carpe decorum

A DC trember? Would you hit me if I said, "Cool!"?

---L.

A 4.5 even. (If a 4.5 some distance away.)

I missed one of the two St. Louis quakes I was around for (and I was standing in the alumni house parking lot at the time, apparently), and mistook the other for a particularly loud/heavy train until later. (It did feel interesting, though, and I knew it. It's just that the word "earthquake" never entered my mind.)

There was a southern Ohio quake in about 1977 that I felt. It was summer, in mid-afternoon. My mother and I were sitting on stools and watching the movie version of "Lathe of Heaven" on PBS. Just when everything was falling apart, and there were images of falling buildings, fire, and chaos on screen, the house shook. I remember that it took me a minute to realize: "Wait a minute -- that's supposed to stay on TV!"

Right after 9/11 here in New York, there was a 4.0 in Queens. It was at one AM right as I was going to bed, and suddenly the whole apartment shook one single time. Everything that was hanging banged against the wall and it sounded like a grand piano had been dropped on the roof (I was on the top floor) Needless to say I thought that a bomb had gone off nearby, so I ran to the TV to see what had happened. It took me a minute to realize that it is doubtful that terrorists would car-bomb the East Village.

I thought I caused one once, in San Jose, California. I'd just entered the post office, and the door had shut behind me. Suddenly the venetian blinds on the windows were waving in and out like sine waves. Didn't think I'd slammed the door...

Turns out it was a 3.8 or 3.9 earthquake. No harm done in the post office, but in my sister's optometry shop, just down the road, half the frames had fallen to the floor.