Earthquakes?

I feel the earth move under my feet, the sky comes falling down.  In a life imitating art moment, not only did the earth move, but the snow was falling.  Cats and dogs sleeping together, there was an earthquake in the midwest?

This California girl felt right at home, but I must admit, when I heard the boom I did not make it to the door frame.  I am getting rusty and it was 4:00 am.  Centered about 30 miles from our house, we were pretty close to the action.  There was no damage or reports of injury, and the quake measured 4.3.  So, not a big one by any stretch, just really unexpected.  Earthquakes are about as common here as snow days, which is to say, they never happen.

I have been thinking about earthquakes a lot lately.  All fault lines in the world are connected some how, and there as been a large amout of seismic activity lately.  In recent memory there is the quake in Haiti, 2 in Humbolt county, 1 in Japan, all in the 6 point range.  I am sure that there is more, but what I am aware of is 4 pretty large quakes in the past 45 days or so.  Makes you wonder if there is more on the way, and then, a quake in the midwest on a fault line that hasn't moved since 2004.

Bob likes to point out that we live on one of the largest fault lines in the world.  That is comforting, perhaps the giant is awaking?  Does this mean that all the quakes around us might trigger a big one here?  I am here to tell you a big quake here would not go down well, our buildings are not built to survive a quake of any magnitude.  Folks build houses to withstand cold here, not earthquakes, and that is a whole different method of construction. 

At least now my fear of the el will be more reasonable.  I don't want to be under the tracks when the big one hits and it all comes crashing down on my head.  Till then, we are a rockin' and a rollin' here in sunny Chicago.