So this was bound to happen at some point or another. My first real Cali Earthquake. Ground was shaking. Not tilting or slanting or rippling or buckling or any other the other bizarre scenarios I’d heard or seen or read about. It sounded like a large truck or freight train passing uncomfortably close. So I leap across the room, sequester myself in the doorway for all of, oh, twenty seconds and then it’s all gone. And I stay in the doorway for about another minute or so, wondering what, if any, aftershocks might ensue, then get up and return to my script. About five minutes pass and I realize my heart is still on fight/flight forward. I check the radio.  Schubert playing.   ‘Was it really a big deal,’ I’m wondering, ‘or am I making a big deal of it?’ Maybe it wasn’t a quake at all—just a plate tremour, like they always get, only I noticed something this time.  Seemed like more than that.  I did, afterall, leap into a doorway.  But maybe not.  My generally quiet downstairs neighbors are now arguing with the other neighbors but I can’t understand what they’re arguing about because it’s in Arabic.  Both families recently immigrated from Syria.  Could that be connected with what just happened?  Are there Earthquakes in Syria?  Phones are ringing, now.  It’s like all the apartments, all around the courtyard have phones going off  simultaneously.  I hear a siren; then another one.  Okay, okay, emergency vehicles are involved.  This was def a legit experience.  Okay, so I turn on the radio, again. Playing…Schubert?  I think it’s Schubert, anyway.  Not 100% sure. Google search.  No, not Schubert seaching, earthquake searching.  Only earthquakes mentioned in Burbank were in, like 2005.  So, I go back to writing my script when Sam’s IM pops up on my Gmail ichat. “You alright.” OMG—this was a legit experience, I guess. “Yeah, fine. How’d you know?” I’m asking. “The Tube” he tells me. And so we’re discussing all the various applications of the word “Tube” via g-chat (via fiberoptic ‘tube’) when I get another call and then another. Dad wanted to be sure I was okay.  He tells me about the quake he experienced in Japan.  Why haven’t I ever travelled to Japan?  I wanna go to Japan one day!  Dad has to get back to work, ends the call.  Cousins Josh and Sally in Calabasas each send emails tell me they’re okay.  And then Edward calls.  Edward, my fellow east-coast transplant who just two weeks ago returned Boston and was all bummed that he never got to experience an earthquake.  He assures me that this earthquake was legit. Yes, a real earthquake. 5.5.  I check in w/ the cardio-vascular unit and yes, indeed, my heart is still prepping to enter mach five past light speed. Okay. So it really really was legit. Quick. Relatively innocuous. But still, legit.  And after trolling the LA Times website for some photo or snap of some sort that might have managed to successfully captured the jolt, I’d done near given up when, low and behold, “Earthquake Damage” popped up on my friend, Michelle Hanson’s facebook profile.  And there it was.  Michelle had succeeded where the LA Times’ pulitzer winning staff had failed.  Jpeg version of photo, kindly provided by the artist and posted with her permission.  That is, so long as she gets 5% of the gross, if it sells…