So there I was working at my computer this afternoon when the shaking began. Didn’t faze me; we live in a condo near a busy highway and trucks are always rumbling by.

And then it was 1994 all over again. Swaying that just got stronger. And didn’t stop. For what seemed like a good minute, I was back in my bed in Los Angeles just after 4 in the morning, waking up to what would become one of the most devastating quakes ever to hit California: the Northridge earthquake.

But this wasn’t LA. It was Lancaster, PA.

The dachshund lying next to me was calm. But I wasn’t. I called her name out of nervousness when the shaking just wouldn’t stop.

That had to be an earthquake. A pretty big one. Impossible though, because here I was in central PA, not known for that kind of excitement. Sure, there are fault lines everywhere. And there might be a bump here and there. But not like California. Heck, people moved from California to places like Lancaster to get away from that stuff. What the heck was going on?

I so refused to believe it was an earthquake, I was all set to call the condo management company and grill them about the building construction. Tell them how rattled I was by a mere truck causing the building to move like that … And pondering how to explain myself without them thinking I was paranoid.

Never occurred to me to check the news. Refused to believe it. Then found out the epicenter was in the DC area, and the quake was just shy of being a magnitude 6.0. Exactly what it felt like. Still can’t believe it.