Beauty and the Beach

A sunrise stroll

The Beach Boys

Andy: So proud and so brave

Andy loves the beach almost as much as Jimmy does. Today when there were no gulls around for him to terrorize, he entertained himself by trotting alongside us with a seashell in his mouth, tossing it into the air and jumping up to catch it: showing off, and quite proud of himself.

"I'm surprised he'll have anything to do with a shell," Jimmy remarked, reminding me of an encounter Andy'd had when he was about six months old, and was with us in the Bahamas. He had picked up a shell inhabited by a hermit crab which, annoyed by being so rudely molested, grabbed Andy's upper lip with its pincer, and refused to let go.

The creature was finally prised off the howling, thrashing puppy, who had suffered only a slightly bloodied lip. He seemed more embarrassed than anything else, and apparently was not too badly traumatized by his mishap.