Earthquakes

At 4:42 this morning I woke up to the bed shaking. I always spend the first second or two of an earthquake just assessing and trying to be sure it is an earthquake not just a big truck on the highway or a slamming door. Pretty quickly though you realize it is one.

It sounds kind of weird but as we were planning to move to CA I was hoping I would at least feel one earthquake while we lived out here, I wanted to have that experience to file away, to check off my list of things to feel in life. Mike felt one before me, last summer when he was on the barge a little one struck near his hotel. I admit that I was jealous that he got to feel one first and I was prepared to be a bit upset if I never had my turn. My first was really small, in the 2 range. It just made the light pulls on the floor lamp sway and me and Mike turn to one another on the couch "was that an earthquake? I think it was!"

I have had my fill now. I can think of at least 5 or 6 earthquakes I have felt. Ranging from the really mild aforementioned 2 where it really just feels like a truck going by but lasts too longs and sways just a bit too much, to several 3's where you think "yup that was one" but nothing rattles or shakes or falls over and you aren't so much scared as a little thrilled (it feels exciting but so tame/controlled that it is hard to worry) and finally to the 4's where things rattle and fall over and jump off the shelves.

I have to admit the last one before this one, it was centered just west of where we live, scared the CRAP out of me. That was the one where things fell over, I was home ALONE, and I was so scared I jumped off the couch, grabbed the tall purple vase that was wobbling on the mantle and sat down in the middle of the floor where there was nothing to fall on me (except of course the roof).

After feeling that one, and seeing that it really did feel 10x stronger than the little 3's (as the Richter scale is a log scale), and imagining that a 6 would feel 100x stronger than that, I don't think I need to feel anything stronger. So a note to the Hayward fault and any other faults near my apartment that they can hold still now, at least until Mike and I decide we are done with CA.