I feel the earth move under my feet

Last night, a 4.2 magnitude earthquake hit Oakland. Big whoopdy-do! I woke up briefly: My Mookie and I sat up in bed and "waited" it out. "Waited" is a HUGE overstatement--the very mild shaking was felt for MAYBE 5 seconds. When it stopped, I went to the bathroom and crawled back into bed mumbling something like "little tremblor." Ah, earthquakes are SO FUN!



WHAT?! FUN?! Let me explain: When I moved to the Bay Area, I was all like east coast earthquake pussy. I would think about the possibility of an earthquake and it would totally freak me out. Then, I experienced my first tremblor. I was sitting on the couch knitting and all of a sudden it felt like a huge hiccup--that's the best way I can explain it. I looked at Mook like, "What the hell was that?" And he said, "Earthquake" and told me to stand in the doorway with him, but there were no more tremblors, no after-shocks, just the beating of our hearts together. Mookie told me to remain calm as I felt his heart jumping out of his chest. I was freaked out, yet intrigued. Wow, I thought, I just felt the earth MOVE! It was kinda cool with a dash of salt-and-vinegar fear. I tried to imagine that hiccup more pronounced and thought, "yeah that would suck."

My original east coast fear has dissipated, replaced with a more west coast earthquake blasé. If it don't feel too intense, why even bother getting out of bed? It's just a little shake, rattle, and roll that's all. This leads me to another interesting thing about earthquakes: the first one I felt was like a hiccup, all subsequent quakes have felt more like a shimmy shimmy shake shake side to side--the way I've always imagined quakes to feel like. So the earth moves up and down AND side to side....SHIMMY SHIMMY YA SHIMMY YA SHIMMY YAY!


R.I.P. ODB