EARTHQUAKE!

On one of the prettiest days of the year I was stuck in my office wrassling with the New Computer with a New Operating System and New Software when I heard the familiar rumble of either Ft. A P Hill or Dahlgren testing new weapons. Then it struck me that I am a little far from either military post. Then I felt the rumbling - much like you'd feel in an old frame house on a city street that lets truck traffic through - and then I felt the concrete slab beneath my feet move forward and back, and up a little. That's when I noticed the picture frames on my bookshelves begin to jiggle and heard the rafters squeak overhead. I knew, though I'd never experienced it before, that this was an earthquake.  I felt as if my brain was rattling. Probably it was my sinuses but there is nothing quite so odd as feeling something tremble inside your skull. For a moment or two longer I just absorbed the rocking sensations before I realized I ought to go out to the front desk and evacuated the building, but by the time I got the 12 steps from my desk to the main room it was all over. Two dozen of us just stood there, in wonder, staring, making "Oh" and "Ah" sounds and then the chatter began! And how we all did chatter. It went on the rest of the day. I called the courthouse to check in on friends there - since that's the tallest building in town. BD called me to report he saw the satellite dish dancing in the back yard, but that Jack TheDog never noticed a thing. The man who was fixing my car told me he had my car on the lift and all he could think to do was to pray it didn't fall off. (prayers answered, thank goodness) At the grocery store after work clusters of us gathered to chatter and laugh and gasp.


I tell you - for the next few days we're going to be blaming everything on TheEarthquake. So just in case you were wondering where I am ... I'm somewhere between the 4th and the 5th red band, just above the "i" in Richmond.