Earthquake? What earthquake?

I speak with great frequency with my Mom and grandmother since I have been here in Tokyo. By the power of Skype, I actually see my mother so often that I can confidently say that I see her more now than I ever have since I left the house for college. Being a Mom, of course one of things she does best is to worry about my well-being. When there's a typhoon headed towards Tokyo or I am getting very stressed out about work, pretty much anything there is to worry about, my Mom is excellent about worrying on my behalf. With the worrying comes the inevitable calls, comments, questions, messages by all channels at her fingertips.

Contrary to what you might think, I don't mind this too much. It actually is kind of nice to have someone that cares so much about you they send you messages warning you of impending natural disasters. However, since making my home in Tokyo the most often recurring theme in my mother's worrying has been towards earthquakes. Now having grown up in Vermont and living the last 7 years in Philadelphia, earthquakes were never something I had to deal with. They were something that happened in movies and far outside my realm of reality. So everytime I speak with my Mom and she warns me to be conscious of my surroundings and to make sure I open my door when there's an earthquake (so if the building structure shifts, I can escape) I assure her, of course I will.. don't worry.. I'm an adult, I can handle this. You worry too much. I'll be alright. Don't worry!

Well last night, I was in a deep-sound sleep when I was slighly roused by my bed shifting and moving under me. I thought it was a vivid dream, and I allowed myself to wake up maybe 10%, but as usual like when the phone rings when I'm sleeping, I try to hold onto the majority of my sleepy state to ease back to dreamland.

Haha you might say that I value my sleep above most things, and if you were to say that.. you'd be right. So anyways, there I was kinda lucid, slightly-aware that my bed was moving. At first I thought.. 'what is this, some kinda Paranormal activity?' Then I realized, 'No, no you're silly, you watch too many movies.' Then my mind wandered to, 'do I hear any alarms or people running around in panic in my building?' I didn't sense anything out of the ordinary. So then.. still lying in my bed in my almost-comatose state, I began thinking, 'Man, this is totally an earthquake. Mom would be so disappointed in me right now.' Then I drifted back off to sleep.

Over the course of the night following this, I had convinced myself that I was having a really vivid dream when I imagined my bed moving. It probably wasn't real. So when I got into work this morning I was catching up with Mayumi-san about the weekend, I asked her if there was an earthquake last night. She told me there was, and it originated in Chiba. We looked it up online, and the magnitude in the Tokyo-area was 2. Crap.

After getting over the shock of my failure, and that I could actually convince myself that my bed moving was a dream, I've decided I can do a better job next time there's an earthquake. So sorry Mom, I let you down this time.. but next time, I promise I'm going to make that getaway. Promise. You don't have to worry.