It's finally happened! The event I have been waiting for over the past few weeks has finally come to pass, and I'm as happy as Fat Albert at an all-you-can-eat buffet at Long Horn's.

Yes, my friends, it's true: the fireflies have arrived! Huzzah!!!

Now, you must understand: I despise Georgia summers. 'Hate' is too kind of a word to describe what I feel for the sweat and outrageous electric bills that accompany this obnoxiously hot and humid season. Besides the heat, other delights that come in with the heat are spawns of revulsion hiding in the guises of cockroaches and gnats (although the gnats seem to form a demarcation line just south of Perry, but up here we get dem roaches big!). However, inspite of all this unpleasantness, the one amazing thing that embarkens on Georgia summers are the mysterious and enchanting fireflies.

Have you ever seen one? Up close, I mean; they are rather funky, if silly, looking bugs. I am actually known not to freak out when I hold one, quite unlike the squeamish creature I become when faced with any other type bug (save for butterflies and dragonflies, even if the latter do weird me out a bit). Ah, but if you've never seen them in full lighted action, then you are missing something magical indeed! They are like lighted snowflakes, tiny stars that have fallen to the ground and taken refuge in forests. They shimmer, they shine, they blink in and out, erratic Christmas lights that flit from one place to another. Another name for the firefly is 'fairy lights', and rightfully so; we once had some old friends visiting us from Britian, and their children had never seen fireflies before. They were enchanted, and swore that they were surrounded by fairies.

Yes, indeed...tis the time of the firefly!

I first discovered this fact last night as I was leaving my niece's 16th birthday party. It was raining, and just starting to get a little dark. As I got my children buckled and snug safely in the mini-van, I noticed a twinkle out of the corner of my eye. I turned, and as I gazed into the forest I saw them: hundreds of little twinkling stars, sparkling here and there. I was so thrilled I leaned back my head and shouted, "Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! FIREFLIES!". I have no idea if anyone heard me, but I stood there in the rain for about five minutes and just watched them, transfixed. The moment that would make the approaching sticky summer worth it had finally arrived, and I was savoring every minute of it.

Every night around 8 PM will find me haunting my front yard, humming in my porch swing and sipping my hazlenut decaf java, watching the fireflies play. They make the summer worth it, and that's all that matters.



Watched more of 24: Season 1 today. Jack Bauer, you da man!

Mood: kickin' terrorists booties
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