Anyone getting tired of earthquake updates already? Yeah, me too. Yet here is another one. Obviously there is nothing else on our minds here.
We had dinner together last night at Gareth&Penny’s and that was really nice. We even invented the game “guess the magnitude” after we experienced an aftershock and were waiting for it to show up on the “recent quakes” list from the geological institute of NZ, which I have become addicted to. It is weird to make jokes like that, but then it is also a good way of going through all this, not losing your sense of humour.
I also had a brilliant moment of child-upbringing. Their 2-year old Ben wanted to have pizza, pineapple, cookies, and at some point I said “You should eat your tomato first Ben”, and he looked at me, at the tomato, and put it in his mouth. Wow.
I had a glass of wine, and that really helped in relaxing too. Still it took me hours to relax enough to fall asleep and there was a big quake before midnight too. Then woken again around 4 by 2 very strong quakes. Getting used to it in the sense that I thought “oh darn, I want to stay in bed. Oh well, guess I better get out and crouch in the doorway, sigh”. But always the fear and adrenaline.
Late in the morning Penny and Gareth took me out for a drive through town, because we all wanted to get out a little and see for ourselves some of the damage. We felt a bit bad about going on a “sightseeing” tour but it was good to get out. We didn’t go to the worst areas of course but still saw lots of damage. If you live in earthquake-hazard-area I suggest you take down your chimney NOW. Most went through the roof, 99% showed obvious damage/instability. Very scary. Those bricks are deadly.
Then we had lunch and played with Ben who doesn’t have a clue what is going on, which is probably good. We were all really tired though and so I went back home and slept/dozed another couple of hours. Still feeling like a zombie.
Lying in bed trying to sleep I frequently misplace my own heartbeat with a tremor. You normally never notice that, but if you lay on your side you can feel yourself moving up and down with your heartbeat. Which might as well be a mini quake. That’s how tense I am.
We had dinner together last night at Gareth&Penny’s and that was really nice. We even invented the game “guess the magnitude” after we experienced an aftershock and were waiting for it to show up on the “recent quakes” list from the geological institute of NZ, which I have become addicted to. It is weird to make jokes like that, but then it is also a good way of going through all this, not losing your sense of humour.
I also had a brilliant moment of child-upbringing. Their 2-year old Ben wanted to have pizza, pineapple, cookies, and at some point I said “You should eat your tomato first Ben”, and he looked at me, at the tomato, and put it in his mouth. Wow.
I had a glass of wine, and that really helped in relaxing too. Still it took me hours to relax enough to fall asleep and there was a big quake before midnight too. Then woken again around 4 by 2 very strong quakes. Getting used to it in the sense that I thought “oh darn, I want to stay in bed. Oh well, guess I better get out and crouch in the doorway, sigh”. But always the fear and adrenaline.
Late in the morning Penny and Gareth took me out for a drive through town, because we all wanted to get out a little and see for ourselves some of the damage. We felt a bit bad about going on a “sightseeing” tour but it was good to get out. We didn’t go to the worst areas of course but still saw lots of damage. If you live in earthquake-hazard-area I suggest you take down your chimney NOW. Most went through the roof, 99% showed obvious damage/instability. Very scary. Those bricks are deadly.
Then we had lunch and played with Ben who doesn’t have a clue what is going on, which is probably good. We were all really tired though and so I went back home and slept/dozed another couple of hours. Still feeling like a zombie.
Lying in bed trying to sleep I frequently misplace my own heartbeat with a tremor. You normally never notice that, but if you lay on your side you can feel yourself moving up and down with your heartbeat. Which might as well be a mini quake. That’s how tense I am.
