A Bump In the Night
We had a 3.7 (Richter) earthquake Thursday evening. We were sitting at our computers last night sipping a drink and catching up on whatever we catch up on (my wife calls it ‘the electronic hearth’) when we felt it, a single jolt, as if someone had dropped something unusually large next door. I suspected it was a quake at once, but was puzzled that there were no follow-on tremors. The memory of the 6.8 Nisqually quake on 2/28/01, which caught me at a client’s in the unstable liquefaction zone south of downtown Seattle, came to mind at once. That one had rolled interminably, and I waited it out under a desk with someone I usually didn’t like to even be in the same room with.
We walked outside (drinks in hand - I’m choosing my earthquake companions more carefully these days) where several neighbors had gathered. We had a great time catching up on gossip, and I got to hold the next-door neighbor’s baby for the first time. We resolved to lobby the city to sponsor more frequent earthquakes.
