From Pennies To Yennies

Wow. It’s crazy to think I have felt the world’s fourth largest earthquake. And on Dan’s birthday, to boot!

I actually spent most of yesterday morning out of the house and came home just in time for things to start shaking. I’ve taken up walking around town to A- learn my little town better and B- combat all the fatty food Dan and I have been indulging in.

After 2 hours of walking and exploring I came home and sat at my computer. A minute or two later Dan came online after just getting out of a meeting at work. We chatted about our days a bit, then felt a little shaking.

Now, earthquakes happen all the time here. It’s completely common for me to feel myself get jarred about a little, or look up and see the blinds swaying. They’re incredibly small and do not last long.

At first I messaged him saying, “shakey shakey”, to which he replied, “haha yeah”. Then we were still shaking after a while, a good deal stronger than the initial tremors. I messaged him, “I’m watching to see if these batteries are going to roll off your desk.” I didn’t wait for his reply though, because in an instant there was a huge jolt and crash, and I yelped and threw myself under my desk.

At the time it felt dramatic; I’m a skittish person known to jump or scream at the slightest surprise. I was going to get back up but we kept shaking. And it kept getting worse, and it was literally raining stuff around me. It felt like it as never going to end! I could hear Dan’s brand new flat panel monitors scooting their way to the edge of the desk and I wanted to hold them down, but I just couldn’t make myself move.

It did end though, sort of. We went back to tiny tremors. I crawled out and sure enough, the monitors were teetering on the back of his desk. Stuff everywhere. Nothing really damaged though. A bottle of perfume fell off my desk and landed on its bottom, but with such force that the top part of the bottle completely broke off. A bunch of the perfume spilled on Dan’s knocked over papers, but it’s not too bad. Our office is particularly fragrant now though!

Dan got a hold of me right away. Microsoft had been evacuated, and no one was able to make phone calls, but he got instant messenger to work on his phone. I told him everything was ok and he said he’d try to get home soon. Unfortunately they shut the trains down for the rest of the day, and it took him about 2/5 hours to walk/cab the 5 miles home.

Dan eventually got home, and we got everything picked up. And that’s the end of our story. But unfortunately a lot of people can’t say the same. Some people slept at Microsoft because they couldn’t get home, some people can’t get in touch with their families in Sendai, there were people running the streets and fighting over cabs and buildings with windows knocked out. I can’t begin to tell you all how lucky we are! That being said, here are some pictures of our minute damage.

Just a few things knocked over in the living room

Dan’s desk, and a bunch of things that fell off both our desks. Fort perspective, Dan usually keeps his monitors side by side, at the front edge of his desk. That’s a lot of traveling!

Yeah, we don’t normally keep this stuff on the floor!