Earthquakes! And Dog Water! A Wacky Wednesday!

A 5.8 magnitude earthquake hit Western Panama today

The first I heard of today's earthquake in Panama was from a friend in Mexico who wanted to make sure I was OK.  This is so incredibly nice!  I never felt a thing - indeed, I don't think it was detectable here in Panama City.  It is rather sobering after the massive Chilean quake though and the risk of Tsunami was certainly present.

A friend of mine suggested that perhaps it was because I was teaching at that time.  I'm not sure whether to be insulted or amused.  I guess I will leave it to my students to make that determination.

I do have a great (though small) class of Masters students.  There are only 5 of them, although today, one of them was absent and another left about halfway through.  She assured me that it wasn't to do with me (really, what else could she say?) and she has agreed to come see me tomorrow morning.

After work (but before finding out about the quake), Elba The Wonderful took me to pick up some fresh milk, fruit, and meat.  Shall we just say that I didn't only get those things.  But I was at a new supermarket and it was, as it always is in supermarkets, an adventure - of the good kind of course.

Palo Alto Coffee

 The first fun thing we found was Palo Alto Coffee.  Now, yes, I know that "Palo Alto" means "High Hill" and yes, that is a Spanish name.  But I am now so Bay Area-ized that I giggled at the sight.  I got some so I can find out whether Palo Alto is as good as others.  I'll let you know.

The next giggle - a guffaw actually, followed by a snort - were the below pictured items:  Dog's Water (for better life), Cat's Water (for the prevention of something...) and Dog's Water (for defense against illness)  I leave you to decide if this seems as absurd to you as it did to Elba and me.

Dog's (and Cat's) Water  

Fires and Tsunamis and ... bears? Oh my!

Last week it was a massive fire on the hillside nearby.

Tonight (Tuesday), it was an earthquake in Chile and a subsequent tsunami warning for Panama, as well as for the Pacific coast of South America.

I found out about it when an email came around from the Fulbright folks and the State Department, asking that we urgently get back to them with our location.

I must admit, it derailed me.  I had been working on the slides for tomorrow's class when I got the email and immediately went information seeking online and on Twitter.  I couldn't find much online aside from a rather sketchy announcement of where the Warning zone was.

I talked with David who was wonderful and who pointed out that I was up a bit of a hill.  Which is true, but I couldn't get those images of Fukishima out of my mind.

But shortly after this, I found out that the Warning for Panama had been downgraded to a Watch.

Whew!  Dodged another bullet!