It started out for me with the yearly Dental Convention. It's basically four days when all the dentists, auxiliary, office staff and God knows how many exhibitors from Bakersfield to San Diego come to Anaheim and make parking impossible. I've only been once before and didn't take any classes then. This time I went strictly for the classes to get my Continuing Education Credits. It is a lot more fun when you go for the classes.
I did make my way to the exhibit floor once which is always entertaining. It's engineered to the Dentist, but they basically give out a ton of free stuff like magnets, pens, masks, towels that are tinnie tiny and when wet are 10x10. You know, all the free crap that you throw away when you get home. There are usually a couple of things that people stand in line for because they are better give aways. You have to sit through a ten minute presentation first. These are usually put on by Crest and Colgate. They give away full size toothpaste and this year I believe there was a bag with a zipper. Can you believe a zipper? I decided that the only thing worth standing in line for were the bleaching trays. A new version of a product that our office already uses. I can't bleach my teeth because of Chicklet, so I gave them to my husband. That way he doesn't have to go through all the impressions to get custom trays like I have.
Just to show you how ridicules the lines can be, here is the line for the basketballs. One year if you bought 500 cases of gloves, you got a basketball signed by Dennis Rodman. And the famous basketball player usually makes a couple of appearances over the weekend. But you have to buy 500,000 gloves first. There are various basketball deals, depending on how many gloves you buy. -Note: Most of the giveaways are free, that's why the Colgate line can get so long. In my opinion, it's not worth a tube of toothpaste I can buy for $4 at Target. The bleach however, retails for about $100 in a dental office and I got it free!-
Then there was this lady. I'm not sure what she was selling. But what a fun outfit. I almost wore the same thing, but they didn't have maternity sizes. There was also Marilyn Monroe and Dudley the Dinosaur. Dudley is the ADA mascot that you see on Saturday morning cartoons promoting oral hygiene. 
And just because I was in Anaheim, I couldn't resist taking a picture of the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. 
Then there was the earthquake on Sunday night. It's not the biggest earthquake I have ever been in, but it was the loudest. I fell off my bike when I was eleven years old during the Quake of '89 in San Francisco. That's the one where the Bay Bridge collapsed on itself during the World Series. It was also the first earthquake I can remember ever being in.
Since then, I literally cannot count how many earthquakes I've felt. Some have woken me up in the night and I just go back to sleep. One I was goofing off like I was surfing the ground and walked into a wall. I have never ducked and covered under something, though I have stood in a few doorways.
This was the first earthquake that really scared me. Chiquita and I were on the couch relaxing before bed. She was reading a book aloud and I was knitting. Chiquita felt the earthquake before I did, but then all the glass bottles in the kitchen started rattling. As Chiquita was asking what was happening, all of the furniture upstairs began banging on the ceiling. "It's an Earthquake!" I grabbed Chiquita and dashed to the nearest doorway, which happened to be the front door. Now if you have ever been to our apartment, I'm afraid of the thing falling down on us without an earthquake, the building in so old. So, I did the big no no and went outside to the driveway.
I kinda don't get the whole don't go outside thing. I understand that a powerline or a tree might fall. But the thing that everyone has brought up is that I could get hurt from debris falling off the building. If debris is falling off the building, I would rather not be IN the falling building. If you are outside, you are not suppose to run into a building. You just make sure you are not near anything that can fall on you. Which I was. Skiyze was smart. He was in the bedroom stretching his back on the floor and just stayed where he was.
When we went back inside, I had to laugh. Chiquita's book was under the coffee table and the Baby February Sweater I was working on was tossed across the room. Oh well for the knitting. I dropped a few stitches and had to unknit a couple of rows of lace.
Then we turned on the news. The Epicenter was in Lennox. Five miles NE of us. Basically just east of LAX for those of you that aren't from LA. That would be why the earthquake was so loud and jerking instead of rattles and rolling. The furniture upstairs is probably what scared me more than anything. The closest I've ever been to an epicenter. There were reports of it being felt as far as 90 miles away.
In the end, the 5.0 was down-graded to a 4.7 by morning. A couple of picture frames fell over and all the books went crooked on the bookshelves. We had a topic to talk about the next day, but no one has mentioned it today. And someone is trying to talk me into moving to Idaho. So not going to happen.
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