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Sally Serpent's-tongue
Mom and Dad and I went daown the aocean in Calvert County today. Take that, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
stellar_dust, with your walking-distance library! found another couple tablespoons of shark's teeth, discussed geomorphology with Dad, and got sand in places I'd rather not have sand. So all in all, a productive day.
Dad and I hiked out into the water and went way down the beach. Mom didn't even get her knees wet (but seeing as at those beaches, at low tide, you can be three hundred feet out and have waves lapping at your ankles, that's not bad). The big tree finally fell off the cliff this winter. And I think I managed not to get sunburned. The bottoms of my feet are all sliced up, though, as usual. Caught several dozen minnows in a bucket.
What we really go to those beaches for, of course, are the shark's teeth. Miocene fossils. Carcharodon megalodon. At Chesapeake beach you don't generally find very big ones; half an inch or so at best, most days; but you get *quantity*. I have about a quarter-cup now, and it's really fun to run them through your fingers.
Fossil shark's teeth, as I'm sure you know, were known to Rennaissance science as Glossopetra: Snake's Tongues. (So the title is actually relevant! Bwaha!) Used, according to the Aristotelian doctrine of sympathies, like unicorn horn or bezoars, to protect against poison. I really need to get going on making some snake-tongue jewelery like I keep saying I'm going to.
I wore, as a bathing suit, an old t-shirt of Mom's from the seventies over a granny-style bathing suit, and a big straw hat. Did not seem to deter spectators. Got comments on the shirt; apparently there are natives of Troy, Ohio, *everywhere*. Also, I have decided it is the height of silliness to refuse to shave my legs out of principle, then refuse to show my legs in public out of embarrassment. Thus, am being less careful about revealing ankles this summer (you didn't think I'd be *immodest*, did you?), in the secure belief that nobody looks at my legs anyway. Whaddayaknow, they do. So far comments have been on the order of those I get about my cloak: "Why?" and "*How* old are you?", quickly deterred when I actually have an answer.
And happy birthday (a day late) tozodiaccat. I meant to post yesterday, really I did, but after the VBS closing, I fell asleep, and only woke up for dinner, whereupon I went right back to sleep, after reading about a chapter of Ovid. At least I am now well-rested.
EDIT: Somebody nag me to write a proper Beach node for e2!
stellar_dust, with your walking-distance library! found another couple tablespoons of shark's teeth, discussed geomorphology with Dad, and got sand in places I'd rather not have sand. So all in all, a productive day.Dad and I hiked out into the water and went way down the beach. Mom didn't even get her knees wet (but seeing as at those beaches, at low tide, you can be three hundred feet out and have waves lapping at your ankles, that's not bad). The big tree finally fell off the cliff this winter. And I think I managed not to get sunburned. The bottoms of my feet are all sliced up, though, as usual. Caught several dozen minnows in a bucket.
What we really go to those beaches for, of course, are the shark's teeth. Miocene fossils. Carcharodon megalodon. At Chesapeake beach you don't generally find very big ones; half an inch or so at best, most days; but you get *quantity*. I have about a quarter-cup now, and it's really fun to run them through your fingers.
Fossil shark's teeth, as I'm sure you know, were known to Rennaissance science as Glossopetra: Snake's Tongues. (So the title is actually relevant! Bwaha!) Used, according to the Aristotelian doctrine of sympathies, like unicorn horn or bezoars, to protect against poison. I really need to get going on making some snake-tongue jewelery like I keep saying I'm going to.
I wore, as a bathing suit, an old t-shirt of Mom's from the seventies over a granny-style bathing suit, and a big straw hat. Did not seem to deter spectators. Got comments on the shirt; apparently there are natives of Troy, Ohio, *everywhere*. Also, I have decided it is the height of silliness to refuse to shave my legs out of principle, then refuse to show my legs in public out of embarrassment. Thus, am being less careful about revealing ankles this summer (you didn't think I'd be *immodest*, did you?), in the secure belief that nobody looks at my legs anyway. Whaddayaknow, they do. So far comments have been on the order of those I get about my cloak: "Why?" and "*How* old are you?", quickly deterred when I actually have an answer.
And happy birthday (a day late) to
zodiaccat. I meant to post yesterday, really I did, but after the VBS closing, I fell asleep, and only woke up for dinner, whereupon I went right back to sleep, after reading about a chapter of Ovid. At least I am now well-rested.EDIT: Somebody nag me to write a proper Beach node for e2!