Earthquake and Elote

[vilakins]

Eep. I think that was an earthquake. I fear earthquakes. Geonet are saying the latest quake was just off Auckland, but about half an hour ago. This has to be part of that. OK, the earthquake's shown up on the seismic drums if not the latest page. It was quite a big one; three different locations saw it. (Note that page only shows the last four hours, so this data will slip off it.)

Ooookay. It's shown up on the latest page. 4.5 Richter and right where the smaller one 30 minutes before that was. [is worried]

In better news, and in an attempt to distract myself by telling you about it, I made elote for dinner tonight. This is a Mexican snack food I ate at the local cafe a Mexican family run, and I liked it so much, I tried to reproduce it. It was pretty good.

Take a corn cob per person. Remove outer husk and steam or bake (I baked ours). Cover with a thin layer of cream cheese, then roll in finely-grated parmesan cheese and chilli. I used Perfect Italiano parmesan and I have dried chillis in a pepper grinder which I ground into the cheese. Yum! Success!

I suppose I should at least get a laugh from the fact that my first thought was that the washing machine's load was seriously unbalanced.

Comments

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

oh dear! reminds me of when my greek friend Chrissie was living in Athens during the bad quake there. She wrote to me afterwards (oh those days before email!) saying that after so many years of watching horror films, that when she woke and found her bed shaking her first thought was not earthquake but polterguist!

food sounds yum, wish I could eat it

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I've been through worse earthquakes in Wellington including one I heard as well as felt (grinding and rumbling) and one I saw go through the city like a shock wave while looking out a 14th floor window. People there keep 'earthquake stores' pf water and food. I dodn't think I'd have to here. Mind you, I could survive a few days on what we have here.

[hafren.livejournal.com]

My, you have interesting weather! All we can do is moan about the rain...

I suppose I should at least get a laugh from the fact that my first thought was that the washing machine's load was seriously unbalanced.

If the earthquake came after the chilli, I might have leapt to a different conclusion:)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I can handle my chilli!

I was dong a load of washing at the time and it had unbalanced a bit earlier on a spin or my first thought would have been earthquake. I experienced enough of them living in Wellington, but I never got used to them.

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

No wonder you are nervous and I really hope it is over. Huh, yesterday I actually envied you the high temperatures but now I am glad to live in a seismic-calm area! We have never experinced a REAL earthquake in CR, only some insignificant tremors - and THIS itself was SOMETHING!
Hmm, your corn cob smells wonderful(I am imagining it, chewing on a day-old bread and butter I left in my bag)...however I am quite a carnivorous person, oh no, let´s stop it, my mouth is like a fountain, at least this bread goes easier down :-)
I think of you!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Don't envy the temperature: it goes with high humidity so you're sticky all the time. I loved the hot dry summers of Israel and Germany though; probably your summers are also much more pleasant than ours.

I am very much not a carnivore, but it's hard to get enough protein for my stupid metabolism without forcing myself to eat meat. Fish is good though.

[kerravonsen]

I loved the hot dry summers of Israel and Germany though

Well, Melbourne is horribly hot and dry and a lot closer.

But surely Auckland doesn't get that hot and humid? Not like (shudder) Brisbane, which is sub-tropical. After living in Brisbane, very few places are humid in comparison.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I will admit that Brisbane is worse. It doesn't make me feel any better though. I'm fine as long as I'm not doing anything and have a fan on, but it's hard finding a comfortable position to sleep in other than the starfish. The new fan I bought yesterday for the bedroom seems to be a lot better though.

At work, we have to keep our paper in a heated cupboard just to make sure it stays dry and doesn't swell and stick in the photocopier or printers.

I actually thought Melbourne had similar weather to here. It's one of my favourite cities, but I didn't want to trade one damp and changeable climate for another. And I think your flies are even worse.

[kerravonsen]

Well, with the drought, it's much less damp than it ought to be.

But when it's hot, it's a dry heat, what with the hot dry winds from the north-west (hot dry interior of the continent). When it's wet, the winds are usually from the south-west or south-east, which usually bring a cooler temperature with them.

Flies? That's what Rid (insect repellant) is for. Or staying indoors. With flyscreens on all the windows.

8-)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I'd have to convince Greg to move from here first. I've been working on him.

[imhilien.livejournal.com]

I didn't feel anything... but I certainly hope there aren't any more. *crosses fingers*

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I didn't feel the earlier one, but we do live in a partial pole house which would feel more movement than a normal house. At least nothing fell off the shelves; that happened once in Wellington when I lived there.

[imhilien.livejournal.com]

You do get the earthquakes down south... I lived in New Plymouth when I was a kid, and one earthquake made me bounce on the floor when I had been sitting on it. :-/

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I lived in New Plymouth! I was about 2 or 3 and all I can remember is:
- the women next door who coached a choir and let me listen to them practice
- the iron sand on Ngamotu Beach where I played with magnets and paper
- that oil well thingy that looks like a bird frozen during a peck.

We lived in Stratford too at one time and I used to fear the mountain erupting. :-P

[imhilien.livejournal.com]

Fancy you living in NP too! :-p

I lived in Merrilands from ages 5 - 9. I used to think Mt Egmont reminded me of an icecream. :)

The winters were very hard on me though, and eventually a doctor said I had to go north to Auckland if I wanted to be healthy. :(

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Whereas I'm told to go west to Australia where I'll add years to my life according to my doctor. I'm still working on Greg. [rolls eyes]

I don't know what part of NP we lived in, but we lived in Kawhia and Stratford after that, both of which I remember much more clearly, esp all the Shakespearean character names for all the streets in Stratford.

[ecossefilmmaker.livejournal.com]

I like how the first thing you thought of was the washing! lol.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Well, the bloody stuff had been thumping around just before that or it wouldn't have occurred to me.

[ecossefilmmaker.livejournal.com]

Eep!

[megpie71.livejournal.com]

There's been a few earthquakes in this rough geographic region lately. There was one off Shark Bay (central west coast of Australia, just about slap bang on the tropic of Capricorn) on the weekend, one in Indonesia mentioned in the news this morning, and now this one off Auckland. Presumably the Australasian Plate got somewhat wedged during the annual movement toward Tokyo (I think it's something like 1cm per year?) and has just managed to barge free. I'll keep my eye on the news, and see whether they report any quakes down around Antarctica.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

As long as they don't get worse. :-(

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

suppose I should at least get a laugh from the fact that my first thought was that the washing machine's load was seriously unbalanced.

That reminds me of the very minor Earthquake I went through in Crete. At that time I lived in a house in Newport that had the main Cardiff to London railway line at the bottom of the garden about 10 yards away. I also took coal to the steel works at Llanwern and steel away from there. The passenger trains you could tell by the Doppler effect of the engines approaching and leaving. The heavy goods trains shook the house. I was having an afternoon nap when the earthquake happened and I remember waking up thinking 'That's a big train going to LLanwern' second though was 'stupid you're in Crete, it's an earthquake!' We had a bigger one than that here in Chapel of Ease about 35 years ago. That one was felt and heard but no one realised what it was. there was a dull thump and vibration from the direction of the Celenyn South mine. The entire village was out in the gardens waiting for the disaster siren to go off and wondering why it didn't. It wasn't until the late night news that we learned it was an Earthquake.
The recipe looks good, I hate sweetcorn but I'll pass it on to the cousins.

[shimere277.livejournal.com]

Same sort of thing happened to me in Cleveland once. I thought it was a truck going by! But my geology prof told us was on the phone with another geologist in Japan, and as it happened he shouted, "An earthquake! Aaaaaah!" Flipped his friend out!

My parents, however, went through a real evacuate-the-building kind of earthquake in Vegas. They were on the 9th floor of a big hotel, and they could feel the building sway!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Trucks do shake the house, but these were longer frequency waves and quite different. Being in the TV room over the pole part of the house probably didn't help.

I used to work with a guy in Wellington who'd keep banging away on his keyboard when the rest of us were under desks because he thought it was just his hangover.

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

because he thought it was just his hangover

That must have been some night out.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

This was the same guy who didn't realise daylight saving had come in till two weeks later and was annoyed he'd lost an hour's drinking time each night.

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

Eep! I think the only time I've ever been aware of a tremor was before I left home. I happened to be standing on one leg at the time (er, yoga, rather than just plain weirdness on my part), and thought that I'd just lost my balance. It wasn't until my mother came in to ask whether I'd felt it, too, that I realised what it had been!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I didn't realise you got earthquakes!

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

It's pretty rare, I think. Or, at least, rare for them to be noticeable.

[trixieleitz]

There was a 'quake in Glitterville while I was living there - I think it was in the middle of the night. I remember lying in bed listening to the sound of windows rattling moving up the street; it wasn't until our house started shaking that I realised it wasn't a particularly inconsiderately-driven truck :)

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

Strangely, that one doesn't stick in my mind at all. Of course, I may well have been fast asleep.

Heh, it would have to have been a pretty big truck.

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

Whuff! Glad it was only a scary moment for you!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I've been in worse when I lived in Wellington, but I don't even like the little ones like this. The cats were totally unconcerned though, which was reassuring, so there can't be a big one coming.

[kernezelda]

Goodness, I'm glad you're all right!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It was quite small compared to the ones I've experienced in Wellington, but I don't expect them up here.

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

Commiserations on the earthquake!
I don't think anywhere is entirely earthquake free, even Britain has the occasional one.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was surprised to hear that.

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

The one I most remember was the one that ccured in Liverpool in the early 80s. The whole house sort of felt like it lifted up and down - not the best when you are standing on one leg trying to get dressed.
My dad though shouts upstairs "Colin, Barry are you fighting again!"
Well admittedly my brothers were teenagers and their fights could be loud but to shake the whoel house???

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

I'm glad nothing was broken.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, heavy trucks make the china rattle, but this was longer slower waves and weirdly silent.

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

The last time we had an earthquake here, I dismissed it as just an explosion. (That's exactly how I think of them, too: What's that noise? Oh, never mind, it's just an explosion. :)) When people told me later it was an earthquake, my response was, "Huh, I thought that one felt a little strange!"

This is such an interesting place to live. :)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It is, what with the explosions, VLA and passing UFOs! ;-)

Most of the time I'd assume it was a truck going by (they rattle the place a bit) but these waves were of lower frequency and higher amplitude. I got almost used to earthquakes in Wellington but this is Auckland, dammit!

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Sympathy. I'd say "Try not to worry", but it wouldn't help, would it?

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

After an overnight backup and reorganise, I'm fine. You can't worry all the time, can you?

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

After an overnight backup and reorganise, I'm fine.

Glad to hear it. :)

You can't worry all the time, can you?

No. And it's not as though an earthquake is something that you can do much about.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

That's exactly why I fear them and volcanoes.

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

Waaaaaaaaah! Am glad you're safe and in one piece! Eep!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I've been in bigger ones in Wellington, but there haven't been any more, I'm glad to say.

Where are you? I haven't got to my flist yet.