This morning about 5:35 a.m. my husband and I were awakened by the sound of clanging lamps and rattling bottles. He asked, “What is that?” and I told him I had no idea, but it felt like a herd of elephants was stampeding through the field. Next thing he says is, “It’s gotta be an earthquake.” Wow! An Earthquake. I haven’t felt one of those since 1987.
I was only 8 and my brother was 4. We were playing in the living room and my mom was in her sewing room. All of a sudden it seemed as if my brother had super-human strength. He was lying on the floor and asked me to help him up, when I did lean over to help and he pulled down I flipped completely over him through the air and landed on my back between the couch and love seat. Stunned I lay there motionless for a second and then we got up and ran to mom to tell her what happened. After we told her she immediately said, “I knew something was funny. It must have been an earthquake.” She being from one of the most earthquake prone regions in the world – she should know. She said she was startled by the sound of our “humidifier” (aka stainless steel pot) clanging against the chimney of the wood burning stove. She wanted to get up and tell dad whom had always wanted to feel an earthquake to stop what he was doing, but she couldn’t get up. When he came in the house and mom told him that he just missed the earthquake you should have seen the look of disappointment on his face.
Every time we were in Mexico dad wanted to feel an earthquake. In 1988 when we were in Acapulco, mom said she felt one while she sat on the beach with my little brother and dad and I were playing in the waves. She said it was very bizarre because she saw the ocean tilt. It freaked her out and she grabbed my brother and just held him for a few seconds. I was too busy getting wave rolled and my dad was about 20 feet out so we didn’t feel a thing. There was a small tremor one time when we were in Mexico City, but he missed it again because he’s such a sound sleeper.
This morning was the real thing. The bed was moving and you could hear all the furniture in the house moving. It reminded me a bit of living near the railroad tracks. We used to live about 2 blocks from railroad tracks that were heavily traveled – about 90 trains a day. The gentle shaking that the house would experience was like a fast, low rumble. This was stronger and more deliberate.
Hope dad got to feel the earthquake this time.
Firstly, I’m a mom and wife. Professionally, IT consulting is my job and blogging is the outlet for my passions. I write about things that affect the everyday life of a stay-at-home parent or any parent for that matter such as parenting, relationships, discipline, the media, product reviews, giveaways, social media, food, cooking, gardening and anything else that might come my way.
