Monika promised me a trip to Malibu expressly to harvest recently deceased sea treasures.
Yes, I am talking about sea urchins.
We each filled a large ziplock bag with these beauts.
Large and small, they were everywhere.
And because we were really only concerned with urchins,
we didn't spend too much time looking at other stuff...um, like the ocean.
Or this stellar sandstone formation.
Ok, we spent a little time, but we were way more concerned with the urchin intake.
You know, into the ziplock bag, into our purses. Yes, a purse full of urchins. Two purses, actually.
And all on the sly. Ben was none too pleased when we unveiled our urchin bounty and then proceeded to set them out in the front yard to "dry"--a process which mostly involves being swarmed by the giantest flies you'll ever in your long life see. Also, the smell is something I will never forget. Let me tell you, we Nicolai girls have smelled a lot of dead things in our time, but sea urchins may just take the cake as the deadest smelling things ever. Yowzers. Seriously, yowzers.
These are my urchins at Mom's house in Tacoma. They are "drying" on the back porch.
They made the plane trip home double-ziplocked inside my purse.
Bruno ran away when I let him smell one. Smart cat.
