Our Very Own Earthquake
Well, why shouldn't the National Capital Region enjoy the very same astounding geographical features and the world-shattering events that erupt from them as other countries do? We're an advanced civilization, we have great natural reserves, we have an educated population, and we're quite proud of ourselves. So, if Indonesia, Iran, Afghanistan and other world-class countries enjoy earthquakes, why shouldn't we have our very own? So there. We do.We to0 have tectonic plates that appear to like grinding their edges against one another, just to remind us that they're there, and we'd better respect them. We do, we do. It's just that, well, we kind of had the impression that our singular such events were like baby brothers to those which tend to remind puny humans around the world. We've seen havoc erupted here and there over the years, but who even dreamed that we were capable of panic in the streets right here in little old Eastern Ontario?
I should have known. After all, we'd experienced earthquake shocks often enough while living in Tokyo and while it didn't seem such a big deal when we were there, more of an astonishing but anticipated occurrence when you least expected it, we just didn't recognize it instantly wgeb our world rocked here. Last night, that's when. Yes, we've had previous such occurrences but they weren't so...what should I say? in-your-face? These were relatively gentle affairs when a slight tremor might have been experienced when we were snug abed, and wondered what the hell it was: we knew it wasn't our earth-shattering lovemaking of the moment. And indeed, the following day's newspapers told us otherwise. A slight tremor.
But last night!? Well, that was something else. THE WHOLE BLOODY HOUSE SHOOK! Sorry for yelling like that, but it was that kind of event. Shocking to one's sense of the expected, you know? I mean, I was sitting up here, clacking away on my keyboard and all of a sudden THE HOUSE SHOOK AROUND ME. Sorry. Did it again. Don't mean to shout. But really, this is a shouting-type experience. In the sense that it felt as though the whole house was about to collapse, and there we were, on the second floor.
Irving emerged from the library down the hall shouting something in panic and I in his wake followed, the two dogs in mine, barking frantically, clattered our way downstairs to the foyer. There was this loud, awful rumbling, and we peered outside to the front willing ourselves to see a great honker of a mechanical device, a big truck maybe? making all that noise, having accidently bumped into our house, you know? Only: nothing there, just snow gently falling into a black, frigid, windy night. And the house still shaking, that damn rumbling continuing, on and on and bloody well on. Was it ever going to stop? Should we all trundle ourselves down into the basement and seek shelter under the stairs or something? Forgotten, everything we've ever read about What To Do In The Event Of An Earthquake.
The thing was, only last week when we were preparing to go up to bed, around eleven, there was a huge CRACK! (sorry, I seem to be all of a sudden devoted to shouting) that seemed to come from the roof on just such another frigid, wind-swept dark night and with it, we felt the floor shake under us. Our neighbours also heard that very definite, incredibly loud report, but they hadn't noticed their floors trembling as we did. The rafters expanding in the cold, we knew, but what the hell, that was some expansion, huh? So what gives? Deja vu? Again? As in all over again? No, but it does go some way to explaining why old earthquake-hands like us didn't immediatly think: earthquake!
Irving dashed down to the basement just to make certain that the furnace hadn't given up the ghost by blasting inself into oblivion. Nope, looked fine. Ditto the hot water heater. I grabbed the telephone, damn! forgot I'd been on line, dashed back upstairs and (illegally!) shut down the computer, called one of our neighbours who had been calling out at the time to her sister-in-law and, without even a ring, asked into her receiver "Madeleine?". No, Susan I said, it's Rita. Um, anything amiss? The house, she said breathlessly, the house shook! Yes, I said, calmly, it was an earthquake, Susan. Calm and collected I was then. After all, I'm older, I've had experience, I should know, right?
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, February 25, 2006
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