What's SHAKING?

A grocery store, post quake. More at http://www.adn.com/article/20160124/strong-earthquake-felt-throughout-southcentral-alaska

What's SHAKING? I'll tell you what: We were! J and I lived in the Bay Area for years with the San Andreas at our doorstep but we hadn't really lived through a significant quake until 2AM last night.

Bed starts shaking and then seriously jouncing up and down.
Indigo (having serendipitously climbed into our bed around midnight): "Mama? Daddy? What's happening?"
Kim and J (sitting up together): "We're having an earthquake."
ZigZag leaps off the bed, jets into the hallway, retreats, and dives back under the bed.
Indigo (The Practical Soul): "Should we climb under the bed too? Should we go outside? Aren't we supposed to do something to be safe?"
Bed starts sloshing back and forth, house is creaking, sounds of things falling.
Kim (The Academic, in her head): Those other ones were P waves, but these are S waves...This is super cool! Hmm... They're getting stronger... They're not stopping... Shit.
J (The Field Scientist, counting the duration out loud): "28, 29, 30..."
Indigo: "Mama! What do we do?!?"
Kim: "Stay here, in bed, where nothing can fall on us, and hold each other tight, until it stops. We're okay, sweetie."
J: "56, 57, 58..."

Sirens blaring in the streets (homes a mile away had parts of them explode with gas leaks), but the rocking has finally stopped, so Team Leslie steps out of the bedroom to scope out the scene.

Observation #1: The windows are open. They have slid open sideways and freezing cold air is pouring in.
Observation #2: Everything that can tip over, has tipped over. Books, art, bottles, lamps, shelving. Miraculously, only one glass thing, a Coleman lantern in the garage, has broken.
Observation #3: The fridge has migrated almost a foot out into the kitchen. Upon further inspection, so has the washer and dryer.
Observation #4: If we open a cabinet, everything in the cabinet falls out on us. (We stop opening cabinets.)
Observation #5: The fish bowl's water has sloshed out all over the counter. Oh God, where's the fish? The fish, Berry, is still in his bowl. Phew.

And that's it. Our electricity works, our gas and water lines are intact, and after checking a few geo websites and getting the 7.1 stat, we cuddle back in to bed. Amazingly, no one in the community is seriously injured and although most grocery stores have a lot of clean-up to do, the damage is minimal. So in an ideal sort of way, this quake serves as a great reminder of what it means to live along the Ring of Fire, without having actually been burned. On the agenda for this week:

1. Get a honking big wrench to be able to turn off the gas easily if we need to. We prefer not to explode.
2. Put our headlamps in a consistent and easily accessible spot (not in our jacket pocket in a bin in the garage).
3. Reconsider having glass jars of sea glass on shelves... or anything glass, anywhere.
4. Remember that we have a fish. And that the rule of thumb is to check on living things first... 
5. Remember that we have a fish. 

STAY TUNED. So believe it or not, I actually had a blog post in the works this weekend re: the incredible Native Youth Olympics events we've been going to see... feats of athleticism and sportsmanship that are in stark contrast to the NFL shenanigans that get a bit more attention.  I'll carve out some time this week to share. If you're a die-hard American football fan, I apologize in advance.