The best kind of earthquake

Last night, a 7.5-magnitude (depending on whose figures you trust) temblor hit Pakistan. Fortunately, it was a remote part of Pakistan... so remote, in fact, that the area is where the nation has tested nuclear weapons. So ideally the population is not just small, but nonexistent. No one killed, no one hurt.

Not pictured: my apartment.

Pakistan is a long way from the UAE, but people felt the quake here. Including Mrs Blog and I, although I didn't realize it at the time.

Just before we went to bed, the wall unit door--loosely hung glass--was rattling for no discernible reason. Mrs Blog noticed it... it stopped after 20 seconds or so... and that was that.

The next day, reading about the earthquake, we assembled the facts and I realized that, yes, this was a momentous occasion: my first quake. A lame one, at least where we were sitting, but an earthquake nonetheless.

I wasn't expecting this. Mother Nature-dispensed trauma seems to avoid me; I grew up in Tornado Alley and never saw a twister, spent two years in Florida and didn't come within 500 miles of a hurricane. No fires in Chicago, either.

So as far as introductions to natural disasters, this one worked well for everyone involved.