We experienced an earthquake here in our home in Japan last night. It measured 6.8 on the Richter scale. Luckily, no one appears to have died in the quake.
Since no one died, I can say I’m glad to have been through it. Call me insane. Natural disasters (or natural near-disasters) don’t really frighten me, and this is probably not much of a surprise to anyone, least of all my friend the LifePundit. I regard them as problems requiring solutions, if it becomes severe enough to warrant.
Starting at about 0026, a pretty good sized jolt hit the house, followed by some wobbling back and forth. It knocked a few glasses over and kicked a book out of the shelf. It also toppled my wife’s stereo speakers.
Initially I thought a large construction truck was driving down the street. This was common last year as a new neighborhood went up in the lots next to us. They shook the house a little bit. However, when my wife bolted upright and said "Earthquake!" and started to grab the family heirloom, I shouted a triumphant "YES!" I finally got to play in an earthquake! No more sleeping through the little 3-point-somethings the New Madrid Fault offered or even the 4.X on the California Central Coast back in 1995. This wasn’t exactly the big kahuna, but it’s about as big as it could have been and not have been deadly. In any case, it was all over within short order, only about 45 seconds of shaking.
Since I’ve always wanted to experience an earthquake of decent size and no one got hurt, I’m declaring victory with regard to this objective in my life.
I once saw a blog quote generator come up with something to the effect "You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake." I need to get in touch with the author of that quote and set him/her straight on both counts.
I’ve experienced two of interesting size. Northridge was one, and I only briefly woke up and decided that I was dreaming I was in an earthquake. Being from Kansas, I just didn’t understand what was happening.
5 years later while living in LA, I experienced another that woke me up. This time I stayed awake. It lasted about 45 seconds. It set up a standing wave in my pool and sloshed out about 1/3 of the water.
Okay, you can check being in an earthquake off your list, you nerves-of-steel-thrill-seeker. What’s next? A tornado?
Glad you enjoyed it and no one was hurt. Seriously.
I was in a small earthquake once while I was unloading the dishwasher. A bookcase danced and things rattled, then it was over. It didn’t compute, so I just kept unloading the dishwasher, not even processing what had just happened.
That sort of scares me. You mean I’m in an earthquake and when I can’t match that experience to a previous one I just blow it off?
Anyway, I heard on the news that there had been an earthquake. After thinking about it for a while, I remembered what had happened, and was astounded that I had been in an earthquake.
It is an amazing thing when the solid, quiet earth turns out not to be quite so solid or quiet.
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