I moved to Maryland two years ago from Los Angeles thinking I would miss my friends and the beautiful weather but not the earthquakes. Silly me! Apparently the DC Metro area is the new Los Angeles. The first one last July was literally at the end of our street. My house was only 50 yards from the epicenter. A little bit of California right here in DC! Yesterday we had a another earthquake, in case you hadn’t heard. One moment I was sitting calmly enjoying a bit of calm and blogging and the next I was freaking the heck out. Why? I mean, I’m an LA girl I’ve been through some serious shakers! A 5.9 on the Richter Scale is nothing in LA! It’s practically a party game. A bounce house. The kind of earthquake where we would head out into the streets excitedly laughing and gabbing. Oh Mother Nature, you thought you could scare us with a 5.9? You under estimate us! A 5.9 can knock down a picture or two but it’s not a real quake. Yes, we’d head out of our houses or get into doorways right quick, but nothing less than a 7 is any cause for alarm. We used to joke that the only time you meet your neighbors in LA is when there’s an earthquake.
Yesterday’s quake scared me in a way that they didn’t in LA. Because it was unexpected. Earthquakes are out of context here. In Los Angeles, buildings are built on rollers, retrofitted for just the occasion. Our buildings here are not. Our walls here crack. A stone spire from the National Cathedral fell and while the rest of the nation pokes fun at us for being scared I can say I’ve looked at quakes from both sides now and here on the East Coast they are scarier. Why? Well, because we simply do not have them here. And anything unusual is extra scary. Perhaps that’s why Los Angeles comes to a complete stand still when there is quarter inch of rain.
So if any West Coasters tease you about being frightened of a little earthquake…well you just remind them that you can drive in the rain. So. There.
Although she’s been here for two years Stephanie still considers herself a California girl and hasn’t yet cracked how to negotiate winter shoes that are appropriate for cold weather. She has however, learned how to drive in the rain. She chronicles her life at Dial M For Minky. Reports for iVillage iVoices and works on herself at Just Be Enough
