Hank: Weather Predictor

Here in Philadelphia, we don't do well with extremes in the environment. The slightest bit of snow throws us into chaos (not to mention the fact that the city has $0 set aside for snow removal), thunderstorms and heavy rain predictions send us franticly to the grocery store for food we usually don't need, and when an earthquake comes, like today, we freak out.


I was sitting at my desk reading and finishing my lunch when I felt my chair start to roll a bit. Yes, it has wheels, but I wasn't trying to move it. I looked around, and the papers that I've tacked to the walls of my cubicle were starting to shudder. Then the lights, suspended from the ceiling, began to sway. A little at first and then a bit more. My friend, Argylesockgirl, rushed over, and I think that as freaked out as we were, it was a bit nice to know that neither of us were going crazy. Another of the girls came out of her office and said, "Is the building shaking?" So we grabbed our things and ran (8 flights) down the stairs and across the street. Turns out what we were feeling was a 5.9 or so magnitude earthquake that was taking place in Virginia; seems it was felt all the way to New England.


The thing that struck me was how my first thought was "has someone driven a truck into the building? Is this a bomb?" 15 years ago I probably would've thought "earthquake" first and "terrorist bombing" never.


Anyway, after talking to a friend of mine who has a few dogs and a parrot, I began to wonder if Hank had a feeling that this disruption was coming. My friend's bird hid under some paper towels in fear, the dogs barked, my sisters ducks sat in a circle, and Hank hung on to the side of his cage (the side he only clings to when he's upset or sad) and hissed at me when I wished him a good morning. I thought he was just cranky like he always is when I separate him from his old friend, my parents' cockatiel Byrd. But maybe this time it was something different? My grandmother always used to say that when the cows laid down, it was because they knew it was going to rain. Do the animals really know something that we don't? Somehow, I think they do, and it's actually a very comforting idea to me.