Things that go Thump in the Night

Did the Earth Move for You?

Last week, at 12:04 on Monday morning, we had a wee Earthquake.
For any Kiwi or even Japanese readers of m'blog, an explanation of what being in a major earthquake feels like would be superfluous, but for most others, let me say

IT WAS BLOODY SCARY.

When the first trembling started, it was enough to wake me up, but it wasn't too bad.  The worst was when my Beloved hit me.

She thought that I was "mucking about" or just turning over in bed by bouncing on the mattress, so she does what she normally does when she gets upset with me (a more than rare occurrence) she hits me. 

I've still got the bruise.

However, back to the earthquake.

The movements began to escalate, accompanied by a baso-profundo rumble.  The house started to sway, we could hear the joints creaking and moaning, and IT DIDN'TSTOP.  It went on for bloody ages.

My Beloved began to fart (a sure sign of semi-terminal stress), the dog began to howl, alarms were going off all around, and I said "Goodness" "Isn't this exciting"

My Beloved hit me again.

It stopped (The hitting as well as the quake)

I went back to sleep, and slept right through the next, slightly smaller one at about 2:30am.

DeepSleep

Next morning at school, a bit earlier than usual, around 6:30am, just to check the bloody place was still there.

Nuova Lazio High School is built in the slum Garden Suburb of Nuova Lazio (funny that, must be a coincidence) which happens to be built on a drained swamp in the middle of an ancient caldera, so when the shaky Gods of Aoteroa start feeling their oats, nobody's quite sure whether the whole place will disappear into a stinking 200m deep quagmire,

or be blown to Kingdom F*cking Come.

It does lead to some trepidation amongst the citizenry.


This time however, all seemed OK, no obvious damage, so the Boss-Man (not me, I hasten to add, I'm just an assistant Boss) said the school would be open for business (Teaching and Learning ....HAHAHHAHAHAHA) that day.

We are having our big end-of-year exams, run by the NZQA (my job to organise and administer) and set in our Auditorium.  When I had a look in there, it looked OK, apart from a couple of big, free-standing wooden back-of-stage thingies, which had fallen down and crushed a couple of desks. (Luckily, the quake was in the middle of the night.  If it had happened during an exam, we would probably have lost a couple of students)

We might have had a squashed student

So the exams went on.

We got blasted by parents who thought we should have closed the school.
We got praised by parents who were gratified at our efforts to allow the students to complete their exams.

Some days, you just can't win.

I had to shut the Auditorium that afternoon, as there were some tiles hanging loose in the ceiling.
We all saw them, but thought they were polystyrene, and no threat. 

However.

One fell down at lunchtime, and it proved to be made of a fibre-reinforced plaster, backed by plywood, and each tile weighed about 30kg.

So we shut the bloody death trap before someone got killed, and moved the exams into some other rooms, displacing Richard {of RBB], but that doesn't matter, it's only Music.

I Predict Disaster

Next week is our Camp Week.

Earthquakes Suck

My beloved had gone a little paranoid after the second Christchurch quake.


Then we had our own little quake last week. It was a 4.3, but it was only 9 km deep, and 10 km north of us. The whole house shook, and went on for about 10 seconds. Nothing got broken or thrown off of a shelf, but it switched my beloved's fears to a higher level.

We keep a disaster box in the garage, containing basic foods and a few essentials, but (even though it was late at night) we (she, actually, dragging me along) went down to the garage and checked through the contents.

Hmm. Not good. I'd forgotten that during a moment of partial weakness some month ago, I'd drunk the ¼ bottle of "medicinal" whisky, and seeing it lying there, empty, in the bottom of the box, brought back a feeling of guilt. But I'm a man, I don't do guilt. (Not for very long anyway)

Men don't do guilt

I do however do whining. "It must have been when I had the 'flu last year", I whined in my best man transferring guilt and blame to a sub-microscopic particle voice.

She just looked at me, and I felt bad.



I felt worse about 1 minute later when she found the empty packs of instant soup.

I got the look. Again.

"It must have been when I forgot my lunch and teas for the late nights at school reports", I whined again.

I now got the look ³, mixed with a mild expression of disgust for my less than manly whining.

I didn't care.

I knew what else was missing from the box.

Would she find it?

"Where are the tins of beans?"She demanded in a voice that many a grizzled Gestapo interrogator would have sold his blood-and-guilt-torn soul (if the demented bastard actually had a soul) for.

Ah Mr Twisted.  We meet again

"Tins Dear?"

"Beans Dear?"

The look became the look ^∞

"Right, first thing tomorrow we will restock our box".

I humbly agreed, thanking the gods of Aoteroa that:


1. She didn't demand that we go down to the supermarket now

2. She didn't demand that I go down to the supermarket now

3. She hadn't seen the many empty sweeties’ bag wrapped up in the old sheets.


So we did go down, and our earthquake box is once again fully prepared.

It has everything a shocked earthquake survivor could want.

Except another ¼bottle of medicinal whisky.

That’s been replaced with ¼ bottle of medicinal brandy.

She knows I hate brandy.

Why did she insist on brandy?


I won't be able to drink the stuff if I'm shocked after an 8.4 quake. Silly woman.


Never mind, I've made sure that I'll have my own medical supply. It's 2 bottles of Laphroig, wrapped in plastic and aluminium foil, buried in the ground under the deck. It pays to be prepared.

Oh, as an added bonus I got a new toy to play with. I had mentioned that we didn't have a radio amongst our equipment, and the only torch was mains rechargeable, which was not good if the main power went off. So we bought a hand cranked rechargeable combination radio and 3 LED torch. And it's got a built in siren alarm. I had hours of fun playing experimenting with the torch. My beloved and my son complained about the repeated use of the siren when I was playing testing the thing.

They took it away from me.

It's back in the earthquake box in the garage.

And now the bloody thing has been sealed up with tape. "To keep the nasty beasties out"

I really don't know why she looked at me when she said that.

I really don't.

Who?  Me?