Earthquake

By now, you may have heard that we had an earthquake here in our little corner of paradise. No cause for alarm; it wasn’t anything big.

Now, having lived in Japan, where fairly large earthquakes are a regular occurrence, perhaps I am just in need of a larger jolt to get me to go “AAAAAARRRRGGGHHH! EARTHQUAKE!” and run around like a panicked chicken in peril. Because today? I didn’t even notice it.

Well, that is not entirely true. I was sitting on the sofa, with my laptop, having just shooed Lucy from hanging over me like a furry vulture waiting to be petted, when I noticed the cabinet doors just beside and behind me had begun rattling.

So my first reaction was, of course, to yell at Lucy to “KNOCK THAT SHIT OFF!!”

(Which is, coincidentally, frighteningly similar to my reaction to my First Ever Earthquake. I was living in Ottawa with a sad bastard of a boyfriend. It was 3 am or so, and I woke up because the bed was shaking. Assuming it was my Sad Bastard Boyfriend rolling over or fidgeting, I punched him and told him to “KNOCK THAT SHIT OFF.” He was asleep, and so I realized it was not Sad Bastard Boyfriend, but an earthquake. Oh well. At least I got the opportunity to hit Sad Bastard Boyfriend. There were never enough opportunities for THAT, I can tell you.)

Anyway. Back to today’s earthquake.

Despite yelling at Lucy, who was apparently not even in the room anymore, the rattling didn’t stop. So my second reaction, being as how we live in a house of sticks like one of the Three Little Pigs, but in a considerably more windy locale and with no fear of wolves, was to then assume that the wind was rattling the house.

So I tossed a pillow up against the cabinet to get it to stop. Which it did, eventually.

However, I looked out the window, and it was not windy. It was calm.

But by then I was all “OOOOOHHH! INTERNETS!!” and had completely moved on.

It was only about half an hour later when I checked Twitter did I realize that there had been an earthquake, centred in Ottawa region somewhere, that had caused all of the Great Lakes Region to tremble.

There were reports of minor damage, some places in the area. I checked in with BDH at work and he was all “Earthquake? WTF?” while That Baby continued her nap, uninterrupted, with a slightly flute-like nose whistle going on.

Somewhere, a Sad Bastard is having post-traumatic stress twitches and feeling like he may have just been punched.

All is right with my world.