back a hundred million years ago or so...

if you listen to the news you may have heard that the fossils of a 135 million-year-old dog-like animal digesting a dinosaur were found in china. you may also have heard that so many fossils have been found in this chinese region that local farmers are going into the bone business. ain't that sumpin?

you know, 135 million years used to seem like a long time to me. then marco petaccia, a cute serious-faced geology student from pescara, italy, gave me a couple small hunks of rock he chinked out of a mountain (used to be underwater once upon a time) near where i was living this past summer. shell fossils. "seventy-two million years old," he said handing them over. "oh, c'MON," i said. (i mean, i'm from a place where 300 years gets oohed and aahed over.) "no, really," he said. i squinched up my face. "look." he pulled out a couple stodgy-lookin textbooks, opened them, pointed. there was my fossil. wedged between the 60-70-million-year period and the 70-90-million-year period. huh. ain't that sumpin? "then why are you giving it to me?" i had to know. "you see...?" he had a boxfull. "i have a box full of them. i have enough for my studies." huh. i couldn't imagine, however, the authorities at the airport would be too happy about my booty. but wouldn't you know it, when it came time to get the bag dumped out at the airport (they do it to me every time. i buy nail clippers and tweezers after every plane flight), the fossils whumped onto the table. the lady gave them a few turns, screwed up her face, shrigged her shoulders, then crammed them back in the bag.

sometimes coming from a place with a teeny tiny history, and a reputation for being anything from naive to downright duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhstupid is a blessing.

135 million years. psssh. bring on something old.