L U N A T A L K with Eva Moon

The Earth Moved

May 11, 2008 on 5:25 pm | In General Musing, Travel |

Tokyo was rocked by a 6.8 earthquake followed by a 5.3 aftershock this week. No major damage or injuries were reported, but my attention was riveted anyway, since my son Alan is there now, studying (twister, karaoke and probably some Japanese as well).

Things are a tad different from when I was a 20-year-old student getting into trouble in Europe and the USSR (alone!). I’m sure my parents would have preferred I go with a nice safe group or at least with a girlfriend or two. If I had a lick of sense, I would have given myself a good shake and a firm talking to as well, but I’ve always leapt off cliffs and assumed I’d sprout wings before I hit the ground. I think I called home (with great difficulty and expense) twice over the course of three months. They have no idea to this day some of the, ahem, adventures I had. And it’s probably just as well, though now that it’s in the blog I may get interrogated.

But that was then. Alan blogs regularly and is in my IM window almost daily, so I didn’t have to wait too long to know he was OK. Not that I was worried, mind you - the news reports put even a mom’s mind at rest - but I grew up in earthquake country and there’s always the post-quake entertainment where you contact everyone you know and trade “how was it for you” stories. It’s part of the fun.

It reminded me that we’re still in earthquake country. We looked it up and the San Andreas Fault runs UNDER our vacation house. The San Andreas Fault is the longest and most active earthquake fault in the world. There’s a lovely interpretive trail just down the street. The fault moved 13 feet laterally and 10 feet vertically along 300 miles of its length during the 1906 7.8 quake. If you know what to look for you can sill see the effects.

We walked by, across and inside the fault. At one point i looked up the jumbled slope from the trough of the fault and about fifty yards straight up was a house. On stilts. I couldn’t quite see for sure, but I think it’s named “Hubris House.”

They’ll have a great ride one day.

See more like that one:

• Hand me that Dutchman
• Squeeze Play
• No Sailor Moon
• Feets Don't Fail Me Now
• File Not Found