I’ve been living in California for over a year now, but I’m still getting used to it. Earlier this evening, while on a video chat with Ted, I felt event nc40204628. It was the longest earthquake I’ve ever experienced; I’m guessing the shaking lasted about 20 seconds. Of course with all other earthquakes I’ve felt, my first thought wasn’t that the cause of the motion was an earthquake. I’ve always blamed it on something else, like a quarry blast or someone else walking on a balcony, and then only realized later, after hearing from someone else, that it was actually an earthquake. This time, I thought my upstairs neighbors had dropped something or were jumping. It wasn’t until about 5-10 seconds into it that I realized what was actually going on. Of course my instincts aren’t really tuned to make me react, so after telling Ted I was in an earthquake, I stood up and looked at the doorway, which I was pretty sure I was supposed to go to. But I assumed that by that time it was almost over, and just waited it out for several more seconds. When I thought it had stopped, I sat down, but was surprised to feel myself still swaying. I had to confirm by watching the swinging blinds that the motion wasn’t just in my head. Tiffany had a similar experience, only she was watching swinging pots.
And, just so you know how easily I’ve slid back into blogging, my first thought after it was all over was, “This will make a great blog entry.”