Shake it Up

And now the t-shirt: “I Survived the New York Earthquake.”

So, there I was Friday morning, sitting at my kitchen table and working on a story when a whole lotta shaking started going on.

At first, I thought it was a helicopter flying overhead, and not just some news station traffic chopper, but a massive military monstrosity coming in low and mean.

But it kept getting louder and my building started vibrating, and I decided it might be a good idea to put my ass in gear and get the hell out.

I was halfway across my living room when the shaking stopped, but I decided to keep going to see if anybody else saw or felt what I did.

“What the f*ck was that?” I asked no one, even though I sort of knew the answer already.

Everything seemed normal when I went outside, and I thought for a moment that perhaps I was overreacting. But then a few of my neighbors start to emerge from their homes, all looking quite bewildered.

“I thought it was just me,” one guy said.

“I was thinking the same thing,” I replied.

By now pretty much everybody knows that a rare—but not rare enough if you ask me--4.8 magnitude earthquake rocked the Northeast on Friday.

Tremors were felt by millions of people from Washington, D.C. to New York City to Maine, although there were some people in the quake zone who said that they didn’t feel a thing.

I went back inside and started making calls to make sure all my people where okay and I got a text from my niece in Denver to see what the hell was happening.

This was the third largest earthquake recorded in the area in the last five decades and the strongest in New Jersey in more than 240 years, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

It’s also about the fifth earthquake I’ve ever experienced and by far the worst, going back to my first trip out to California to visit my brother in Berkeley in 1979.

That was the vacation where I learned that I had a serious fear of flying and a minor tremor rocking my brother’s apartment just hours after touching down didn’t help things any.

"Whoops!" he said when the room started to jiggle.

Bugging Out

“Please tell that was an oil truck driving by,” I whined, even though the force was coming straight up from the ground. "I don't wanna hear no 'whoops!'"

Things settled down on Friday and I had just about forgotten about the earthquake when my house started shaking again.

This was a 3.8 magnitude aftershock that hit 37 miles west of New York City near Gladstone, New Jersey, at around 6 p.m. The news people had warned that the aftershocks could go on for a week, but I really hope that doesn't happen.

While one seismologist said most earthquakes are relatively small, as far as I'm concerned, the only small earthquake is the one I'm not in. If I’m there, it’s a doozy.

And I won’t want to be talking magnitudes and three point anything. That’s West Coast lingo.

I like to say that New York’s geological stability was the one thing we had over L.A. Sure, they’ve got the great weather, beautiful beaches, and movie stars, but at least our terra is a lot firma than theirs.

And, like the man said, the more firma, the less terror.

Okay, well, we’ve still got the best Italian food.(Yeah, we do!)

The last earthquake I recall was back in 2011, when a magnitude 5.8 bugger hit Virginia and rattled my rearend in the office where I was working at the time.

Honestly, the feeling was minimal—like a wave a water rolling under my seat—but it was definitely not normal.

This latest quake comes just two days after the New York area got whacked with drenching rain and extremely strong winds that slapped the living beejesus out of the magnolia tree in front of my house.

And then tomorrow, of course, we’ll have the total eclipse of the sun, and, for the first time in more than 200 years, two groups of cicadas are expected to invade parts of the country.

I was thinking that maybe we're heading for the end of days but then I remembered that my week had gotten off to such a great start.

My sister had told Dr. Joel, our dentist, about my stent procedure and he called Monday moring to wish me well.

We talked for all of five minutes, but the call lifted my spirits and reminded me that even a seemingly small act like that can make a big difference in someone’s life. It sure made a difference in mine.

The world may be collapsing all around us, but it’s nice to I’ve got good people around when I feel the earth move under my feet.