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Saturday, September 24, 2005

Earthquake /Tremblement de Terre (En/Fr)


Photograph From http://quake.usgs.gov

I don't know about you but I really don't like to be suddenly awaken in the middle of the night by some loud banging noise. I mean, I don't like it when my neighbor does it (she can't help it, she walks like an elephant), but I really don't like it when an Earthquake does it either! I mean, here you are, minding your own business (in this case snoring peacefully), and all of a sudden, BANG! big noise and jolt, you're up and practically thrown out of bed! Not cool!

Je ne sais pas ce que ça vous fait à vous, mais moi je n'aime pas trop être réveillée brusquement en plein milieu de la nuit par un gros bruit. Ca ne me plait déjà pas quand ma voisine le fait (c'est pas de sa faute, elle marche comme un éléphant), mais quand un tremblement de terre s'y met aussi, alors là non! On est là bien tranquille à s'occuper de ses oignons (le cas présent ronflant paisiblement sous les couvertures) et d'un seul coup, BOUM! gros boucan du diable, secousse, et vous êtes pratiquement jeté hors du lit! Pas sympa!

I guess it must be nature's way of reminding you to stay humble. For a couple of seconds, last night, while I was laying there in bed waiting for the aftershock, I wondered (but not necessarily in this order): where did I put my damn shoes, my clothes, my wallet, my keys, and whatever else I should be getting in a hurry before I evacuate the building, if I was going to have to evacuate.

Peut-être que c'est la façon de la Nature de nous rappeler un peu d'humilité. Pendant quelques secondes la nuit derniere, alongée au lit en attendant l'après-choc, je me suis demandé (pas nécessairement dans cet ordre-là:) où etaient mes chaussures, mes vêtements, mon portefeuille, mes clefs, et qu'est-ce que je devrais bien essayer d'attrapper en vitesse avant de dégager presto s'il fallait le faire.

Last time I felt an earthquake here, it happened only a couple of kilometers from where I live. It was so loud and the jolt felt so strong that it really reminded me of the1989 one, and I reacted instinctively (maybe not in the best way) ... I was out of the building in a flash, without giving it a second thought and found myself out in the street seconds later, barefoot, with the TV remote (!) still in my hand...

La dernière fois que j'ai senti un tremblement de terre ici, c’était arrivé à 1 ou 2 kms de là ou j'habite. Là, ça avait tellement secoué la baraque que ça m'avait rappelé celui de 1989, et agissant d'une façon tout à fait instinctive (mais pas nécéssairement la bonne), je m'etais retrouvée dehors en un instant, sans réfléchir, les pieds nus, avec la télécommande de la television (!) encore à la main...

This time, since the Earthquake got me in the middle of the night, I remember considering the outfit was in (or rather, the fact that I wasn't wearing one!) and wondering if I was going to have to get out the building looking like that draped in a blanket or something?!

Cette fois-ci, puisce que ça s’est mis à secouer au milieu de la nuit, je me rappelle avoir pensé également à la tenue dans laquelle j'étais au moment même (ou plutot le manque de tenue) et me demander si j'allais etre obligée de me précipiter dehors comme ca, enroulée dans une couverture?!

And the aftershock came at last, very mild, barely a light jolt, and eventually I went back to sleep... but not without first having a very long thought for the Katrina victims, and another one for Rita due to hit Texas within hours, and finally and perhaps most importantly, I remember thinking how insignificant and powerless we, individuals, really are when facing the forces of Nature, and how quickly we tend to forget it. I remember also thinking "We're OK ... this time!" and "Hey, I should probably blog that tomorrow morning for the others, that should interest them" and then finally I let go and went back to sleep.

Et puis l'après-choc est venu, à peine une secousse légère, et eventuellement je me suis rendormie... mais pas sans avoir eu d'abord une tres longue pensée pour les victimes de Katrina, une autre pour Rita qui allait frapper les habitants du Texas d’une heure à l’autre, et finalement et peut-etre le plus important, c'était me dire tiens, on n'est vraiment pas grand chose quand on est confronté aux forces de la Nature et combien nous avons tous trop souvent tendance à l'oublier. Je me souviens aussi avoir pensé "On est OK ... cette fois ci!" et puis "Tiens, va falloir bloguer ça demain pour les autres, ça vas les interesser... ", et puis j'ai du enfin me laisser aller et me rendormir.

One down! Still waiting for the "Big One."


Et un tremblement de terre, un! On attends toujours le “Big One”.

SOME LINKS HERE:

Additional Info on Quakes Here
Other sites to check out: www.sfgov.org or this one www.72hours.org.

Pour les Français, consultez les conseils du Consulat Français de San Francisco , ou allez directement sur les sites en Anglais de www.sfgov.org ou ici www.72hours.org.



Photograph from Y-J. Chen/MAE, Consulat De France - By Permission, Not For Commercial Use

17 Comments:

Blogger patrin said...

Three things:

1. Still holding the remote control: Hilarious! Good reflexes.

2. Having to go outside draped in a blanket since you weren't wearing an outfit: Maybe this is why emergency personnel in movies and television always wrap blankets around people at the scene--both the previously clothed and the nude? ;)

3. Earthquakes are scary. :(

5:13 PM  
Blogger Tomate Farcie said...

Good sense of humour, diopter! ;-) The first earthquake I experienced was kind of fun (I was high, so I didn't really understand that the wall behind me was actually really moving). That was a long @ss time ago, though! ;-) The second one was kind of interesting, too. I didn't have a penny to my name and wasn't planning on staying here in California, so I guess I didn't care. Then, came 89, and now I'm taking these things a hell of a lot more seriously. :-(

See you later.

5:24 PM  
Blogger patrin said...

"The first earthquake I experienced was kind of fun (I was high, so I didn't really understand that the wall behind me was actually really moving.)"

That makes for a fantastic beginning to a story!

5:42 PM  
Blogger Tomate Farcie said...

Actually, it was ... see, I met this woman. She came from France to the Bay Area a long time ago, and never looked back. The story of what it took to do that might be interesting to some, but she's just not quite ready to tell whole WWWord yet ;-)

In the meantime, she started this blog called "Stuffed Tomato in San Francisco" or something like that, hoping to reach out to all the people just like her anywhere in the world...

Don't pay attention to me, I'm just in a really weird mood today. I guess I'm just incredibly happy to be alive and well right now. Don't know how long this good mood will last ... Maybe I should open up a very good bottle of wine right now and just enjoy the moment or better yet, drag my butt to a very good restaurant and have something totally decadent brought on my plate. I'd have the wine in one of these huge glasses, you know the ones? Hmmm....

Hey, now, that gives me an idea for a future post...

6:13 PM  
Blogger Tomate Farcie said...

Hey, WTF, I'm in too good a mood to remove the SPAM that landed on my blog earlier today ... Hey, as long as we can all see it, means we're alive and well, we have electricity and computers and we really can't complain ...

Like I said, I don't know how long that good mood will last...

6:16 PM  
Blogger patrin said...

Are you high right now?? Just kidding!

The spam comment is pretty funny, especially because it concerns dog training. You SHOULD go to a schmancy restaurant and drink wine from one of those enormous glasses.

Well, tell Ms. Stuffed Tomato that when she's ready to share her leaving-France-for-San-Fran story, we'll be here. In the meantime, more maps and grids!

8:19 PM  
Blogger Tomate Farcie said...

Diopter: on se le demande, n'est-ce pas, ce n'est pas l'humeur habituelle?

Ooops... I meant.. sure looks like it, doesn't it? Not the usual mood, eh?

Well, it's like this: last night was all about darkness and uncertainty and this morning, the sun was out and the sky was bright blue and and people were acting as if nothing happened, with that all-Californian nonchalence... You tell me: was that all some kind of bad dream? :-)

Nice chatting with ya, Diopter.

You know, I was thinking a few weeks back about maybe loading one of these little chat things on this blog. It just might be fun, uh? An audio stream, too, might be kinda nice. Something to think about I guess.

11:03 PM  
Blogger Tomate Farcie said...

PS. Dogs are cool. That's why I left the SPAM.

11:04 PM  
Blogger patrin said...

Hmm, peut-être c'était seulement un mauvais rêve! (Er, rêve mauvais?) Ugh. My French needs help!

Anyway--California does have that zen-like ability to take everything in stride and not really sweat the small stuff, which isn't so bad in the grand scheme of things.

I didn't know that chats or audio streams could be loaded onto blogs. How lovely!

12:26 AM  
Blogger Tomate Farcie said...

Oh, yeah, they can! You should check out some of the links on the right part of this blog; some of the "kids" do very cool things with their sites! And of course, if you want to practice your French, you're in the right place! Look for the links that say (En/Fr) if you want bilingual blogging. The ones marked (Fr) are usually only in French and the others (En) are ... well in English but they might be American expats in France. I guess the common denominator here is the French culture, but not always.

12:36 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sorry to interrupt guys mais je voulais dire ô combien je suis impressionné par cette histoire de tremblement de terre ! Rien de cassé ?

2:12 AM  
Blogger patrin said...

"I guess the common denominator here is the French culture, but not always."

-This is why I started reading your blog in the first place, actually. And now I just come back for the maps. (hehe, kidding)
I'll be sure to check out some of those links. Ta!

7:11 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi!Miss stuffed tomato!

Grosse frayeur alors?
Le mois dernier, j'aurais tout contente de vivre ça mais je reconnais qu'aujourd'hui, après tout se qui s'est passé en Louisiane, j'aurais eu très peur.
Comme quoi, tout est relatif.

7:45 AM  
Blogger Elisabeth said...

I had sworn to myself that I would never go and live in a country where there were:
1. Earthquakes
2. Tornadoes
3. Termites.
And then, I settle in the good old U.S. of A.!

I am scared shitless of earthquakes, and that's one reason why I would never consider California as a permanent place to live (actually, the first time I saw the West Coast and California was this past March, when I attended a conference in San Diego.)

Glad to hear that this time it was not serious and that you are O.K. BTW, I also loved the anecdote about being high when you lived through your first earthquake.

8:32 AM  
Blogger Tomate Farcie said...

Le Nerd: You're not interrupting! Jump in! Rien de cassé. C'etait juste un petit 3.1 ou quelque chose comme ca. Une de mes Tours Eiffel (j'en ai quelques unes) est tombee sur le cote, c'est tout.

(Nothing broke. It was only a little 3.1 or something. One of my Eiffel Towers (I have a small collection) fell on its side. That was it.)

Diopter: Glad to have you around.

Angelina: what frightened me mostly was to be awaken by it. During the day, you might be able to run for your life, but at night when you're sleeping, you feel even more helpless.

Ce qui m'a fait peur c'est surtout que ce soit arrivé au milieu de la nuit, quand on se sent encore plus vulnerable devant ces trucs la.)

Elisabeth: Yes, but you can't beat the weather in California. And the economy is not bad either. Oh you, too, liked my first earthquake experience? Well, I wasn't sure I should put that in but why not. If we can't even be open about things that happened 20 some years ago, then what's the point, eh? ;-)

D'accord avec vous, mais faut dire aussi qu'il fait si beau en Californie, et l'économie marche relativement bien. Vous aussi vous avez aimé ma premiere experience de tremblement de terre? Je n'étais pas sure de vouloir en parler, mais apres tout si on peut meme pas etre ouvert avec des choses qui se sont passées il y a plus de 20 ans, à quoi bon, hein?

9:12 AM  
Blogger Tomate Farcie said...

Roger that, Dr. Denton. I'll see what I can do to try not to remind you of the quake. Except, of course, when we're having another quake... Can't really help that, now can I? !!

11:32 PM  
Blogger sylvie said...

Merci pour le récit de cette aventure, en plus tu as fais la traduction en français, extrémement rare ça, pour une américaine, mais cela m'a permis de découvrir ce blog bien sympa et ton récit donne a réfléchir, et si cela nous arrivait serions nous préparé ?

1:30 AM  

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