Everyone (everyone locally anyway) is talking about the earthquake today. I was at a taco stand at a carwash (for anyone outside the Los Angeles area it sounds grosser than it is) and all the people working started whooping when the earth started to undulate. Undulate. Not a word I use in daily conversation but really the only one I can think of now that describes the sensation. It's like sitting on a bed that someone else is bouncing up and down on. J heard the cracking sound that often accompanies these things (and in my opinion, is one of the most disconcerting things about an earthquake) but where I was it was silent. Everyone (except the car washers) stopped talking and stared wide eyed at one another silently asking whether they should take cover or not. It's like playing chicken. Who's going to break for cover first during the longest 30 seconds you may ever experience. The quake measured 5.4 (at first they said 5.8 but they downgraded it) and where I was it was pretty uneventful. A little nerve-wracking, but nothing came apart. No fire or cracks in the earth a la Superman. In fact our pictures at home were still straight and nothing fell. So all is well that ends well.
USGS knows more about it than I do. Check it out.
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