My daughter came home from school today and told me that one of her best friends overheard some friends talking trash about her in class. But, because we woke up to the news of an earthquake in Los Angeles, I’ll save the trash-talking story for another day!

Just last week, another swim parent and I said at the exact same time, “This feels like earthquake weather.”

If you don’t live in California, you might wonder what earthquake weather feels like. We locals just know. You can feel it. It might be gray instead of sunny. The air feels heavy. There’s a weirdness that you can feel. Here’s the California government website disputing all I just said and what we “feel in our bones.” And your animals might be doing extraordinary things.

The other day when the swim parent and I said that it felt like earthquake weather there was a 6.9 earthquake in Northern California. The next day, an earthquake struck an hour away from my son’s college. Then this morning, the one in Los Angeles.

I have an alert set up to my phone from USGS that reports big ones to my phone, in real time. The USGS website is a great resource to see what’s going on around the world. This past week looks like a “ring of fire” around the Pacific.

So far, though, the big one hasn’t hit us here in Palm Springs — where we sit on the San Andreas fault. Knock on wood.

And the fact that a supposed friend is talking behind my daughter’s back really puts me in an earthquake kind of mood.

Here are three questions:

1. Do you believe in earthquake weather?

 2. What do you advise your kids to do when they hear someone is talking behind their backs?

3. What’s the largest earthquake you’ve experienced?