Earthquake

Well of course I missed the earthquake.

Gary was sitting at the table reading a magazine and “unwinding” after just getting home from work.  

I was starting to drift off to sleep, when he came running into the bedroom, asking “Did you feel that? It was an earthquake!”  Well, no I didn’t feel it because I was nearly unconscious on a pillow-top mattress that is so high off the ground I had to relearn how to get into bed after we bought it. lol But I have certainly felt several CA quakes before and I’m okay with missing this one. They make me nauseous.

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but my grandmother had a lamp we nicknamed “Gran’s Earthquake Warning”. It was a grape-cluster lamp that hung from the ceiling and we always said that if it was swaying you’d better “duck and cover”. I finally located a photo of it.

I know this was a surprise for Oklahoma City residents and most other Oklahomans, but earthquakes and earthquake drills were as much a part of my childhood as tornadoes are for my students. We practiced getting under our desks so falling debris wouldn’t hit us. We talked about what to do if we were in different locations. But the truth is that nothing can prepare you mentally or physically for an earthquake. Unlike tornadoes, which at least have a season and can be tracked and monitored and predicted, earthquakes just seem to arbitrarily happen. Oh I know there are faults that are monitored and machines that can help us analyze and understand them. But I also know that I have experienced the sudden movement of an earthquake while at a friend’s house, my house, my grandmother’s house, the post office, and in the yard. No one warned me or told me when there might be an earthquake or where there might be an earthquake or even when the aftershocks might cease.

Before the excitement of the earthquake we had our usual visitors to the yard. I wonder what they thought about the earth shaking!

Comments

[Megan]

You were the first place I checked when I read about the earthquakes in Oklahoma. Glad to know all is well.