Aster (and Dianthus) slept through their first earthquake yesterday. Registering 5.6 on the Richter scale, the tremblor (really a word?) centered 120 miles away, was enough to rattle our house. At one end of the house, the doors and the washing machine started rattling and I could feel something amiss, for much longer than I would have expected. At the other end of the house, the Mister didn't directly feel it, but came down the hall to ask me why the mirror (hanging loosely over a door) would have been shaking so loudly.
Since we had been discussing a smaller quake that occurred in the same place earlier yesterday, I immediately realized what it was. If we hadn't have had that conversation, I probably would have guessed some weird sheer winds; Western Oklahoma is not a place one expects earthquakes (the only other earthquake I have consciously experienced was in Colorado, another place one does not expect earthquakes, on a Christmas Day. We heard what felt and sounded like a sonic boom. My brother, the PhD geophysicist, declared that it mus have been Santa returning to the North Pole.).
Strange days, and I still haven't written about the toothpicks.
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6 comments:
Did you feel the one just now? In 13 days I'm staying in Port au Prince for 1 night. OK earthquake has triggered willies about it.
Stats exercise for your class - Are there more 'did you feel it' responses from towns with colleges? vs. just large populations? http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyfi/events/us/b0006lpf/us/index.html
"Temblor" http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/temblor
And then there were tornadoes on Monday (no, they did not hit us).
Mr. Guapo, I had looked it up after reading it in several other reports. It just still doesn't look like a real word to me. By the way, my parents happened by with a copy of the publication you work for a week ago and I was excited to read your work.
Oh dear. I seem to write only when it's bad news. Riot somewhere? There's always a riot here somewhere.
"Temblor" isn't a very good word because the only people who use it are hacks like me who have trouble fitting "earthquake" into a headline.
Mr. Guapo, indeed, it was a riot.
Most headlines seem to use "quake" for brevity and stick "tremblor" into the body to shake things up.
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