I was at work yesterday when the building started shaking. It was a little rumbly, then it swayed side-to-side. Everyone looked around at each other. We were all thinking more or less the same thing.
An earthquake? In Phillie? Seriously?
Honestly, it was more amusing than anything else. You know, something to break the monotony of the day. I wasn't terribly concerned, as it was very small, and nothing fell over, but there can be damage you can't see, especially in a place like Philadelphia where there are buildings over 200 years old, and even he newer buildings were never designed for an earthquake. I probably would have been less concerned had I been in California where the buildings have been built with earthquakes in mind.
I was done with everything I had to do for the day, so I decided to go home to see how my precious pet rabbit was taking it.
I kept trying to call people, but my cell wasn't working, probably because everyone was trying to call everyone else. I had to wait over an hour brother train, so it took a while to get home. I got through to my mom, who said she hadn't noticed until the news came on, but she's having work done on the house, so she's used to things shaking a bit. My dad noticed it at work. My brother is in Greece right now, but if he was home in NY, I know he'd be one of the guys on the stock exchange that just yelled "Keep trading!" I tried to call my boyfriend for over an hour, but he never picked up, and I was a bit worried because he works in yard work/construction and works with things weighing several thousand pounds, and I wanted to make sure none of them fell on him, but, as usual, he didn't take his phone, and I would just have to wait and see what happened when it was time for him to get home.
Finally, I got home to my apartment about two and a half hours after the actual quake and my poor little bunny was cowering in her cage with a "WTF WAS THAT?!?!" expression. Several little things had fallen, not big enough to hurt anything, but big enough to scare a miniature rabbit. I'm glad we had left her in her cage. Sometimes we leave her out so she can run around and play, but she has been chewing things, so she stays in her cage when we're not there. (It is a largish cage with toys and things, so the only thing she can't do is run.) It's a pretty strong cage, so it would have protected her had anything large fallen down, at least for a while. I opened the cage and gave her a little pet, and she slowly came out and tested the ground to see if it would shake again. I cuddled her and she relaxed.
I went to go work on my comprehensive exams, and she went to play with her beach ball. Later, she came into the bedroom with me and hid under the bed. She likes being under the bed. In a while, she started to explore the post-shaky apartment, and came across a bag of candy corn that had fallen down. I took it away, but she was still incredibly hyper for several hours.
Finally, my boyfriend got home and I yelled at him for not having his phone. His position was that as he does dangerous work requiring focus, he doesn't want people calling him all the time. My position was that he's perfectly capable of finishing the task at hand and calling me back at a free moment, and that I usually don't call him during the day, and hadn't have done so today if the earth hadn't literally shaken, and that having a cell phone in his jeans pocket during the day is not a major distraction from work, especially if he only checks it on breaks or when there is a major event, like an earthquake in Philadelphia. My position won.
Everything is fine, and it was a very interesting day.
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