this and that

Tue, 9 May 2006
Seismic activity. Hmmm. Size Mick Act Ivity. Nope, nothing really there to play with. Last Friday we had an earthquake. A tremor really. Saturday we had six. One rearranged the tiles on our Scrabble board and caused Gus to hide behind our bathroom door. It was about a three second shaker and was noisy too. I can't really describe the sound, it is but a moment. Roughly I'd say thunder underground. The feeling, though, is graspable. It is akin to being in a small boat on a quiet body of water. You're in a reverie, not paying attention when you suddenly cross the wake of a larger boat. There is the one big thump as you hit the wave that brings you back to the present and then the small after rocks as the boat returns to stillness. It can be disconcerting. Especially as you realize that solid earth is moving under your feet. Or in our case Saturday, a concrete floor. We had another smaller tremor Sunday morning as we lay in bed, but nothing since then. Speculation as to why we are having so much seismic activity - no one can remember ever having so many tremors in such a short period of time - range from Volcan Baru becoming active again to the land saying Gringos go home. We have read that a team of seismologists (seismologist...now that is a word I could mess with) is on the way here to determine for us and Marvin Gaye, what's going on. Of course, I already know. I've seen the movies. Some idiot steals jewels from the eyes of the stone god, the volcano blows, the earth shakes, splits open and the old professor, that would be me, who was there to chronicle native ways and his wife the flower loving botonist, that would be Charly, and several dinosaurs fall into lava filled chasms while the handsome hero makes his escape in a dugout canoe provisioned with a lovely native girl in a sarong. She may or may not have a flower behind one ear. Apparently that's optional.

Other than learning what it is like to be a grain of salt in the shaker, all here in Paradise is as usual. The sun shines, the birds and American Idol wannabes sing and our Venezuelan televison feed fails to show me NBA playoff games causing me far more stress than mere earthquakes. Fortunately, I have become a soccer fan and the up coming World Cup should keep me from writing poisonous pen letters to Manuel Chavez about his country's lame tv programming. Of course that might be refreshing to him after getting all those complaints from Bush and Company about him using his oil profits to better his country's health care and education systems and thereby spoiling it for the other countries who use their profits to, you know, get rich. Man what a jerk. But I have digressed and you should never digress if you live in a glass house. The one problem with futball (soccer) is that unlike most popular American sports you can't read a book while watching it. There is continuous action with no commercial breaks. This last may be why the U.S. networks have never made an attempt to popularize the game.

But I'm drifting off now. Nothing to really write about. Need a good shake to wake me up. Whoops, be careful what you wish for.

Doc