Shake, shake, shake

I was talking about the earthquake in the Midwest this weekend with my dad. He was awake and heard the house creaking but didn't really "feel" anything. He didn't know what was causing the noise but living in Ohio his first thought wasn't earthquake.

The worst natural disasters we get are tornados and even then I've only ever lived through one that got remotely close (about half a mile) from where I've been. Snowstorms are a hassle but they don't really count as disasters, but earthquakes...I don't know what to think about those.

I felt one small one a couple months ago and it wasn't so bad, but they keep predicting that the "next big one" should hit anytime soon. It's past due in fact. And so with all this earthquake talk I went to bed on Saturday night.

And was woken up by an earthquake.

At the time I thought I was having a nightmare. My bed shook and I swore I could hear sirens. I was in that fuzzy place between sleep and awake and not sure what was real and what wasn't. I'm most easily scared in this in between, I often dream that strangers have come in and are in my apartment, but this night I dreamed that I could hear sirens in the distance and that any moment the walls were going to fall around me. Terror, sheer terror.

Then this morning my co-worker, Jason, asked me if I had felt the earthquake this weekend.

"You mean there really was one?" I asked him. By morning, I had convinced myself it was just a bad dream. So I'm not completely crazy, but I'm still a little nervous.

Spring is in the air

Here are some pictures from last weekend, when the cherry trees were in full bloom. Spring in Japan is stunning.