Wow, graduate school was seven years ago?! So that other earthquake that happened "really recently" in my mind shook Capital City seven years ago.

This year's tremble found me on the reference desk at Dumbarton, trying to prioritize (oh crap: aftershock) ... trying to prioritize: tell people to get out of the aisles of books first or away from windows first? Also of concern: people had been waiting for public PCs a minute ago: would the people who stayed inside immediately grab the computers of people who moved to flee the building -- and would I have to mediate that? By the time I took a step to move towards the man who seemed to choose the bookshelf aisle, it had subsided. It felt loud: "skateboarding on the roof?! No, banging the book drop?! You kids... Oh, wait. I felt this before."

As in 2003, I relied in the US Geological Survey's website: I told the mom using a computer Yes, that was an earthquake: you can go to this website to show her more. I finished circling the room to check stuff, told a man whose often too that it had passed and he if wanted to keep talking loud maybe he'd like to go outside (unspoken: 'cause I know hour are on hour 3 of your 2 hours / person / day on a computer). Back at the desk a woman smiled and announced that she's 88 years old and that was her first earthquake! "I guess I will find out about it on the news tonight." - "Oh," I said, having torn myself from FB updates seconds before, "the USGS says 5.8, and look, here's the epicenter, between Richmond and Charlottesville - so, Louisa, I guess." "What do you know! And where's this library?" And so I showed her and she went away very pleased.

This year and in '03, I blogged right quick. This time, for work (not that we seem to have many kids using that site). Of course, not many people were reading my personal blog then (fewer now), but FB really connected me fast today (which I've always sort of held against it). When people first raved about it, I always thought, "but my blog does those things." Not well enough, obviously.