Earthquake!!!!!

Actually, I'm just fine. The quake, which registered as a 6.8 on a scale of 1-7, leveled houses and all kinds of nasty stuff about 200 miles from here... but the quake was big enough that we felt it even here in MyTown.

In fact, Maia and I were just pulling into the local diner for breakfast, I had just stopped the car and was about to put it in park when the stupid car started lurching... like the brakes weren't working properly... I looked at the gauges, they all looked all right, Maia said: "Are you doing that?", I said... "No, I don't know what that..." And in looking at her, I saw the parked car next to us, rocking back and forth. "Jishin." I said (It's interesting that Maia and I both seem to say "Earthquake" in Japanese now... I guess because we have such fun variants on it, "Truck-Shin", "Bus-Shin", "First-Grader-Shin", and so forth...). By then, though, the quake was over.

We went into the diner, and everything was perfectly normal, the waitress didn't even seem to notice. This is also something interesting about living in Japan... If it doesn't kill you, then it's nothing to worry about...

A couple of months ago, I was at the Dojo, practicing drawing my bow when a Jishin hit. Sensei was actually just about to fire on the target at the moment it hit. I watched him in the mirrors (I'm usually faced with my back to him during the practice) as he paused, waited for the quake to settle, then resumed as if nothing happened. No one said anything, no one even so much as peeped... it's fascinating.

If it doesn't kill you, then it's nothing to worry about...

I've been here a year and a half, and so far I've not experienced anything worse than a 3.4, which sounds (And feels) much like Godzilla running up to my apartment and slapping it on the side... but it didn't knock over my toys sitting on my windowsill, and the power didn't even so much as blink... so I guess I won't worry about it...

Either way, I'm fine, Maia's fine... so, well... we don't have to worry...

---Safe