earth shake!!

Earthquakes make me think ever so slightly of The Land Before Time - earthquake is earthshake, and I sure did feel the one here the other day. I was sitting here at our one and only table when there was a rumble and then things began to shake and then the building began to sway... eeeeee. I waited, sitting still (but swaying?)... to see if the earthshake was going to get any bigger, and it did, and then didn't. The elastic therabands that are hanging from the back of the door (that we've never used) were swinging and smacking things and after the 20-second (or so) tremor was over, they kept swinging and smacking. I did have a bit of a warning that something was coming, as apparently there had been a smaller earthquake the night before that I didn't feel, but that prompted Nao to send me this message: Whenever there's an earthquake don't panic. just turn the gas off and stay inside. avoid being close to the window unlock and open the door if you can. don't panic! I wrote her back immediately thinking that the big one was coming: What!? Is there supposed to be an earthquake tonight? A big one? EEEk! Steve was on a bus between Beppu and Fukuoka way down in Kyushu, and didn't feel a thing.

With a library stocked with (some) English books, a Kindle, borrowed books and brought-books, I have much, much reading to do! And time - and I can't believe I'm saying this already - is starting to run out. Our time in Japan that is. I don't want to get too ahead of myself; we still have two and a half months here... but time has been go-going and will continue to fly. We have our first set of guests coming this week! Wait, okay our second set, but our first set of Spring guests. Dan and Milka arrive on Thursday night, and then on the horizon are Erin and Fred, my Mom and Dad and then a good friend from high school, Anna. It will be busy, but fabulous! And I'm sure these books (or most of them) will be sulking on my shelves of neglect. I started The Anthologist the other day and there was just this part that I really liked in chapter 4 or 5 where he talks about how he goes to bed with his books because his girlfriend has just dumped him and left, and he sleeps alone. Or, rather, he sleeps with his books. And he never makes the bed and the books pile up and get mixed in with the sheets and covers and it becomes something like book soup: "it's like a stew of books." I make the bed, and books only stay overnight if Steve is away; otherwise they are on the floor and piled on the bottom rung of my Ikea bedside shelf. (At the moment Witness is on the floor and Wuthering Heights is on the shelf.) Enough book talk - I need to finish my coffee, get out of my pjs and get going - Costco is on the agenda today and we gots to go!