What quake?

For all the times I think the ground is swaying when it isn't, I didn't notice the big quakes tonight. In fact, I even saw a few older ladies pointing up at the vents in the ceiling in the cafe I was walking out of. They kept staring and pointing and I thought they were saying "Blood? Blood!" I looked where they were pointing and there was certainly no blood coming from the air conditioner, so I continued on out. Outside, a little boy and his mother were pointing up at the building. The storefront is bright pink. I thought maybe he was pointing at that. Who knows what will grab a kid's attention?

How did I miss this? Normally, I am quite sensitive to earthquakes, so I find it strange that I didn't notice these two big ones, even with people nearby pointing and staring and, in fact, in retrospect, obviously saying "earthquake," not "blood." (They sound slightly similar, but not that similar.)

One effect of living here is that I have come to accept that there are a certain number of experiences every day that I am just not going to understand. I remember struggling against this in Miyazaki twelve years ago and finally, one day, while sitting in the back seat of a car with my coworker and her ancient granny while her brother drove us hours south to ... what was that? Picnic and be buried in volcanic sand? I stopped. I realized I'd figure out where we were going and why when we got there and that stressing out about it wasn't going to help. I think that was good for me, overall. But there are times, like when everyone is suddenly acting like they're in a horror movie, that it might be better to let the inner control freak come out and have a closer look around.