“You look excited!” said the children eyeing me suspiciously. I identified that wary look and chuckled. Usually it means an additional hike or a walk, or something done ‘together – as a family!’.
I could feel the eye-roll coming on.
As a teenager, the daughter has a reputation to maintain, and as her loyal side-kick, her brother is torn between wanting to humor his mother and learn how to become the cool teen.
“Relax! I am just waiting to start a new book tonight. It is about the era of the dinosaurs!” I said with a grand sweep of my hands featuring the landscape that just a few million years ago could’ve been home to tyrannosauraus rexes or brontosauruses.
“Looking at the animals here, my bet would be on the runts of the species!” said the husband.
“We do have the great descendants of the velociraptors here in plenty!” I said eyeing the birds in the riverbed.
That led to an interesting discussion on dinosaurs, and how the dinosaur bones could probably have been the inspiration behind the legends of dragons. While paleontology as a discipline of study and research may be relatively recent, digging and unearthing relics of the past isn’t and neither is human imagination. From there, we somehow landed up discussing the best designs for helmets and body armors while fighting dragons and dinosaurs, and had a good time anyway.
Later that night, glad to have a night free of late night meetings, I swished away to sit by the window sill taking in the full moon rising outside and pondering on the lives of dinosaurs of long ago perceiving the moonlight, and the millions of years in which mammals have been fascinated by the same.
It turns out the book I had in my hand was not one on dinosaurs but on the history of mammalian life from the shadows of the dinosaurs. Oh well!
Book: The Rise and Reign of the Mammals – A New History – From the Shadown of the Dinosaurs to Us
By Steve Brusatte (Author of BestSelling The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs)
Honestly, book covers these days are the most illuminating ( award-winning, best selling, top researching, nominated for best selling lists!)
Nevertheless, I had a quiet few moments reading before a call interrupted the quiet of the night, and I had to set the book aside.
The Dinosaurs seem to have gone millions of years without needing any of these to live their quiet lives on Earth.
Does anyone miss snail post?
Nourish-n-Cherish 