Terremoto

Terremoto is not the the name of Japan's visiting Prime Minister as some might think. It's the Spanish word for earthquake. Last night at 1:10 a.m. Terremoto did come-a-calling and frankly I would rather have had Japan's P.M. The quake lasted long enough for me to say "holy shit" six or seven times, but I quit after the third one to hear what Woowoo Charly had to say. She was seconding my opinion. The intensity of the temblors (tremors)was double that of any we had experienced heretofore or even heretofive. It was noisy, unsettling, disquieting, unnerving and four other adjectives with the general meaning of Yikes! When it was over I meandered over to RTGFKAR's side of the house to see how he had fared and he too was in a bewildered state. I did point out to him that "on the bright side" our new home was still standing. It wouldn't have surprised me to have found windows out or roof tiles missing or cracks in the walls. I mean how can you shake an entire building hard enough to make your bed dance on the floor for half a minute and not have some sort of visible damage? I made a cursory check of the interior this morning and found nothing amiss or amister and will venture to the exterior when the monsoon wind and rain that were the earthquake's sidekick let off a touch.

An aside: I wrote a nice earthquake bit in what I called my "Costa Rica Papers" when we lived there and experienced our first serious shake and quake. I lost those writings and the subsequent "Panama Papers" when my computer's hard drive took a dive and never recovered. If any of youze good people should have a copy, por favor, send it my way.

Animals, I have read, often sense the onset of natural disasters before we puny humans do. Dogs, cats, bats and rats have been known to exhibit odd behavior prior to hurricanes, earthquakes, cyclones and the like. Our pups though are apparently missing that early warning gene. They made no sound to wake us beforehand and, at the conclusion of the terremoto, they merely shuffled around in their kennel a second or two and then promptly returned to sleep. I guess when you are a nine week old dog everything is cool with you except the word no.

Later today we are off to lovely and talented Daveed to get said pups their vaccinations - we will see how they feel about that - and another bout for me with Doctor Skinbegone and his trusty companion freezeface. I always enjoy returning from these sessions looking like a wereleopard in mid metamorphosis; especially when I have to appear in public before the spots drop off. Friday night I have to read at our writer's club and I will likely be in full moon bloom by then. Ah well, it's still better than a stick in the eye.

Or an earthquake.