Kentucky River fault system. Friday’s quake, centering near Mount Carmel, Illinois (which is about 120 miles northwest of Louisville) was on the New Madrid Fault.

The 1812 New Madrid earthquake, which was estimated to be above 8 on the Richter scale, was one of the most massive ever experienced in North America since the arrival of Europeans. There are estimates that the earthquake was felt strongly over 50,000 square miles (130,000 km²), and moderately across nearly one million square miles. By comparison, the historic San Francisco earthquake of 1906, was felt moderately over 6,000 square miles (16,000 km²).

The 1812 quake was so powerful that the Mississippi River changed its course, creating numerous geographic exclaves, including Kentucky Bend (the extreme western part of Kentucky that is now separated from the rest of the state by the Mississippi River’s change in course due to the 1812 earthquake). Some sections of the Mississippi River also flowed north rather than south for a short time. The earthquake reportedly rang church bells in Boston, Massachusetts, and cracked sidewalks in Washington, D.C.