2.28.01

If you live in the free world you couldn't have escaped hearing about the earthquake Seattle suffered today. I was working from home and did not experience quite the magnitude that rattled my coworkers, who rode atop undulant silt. Nevertheless, I and my familiars shook all the same. Perhaps you're addicted to the loop of images they're showing on every channel. The building that spilled its bricks over the green awning onto the red volkswagon is one block from my office building. Word from my mis-manager was that nothing happened there, just a little dust on the phone. Building occupants were sent home anyway. At the empyrean homestead it went like this: Just sitting down to lunch before the laptop computer when the computer began to hop and just kept hopping. It only took a second to realize it was an earthquake. Unconsciously I searched for a doorway. Whipped my head left to the glass french doors, discounting them immediately, so made my way through the jolting room for the main door, all the while calculating just how this 1930's brick building would collapse. Would the top floor, my floor, slip right off over the rubble of floors one and two? Would we fall through the middle? At the doorway I looked for the stairs trying to decide if I should stay put or try to get outside. But the shattering of one of my tea sets behind me stayed the question and, again, without thinking I dashed for the shelves and rode out the quake with all the tea cups and pots in my embrace. When it was over I was surprised by how violently my hands shook and how long it took before I could undaze and rejoin the day.

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