earthquake!

I'm guessing the plates shifted eleven miles down and the ringing pendulum registered five point four on the metronome-like scale of some little old lonesome hunched-back quake watcher out in a wooden shack in southern Indiana stirring his companion beagle awake. Then his phone rang off the wall with requests for interviews by newspaper and tv folk, and he repeated all morning, "yes sir, by golly, she read five point four, and I was a-watching it when she hit."
Later, being a rare occurrence in the Heartland, he would get his picture in the paper, the beagle at his feet with its head resting on his paws asleep.

I was half awake yesterday morning at 5:38am anyway when the shaking began. Let me just say that's the most shaking my mattresses have experienced in a long time. I was half awake because in the minutes leading up to the quake I had one dandy of an earache with alot of pressure. Not sure, but maybe that's similar to the stories you've heard about how cat and dog behaviors alter just before a quake, tornado, seizure, or sneeze arrives.
I am a dog.

Or, maybe it's all because the Pope's in town.