Today started out kind of stressful for me when I read the headline that there had been a serious earthquake in Beijing. Mom emailed us yesterday saying she and Dad are where else? Beijing. That’s about right. Two native Los Angelinos visit China and within 24 hours the area experiences its worst earthquake in 50 years. It actually wasn’t an enormous quake. At 5.7 on the Richter scale, people in L.A. probably wouldn’t even stop what they’re doing, but it caused quite a lot of damage over there, even collapsing some buildings. Knowing Mom’s track record of injuries in foreign countries, I knew it was quite possible a little jolt could send her hurling to the pavement.

I spent about half an hour searching for the itinerary Mom made for me. I almost threw it away after she gave it to me, but she’d spent so much time on it, I couldn’t. It’s not really just an itinerary, it’s more of a travel brochure with pictures of their destinations. Mom likes to make things like that. After discovering they were scheduled to visit a portion of the Great Wall today, it took about another half hour to figure out where it is in proximity to the worst hit earthquake zone. It appears they were a safe distance away, assuming they didn’t make any changes to their schedule.

In this day and age of cell phones, it’s very frustrating to not be able to contact someone in a situation like this. Even worse is the feeling I had before I found the itinerary, not knowing where they were or how I could possibly locate them. I’m sure they’re fine, but this is one daily recap I’ll especially look forward to receiving.