Sunday, May 25, 2008

Fireflies!

So, one of my good friends was telling me that Texas, in her eyes, still conjures up images of the old west, with the blowing dust and cowboys and cactus. And yes, there are parts of Texas that fulfill that description. Most of western Texas, actually. But there's a reason that all of the major cities of Texas are not in west Texas: Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin. Those 4 cities combine to over 15.3 million people of the total population of 23.9 for Texas. But I digress. ;)


In response to my friend's curiosity and lack of Texas experience (for which she is forgiven) I ventured forth with my family and camera to a park quite close to our house. I was taking pictures of the vegetation and general splendor (name the movie!) when we suddenly noticed an abnormal amount of fireflies emerging. It was around dusk and getting darker by the minute, and more and more fireflies were coming out of the grass. It got to the point that the ground for acres around looked like it was covered in Christmas lights, but lights that rose up from the ground to about 18" or so then went out. Over and over again. It was like some weird sci-fi video game or something. And I have to say, I was mature enough to even refrain from blushing while watching the mating rituals of thousands of hormone-driven male fireflies. Indeed, I daresay I found the sight rather beautiful. :)


So, what was I to do with a camera in my hand but take videos and ill-fated pictures of the crepuscular insects. The pictures turned out rather uninspiring, but a couple videos captured a small degree of what we were actually seeing. Here's one of them.



(In the video Mom says we have to leave because Dad's getting bit by mosquitos, to which I replied that it's because he's white. Now you can understand the following paragraph) I mention Dad being white because on my mission in Costa Rica I noticed that my white American companions would get at least 5x the mosquito bites that I got, if I got any. The locals supported my observations with further attestations of "sweeter white blood," though the actual difference in sugar content remains to be seen or observed. But, in line with my observations, Dad gets many more mosquito bites than I do, and in the short video he's making a retreat to the car and Mom's calling us to follow. Poor man ;)

4 comments:

Angie said...

I still haven't seen any proof :)

Jenny said...

I miss you, Anthony! What I wouldn't give to be singing with Impressions again. Why can't we all just live in the same place? And just to comment on your posting, I get 10 times the mosquito bites that Carric does, and we are both white. Why?

Ben said...

Come on, get the video up! There aren't any lightning bugs in FL, or at least in the Tallahassee area. :-( But it is funny how much Dad gets bitten.

Jess said...

BENJAMIN - I beg to differ. There are plenty of lighting bugs in Florida...maybe you just don't know where to look for them. :P

(indistinct mumbling)
...trying to insult the Deep South...I might need to reconsider this whole friends idea...and he calls Texas part of the South...