EARTHQUAKE!!!!

So, just a short while after dropping mom at the airport, the kids and I were at the grocery store. They were riding in this cute little "car" shopping cart and I was just turning down an aisle when....rumble, rumble, rumble. Now, back in my hometown, I would think to myself, "Oh a thunderstorm is starting". But now, living as I do in SoCal, I have to re-orient my brain to think, "Earthquake!!"

I froze...I remember saying out loud, "earthquake" so the kids would know what was happening. I was right in the middle of the aisle, at the end of it, and was watching in fascination as the items on the shelves quivered and vibrated. The store was eerily quiet as everyone just froze in their respective spots, waiting, watching.

And then, just like that, it was over. People started to move again. Store clerks scurried about checking for damage, calling to their fellow workers to make sure no one was injured. The atmosphere was almost gleeful, like we had all just had a little cocktail party experience together. People were nervously giggling, all the while trying to act like it was no big deal. This is, after all, the land of the Quake.

My kids were still trying to sort it all out.
"Mommy, was that an earthquake?"
"Is the building going to fall?"
"Did the earth yawn?"

I think it registered 5.4 or 5.5....I've also heard 5.8, but it was over 5, that is for sure.

My daughter has been proudly telling anyone who will listen that the earth danced, and we had an "earthquick", and wants to know if grammy felt the earthquick in Ohio.

I assured her she did not. She just missed it.

A couple of hours later, I got a call from my mom who was on a layover en-route to home. She said the plane had just taken off when they made an announcement that the airport had been shut down temporarily due to a 5.4 earthquake. She and I had just been talking about the fact that we are "due" to have one. I hope there won't be another, bigger one coming anytime soon.

They still weird me out...especially when they come late at night (as they so often seem to) and I am in bed and my husband is gone at work. They always wake me up...even if everyone else sleeps through them. I never can, I always sense them, even the "small" ones. It is terrifying...they come without warning. Sometimes we have them and I don't even know what they are. Like a quick "bang" during the day and I think someone outside has just had some sort of mechanical failure. I never know...until someone says "did you feel the earthquake?"

Clueless.

God, I miss Ohio.....