Dream Log: The Big One

Well, I finally had the dream…

I was down somewhere near Geary buying a day of the dead doll for Thumbelina, at a cheapy little Azteca Market. It had this sort of old ski lodge feel to the way it was built – beams of old thick, blackened wood piled up like Lincoln logs to a triangular ceiling with beams. The doll was long and skinny like a skeleton, with a soft red body and skull face, with moveable eyelids like those old dolls from the 70’s that could blink, and long black hair.

Being after the Day of the Dead, they were on sale, and it was priced at $4.25 – but just as I was in line to buy the doll, something weird happened and I looked up feeling a slight vertigo. Everything went silent and all the hackles on the back of my neck rose up, and I said, just as it happened…”oh…my…god!”

The beams of the ceiling started to move in a slow, creaking, sway. And then the rumble came and I ran outside as everyone started screaming, following me. I still had the doll in my hand and realized I hadn’t paid for it, as the earthquake shook the street, the timbers of the store, broke the glass in the windows all along the street, and I stayed in the middle, as cars and trucks stopped and car alarms went off and fires started in the old 1900’s buildings on that street. Come to think of it, it was something like Post street, rather than Geary. It felt as if it was only 3 blocks away…

I was counting seconds. The 1906 quake, I thought, lasted almost a minute or slightly over. This one was a minute and a half—and that’s when I stopped counting. I ran up the street to try and get to my building and check on the cats – but everything looked so apocalyptical at that point, I felt as if I was standing under a dark grey cloud and the surreal nature of the world around me was touchable, but not tangible in reality. The big one had finally hit, after all these years we’ve waited since 1989.

Then I woke up. It was around 2am or 3am.

I couldn’t get back to sleep for two hours.

Labels: dream log, earthquakes

posted by Rain at 9:38 AM

Exorcist or Earthquake?

The trouble with going through an earthquake while you are sleeping, is that the bed moves. It feels a little like you are on rolling waves, and it shakes a bit. The scene in the Exorcist comes to mind, where little Regan is in a bed that shakes suddenly and violently, and then she levitates up.

In the wee hours of this morning, I was sleeping soundly with the cats earmuffed on either side of my head, when they shot straight up in the air (ala levitating Regan) and then hauled ass out of the room like tiny, furry, concord bullets. Being still mostly asleep, my first thought was…Intruder! Intruder! But the fog cleared when the bed started shaking, and the rolling wave motion continued for what seemed far too long—maybe 20 full seconds. It’s pretty hard to budge a solid dark cherry wood queen size sleigh bed. “Oh,” I thought. “It was just an earthquake.” Then went back to sleep.

It turned out to be East Bay based, at a 4.2 magnitude. Apparently it knocked the power out for about 5,000 people, but that's all.

These little jobbies don't bother me. What bothers me is knowing that if it were a big one, I wouldn't have the time to get to a safe place, nor the quick reflex to snap awake in the event there-of. That...and the promise of how a lot of little 4.0's in quicker succession might mean a 6 or a 7 is on the way...with aftershocks that could cause the most damage.

Thoughts to ponder.

Would I rather want demonic possession instead of a giant earthquake? Hmmmm. Dunno. I think I'd take my chances with the quake.

And on that note: Borggrrl sends me this gem:



"1,500 plus CPDRC inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in the Phillipines do the Thriller dance."

Oh, and that "girl" is a guy.

I heart zombies.

Labels: earthquakes, vids

posted by Rain at 9:54 AM