Yesterday, Rae and I were sitting on the living room floor playing Jenga. It turns out that Jenga was quite the appropriate game, because a few minutes after we finished playing the whole apartment started shaking back and forth. It reminded me of how the floor sometimes shakes during a washing machine’s spin cycle, except this was about ten times more powerful.
It took me a few seconds to realize that it was an earthquake. The whole thing lasted maybe 15-20 seconds, but that’s plenty of time to think about important things like, “What the hell are you supposed to do in an earthquake?”
I remembered immediately that biggest danger is getting flattened by falling debris. That’s why I very slowly, very carefully, lowered the bookcases on top of Rae before they accidentally came crashing down on her. In hindsight, I probably should have taken the books off first, but there wasn’t really time.
It was our third earthquake/tremor since we’ve been here. (The first one actually happened the same day as the earthquake that wiped out Japan in March. Now that’s a big aftershock.)
I read in the paper today that yesterday’s earthquake registered a 6.0 on the Richter scale. That’s just strong enough to be exciting but not strong enough to kill me (just like my women.)
It was actually very exciting. It was by far the largest earthquake I’ve ever felt. But as Pam and I were talking about how thrilling it was living life on the edge in the middle of some mountain jungle that’s prone to earthquakes, I happened to look over at our kitchen table. Sitting on top of it, in perfect condition, was Rae’s house of cards she had built earlier in the day.
So maybe 6.0 isn’t so big after all.
Later that night, it was just our typical evening. Make dinner, play some games, put our pajamas, crush all the scorpions we find in Rae’s room.
The scorpion infestation kicked into high gear this week. We found three or four baby scorpions crawling around the place. To be honest, I’m starting to lose track of them all. I think our total body count for the trip is somewhere around 14 or 15.
The novelty was starting to wear off, but that was before we discovered a new scorpion trick that has kept amused lately.
Scorpions glow under a black light!
