first?

Fireflies? Ah, yes. Not the only thing I missed moving to CA -- but I don't miss getting out of the shower and not being able to dry off due to the humidity...

yay!!

Aw. That belly needs a rub.
My little one was outside last night hunting fireflies.

I'm now back home and loving sitting in my parents yard watching the fireflies, we didn't seem to have many of them in Charleston

honeysuckle and fireflies and bob belly. thanks Laurie. I needed that today.

My mom called me from Ohio the other evening to tell me she saw the first firefly of the season. I was sad that I wasn't there to share that moment. I miss them too, here in Seattle. Supposedly they can't make it over the Rockies. I've thought of "introducing" them over here--I know they'd love it!

Funny, I was noticing the fireflies last night as well, how they start low in the grass at dusk then by 9-10 they are lighting up in the tops of the trees like Christmas lights. And the honeysuckle I miss the honeysuckle. I live in the NC Mts and the honeysuckle is not as prolific as it was in Birmingham.

Hey! Call them by their proper name-lightning bugs. I love watching my kitty chase those suckers. So cute. And honeysuckle always reminds me of the ball park my brothers played Dixie Youth baseball at. It was completely surrounded by honeysuckle bushes. I love how smells can transport you through time.

It doesn't matter where you live...when you're "from" somewhere else, you always miss what you used to know. A smell can really set it off, can't it? I'm from Alaska, and really uncomfortably spending my first summer in Houston.

I see that you get dreamy and say "soft and warm each night with humidity"...and I miss "soft and chilly with a light snowfall". haha

It doesn't matter where you live...when you're "from" somewhere else, you always miss what you used to know. A smell can really set it off, can't it? I'm from Alaska, and really uncomfortably spending my first summer in Houston.

I see that you get dreamy and say "soft and warm each night with humidity"...and I miss "soft and chilly with a light snowfall". haha

Lighten' bugs...my favorite. Hey, you can see some on the ride in Disneyland...Pirates of the Caribbean...and as a bonus you can get that song stuck in your head. Yo Ho Yo HO a pirates' life for me....

I miss fireflies SO MUCH. When I lived in Philadelphia we got them even in the middle of the city. They're so beautiful.

I guess the upside is that we also don't get mosquitos in L.A.

I saw our first lightning bugs of the season a few days ago. We have some here - but not as many as I remember there being as a kid in Mass.

Also - I LOVE the smell of Jasmine. We have some that I planted in our front yard, it smells fantastic.

Do you know that the fireflies in the grass and the fireflies in the tops of the trees are actually two different species?

Our yard is filled with lightening bugs everynight just as it gets dark. It's so beautiful; I love to sit out on the back porch and just watch them.

Awwww, love Bob's attitude.

I miss the fireflys too. I don't see many around here in Boston. But in Ohio, my kids used to chase them around in the summer.

I miss sparklers on the 4th of July too. We cannot purchase them in Massachusetts and sparklers always made that holiday for me.

Lovely post, Laurie, thanks.

Lovely. Can you go for a visit?

The mean kids next door to me used to squish fireflies little butts and rub the "glow" on my parents cars... bad memories - I have spent my life apologizing to the little guys every summer for what my nerdy neighbors did to their ancestors!

I am homesick too...I am from Savannah Ga, and married a yank so here I stay in Idaho (which I also love just not that way) I tried to explain to my 6yo about lightning bugs, and he just couldn't believe that a bug could glow in the dark. *sigh*

I know exactly what you mean... firefly hunting is a favorite activity of my daughters. We live in an area where the yard pratically twinkles there are so many out at night. :)

Wow I did not know that they were indead two different types of fireflies. Cool.

Wow I did not know that they were indead two different types of fireflies. Cool.

I feel that way about thunderstorms. We rarely get them in New England, but as you know, Texas thunderstorms are a FORCE.

:) I remember chasing the lightening bugs when it was still light "late" at night in Virginia. Of course, I also remember swinging on my swingset and getting gnats flying up my nose and in my mouth.

I had never seen a lightning bug until I was 7 or so and went to visit my grandparents in Ohio (I grew up in the Colorado Rockies.) I thought they were the coolest things EVER and wanted to take them home to the mountains with me. I was just reading a thread on another message board about favorite things of summer. It's that time again!!

p.s. I have new kitten pics on my blog, come see!! and love the Bob, as always.

Supposedly the olfactory nerve and the memory center are right next to each other in the brain, or wired together or something, which accounts for why a smell will trigger memories like nothing else.

Right after I was married we lived in downstate Illinois for a year. The whole state is flat as a pancake and a thousand miles from the nearest ocean and just not my home... but every summer night a panoply of fireflies would come out and dance across the bean fields. It's the one thing I miss, and I hadn't thought of it in years.

Bob is cool.

You aren't a weirdo in the least. Each June when I see the first firefly of the year, my eyes get misty thinking about childhood in Louisiana. We have thousands (thousands!) of them in the woods lining our back yard. At night, it looks as though the woods are lit like Christmas trees. If you're ever out East and want to watch fireflies with a fellow displaced Southerner -- and no, I will never consider Maryland the south -- be sure to give me a shout!

I saw fireflies for the first time while driving to Iowa. It was so hard to not drive right off the road and into the corn because of all the pretty sparkling lights. To a native Californian it was such a simple and lovely experience.

I drive a convertible and my favorite time of day is an hour or two after the sun sets. Driving down the street, which is still warm, but not hot. The warm air mixing with the jasmine and the freshly cut hay. Gorgeous.

And then home to snort the flonaze and pop the claritin!

Whatta life the Bob leads.

I don't know if anyone followed the story about Louis, the polydactyl cat who was terrorising his neighbourhood. Apparently, he was put on Prozac for aggression but his owner took him off it "because it made him too sleepy". Har. A cat that was too sleepy.

We've got more fireflies than you can shake a stick at right now. We also have 97 degrees with humidity that makes it feel like 106. Hardly seems worth it.

the last fireflies i remember are when i lived in new jersey as a kid. they must not come this far north.

Lightning bugs... I'll have to pay attention and look for them, I haven't seen any in a while.

I want to be Bob.

It's amazing the way a certain smell can bring back...everything. So evocative!

And you reminded me that I haven't seen a firefly in literally years...

Fireflies -- hardly ever think on them, but now you've got me missing them, too!

Awww, sweet Bob! I love orange tomcats.

I planted honeysuckle next to my front door and it's finally growing and in full bloom this year. It's absolutely wonderful to inhale the aroma everytime I come and go.

Helen

I grew up in Arizona, and didn't see a firefly until I went east at age 22 with my new husband to his home in Philadelphia. His family lived in a lush suburb, so there were bushes aplenty for the fireflies to dance around in. They were spectacular. I haven't seen any since!

I also love dragon flies, we had those in Arizona, and I've seen them here in California, occassionally. What I don't miss are the big green june bugs...they always scared me!

The smell that takes me back to Arizona instantly is the one that comes off dry barren land during a heat wave, when the first few drops of a rainstorm hit the ground. I don't know what it is that causes it...negative ions maybe? But I know the smell when I encounter it, and I snort it down. There's not much I miss about Arizona weather, but summer rainstorms are one thing that I do hanker for sometimes.

Used to collect the fireflies (or lightning bugs we sometimes called them) in a big jar on a hot summer night. Then we and all the neighbor kids would sqwoosh the "light" of the bug onto our fingers and wrists to make "rings" and "bracelets"...sorry, Amy of several comments before me! We all did it! and we weren't mean! It was just super fun and glamorous to have glowing fingers and such in the summer night :-)

It's a strange feeling, to be so in love with such distant-to-each-other places, isn't it? I'm beginning to feel the same way about my school home, a thousand miles away from where I am right now. I was (and still am) desperately glad to be back home in Canada, and have been spending countless hours just standing at the back door gazing out at my garden just coming into bloom (which, down south in my school home, would have bloomed and faded two months ago already). But I miss my shady, damp little bamboo-covered shack down south too, and wonder what it would feel like to sit out on its porch right now.

Do you have any more vacation days left for this year? Maybe you need to take a few and go home. Go when it's humid so the fireflies (I like to call them fairies to fool the kids but they never buy it) will be out.

Growing up in East Texas, we used to get in trouble, when we captured fireflies, for putting them in the "good" mason jars instead of old mayo/pickle jars! (Jeez, do they even sell ice picks anymore?)

And honeysuckle is nice, but Confederate Jasmine for me, please. :)

Your memories of honeysuckle and fireflies are a lot like mine. That is why I am now growing honeysuckle in my backyard in Bawlmer. And last year, I even had a few fireflies come to visit! Do you think Francisco will let you have honeysuckle?

Fireflies always makes me think of visiting my dad's family in Georgia and Alabama. I don't see honeysuckle around here much but there is plenty of jasmine. I lived in a garden cottage in SF about ten years ago and there was jasmine all around the front door. Oh, and a huge magnolia tree.

Also, Natasha did a similar stretch this morning when she finally decided to get her lazy butt up. I shouted, "Kitty belly!" but I knew better than to touch. I like having my hands in one piece.

You always forget about things like fireflies until someone brings them up. I can't recall the last time I saw one. I'm sure there are some around here...perhaps I forgot to look. (actually, I've recently had an ant/spider/hornet invasion so I've probably just been distracted by them "bad bugs.")

Funny you should mention fireflies... My Mom and I were outside (North Carolina) on the porch having dinner last night. It was so warm and humid w/o skeeters that we stayed outside until 9:15 PM - she looking at picture albums and I knitting. We noticed the fireflies, too. I never remember seeing any when I lived in Monterey County. My husbands' two brother-in-laws swear there is no such thing as fireflies as they have never seen them!

Carmen in NC

How could a place not have fireflies? I obviously don't travel much, because that seems unimaginable to me.

I miss the wild parrots that flock in the trees of my parent's front yard in Whittier. They are everywhere in So Cal.....

From my years in Boston I miss watching the snow fall rapidly in the dark through the windows of my gothic, turret-style dorm room...

And whenever I leave North Carolina for a visit elsewhere, I miss the lush greeness of the piedmont. I mean the place SMELLS humid (yes smells- if you grew up in a semi-desert like I did where it was always dry, you are so unacustomed to trees that you can actually smell their moistness)

I'm so excited to introduce my niece and nephew fireflies for the first time next week! They live in Portland, and have never seen them. I would miss them, too. Sorry you're homesick :(

I have never seen a firefly/lightning bug, and although I try to visualize them I'm sure they don't look like the cartoon versions with the actual light bulb on their rear ends that come to mind. I appreciate all your beautiful descriptions and memories. Sooooo...When is the CAP tour of the South? I obviously need some serious immersion and I never would have been as inspired without all y'all.
Carmen - your husbands BILs were probably taken Snipe hunting as children, and subsequently 'have to see it to believe it'

Here in SoCal, summer is marked by Jacaranda blooms (a tree not to be missed when in bloom), the smell of honeysuckle, jasmine, gardenia, and if you are lucky, orange blossoms. No lightning bugs but we have June bugs which kitties love to chase. They are ugly as all get out and not really what you want in the house, although they are harmless.

I saw lightning bugs in Illinois, when we would visit the grandparents during summer vacation. I don't think the DH has ever seen a real lightning bug! So sad!

If you come to SoCal for a visit, take a boat to Catalina and look for flying fish. Yes, they are real and very cool. It's the best thing we have that is unusual and flies!

Saw my first Fireflies, or as we call them in Pittsburgh, lightning bugs, last night.

i've never seen a firefly. :(

I love how the night air seems to twinkle at you when the lightning bugs are out. I even love seeing how cool the bug looks from underneath. through a window pane or screen so I don't have to have a beetle on my skin of course!
Your Bob sleeps like my Jezzy!

Not a weirdo!

I was at my parents' house this weekend (I live an hour away now, in the middle of concrete) and felt so homesick after seeing all the green and smelling the corn that I wanted to move in.

And they had lightning bugs. And frogs singing in the crick. Sigh.

Windows out of the Jeep...yep...all summer long - other than the teens, I never see anyone with their windows out in the city; people like their conditioned air here in Dallas. But the reason I got the Jeep was to take out the windows! Once I left the windows at home and a storm came in while I was driving from work. I barely got wet! It was like having a huge umbrella over me and the air was so fresh! Of course, it didn't take long for the Jeep to dry out; it's made for that kind of thing. And it's worth the heat and the smog just to get close to home and drive through the semi-country/semi-suburbs and catch a hint of the Honeysuckle or someone BBQ -ing for dinner. Lightnig bugs...we get them occassionally and see them more if you get away from the city. I grew up with them in Pennsylvania and couldn't believe I barely saw them thoughout all the areas of the country I've lived. Pussy Willows meant Spring was almost here, lightning bugs and hide and seek in the dusk for summer , the harvest meant fall, Jack Frost on the windows and it was definately Winter. I miss them all...they still equalhome...even after 30 years away. I wonder if I will ever top feeling so transient?

We have sooooo many fireflies this year. At night our hydrangeas sparkle like I've never seen.

But the bigger news is: last weekend I saw the first cicada! Cicadas! Already! They're a month earlier so I don't know if that means (a) longer summer or (b) early winter. I'm rooting for (a)!

Did you ever put their little shells on your shoulder?

If I ever left the south I'd deeply miss fireflies.

Living in Nashville I can understand your wonder with the tourists (I call them "Fanny Packs"). I have a love/hate relationship with them. I'm like, "Welcome to Nashville Ya'll!! Enjoy your stay. Just remember some people actually live here and are trying to get to work!"

I love lightning bugs! I can't not imagine not having them. It is a sure sign that summer is here. I will have to take time tonight to go out and enjoy the summer night.

Brianne,

Ha... Snipe hunting...

Good times, good times. :-)

Ever listen to the song "Fireflies" by Faith Hill? I cried my eyes out the first time I heard it.

You aren't a weirdo. You manage to put into words what so many of us feel but are unable to communicate.

This is for Staci....today in Anchorage we have 19 hours 19 minutes of daylight. Tomorrow we will 12 seconds less of daylight. We are going to the zoo tonight and then hike up Flattop and watch all the yahoos. How knows, maybe someone will pack up a trampoline again.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who misses the humidity - everyone here in NorCal thinks I'm crazy - but that humid air is one of the sexiest things. I miss the fireflies too and lilacs and thunderstorms and sleeping on the porch in a hammock. Even snow in the winter. home is always home - no matter where you go.

Fireflies are nice but are you sure you're missing the humidity? Maybe it's just time for some fried green tomatoes and a mint julep!

funny...the hubby and i had that same conversation last night. i grew up catching fireflies. he was introduced to them (as an adult) when we got married, and we moved away from florida. we just recently moved back to the midwest, and our 3-yr-old daughter just saw fireflies for the first time last night.

http://iris.biosci.ohio-state.edu/projects/FFiles/frame1.html Has some firefly info! Here in Colorado, I've seen glowing green swamp-loving bugs, but not the flashing happy back yard kind.

I know how you feel, sweetie. I grew up in the mountains of upstate New York and summers in the South are so different. I miss the cool breezes and black dirt (what the hell is up with the orange clay here??) and the lack of humidity. I don't have any family there anymore so I have no one to visit and I miss it so much. Isn't it odd how a scent can bring back such powerful memories?

I hope that you're feeling happier today. When was the last time you visited the South? Birthdays also bring back memories for me too, especially of family. Are you doing something fun tomorrow??

Hang in there, Laurie. I know I always say it but I really am so proud of you!!

Love, Liz

I don't think I could live anywhere so *BIG*, but someday I may be one of those tourists.

Honeysuckle. One of my favorite smells. It takes me back to growing up, and although the road was pretty bumpy, we still had some great times.

We had honeysuckle all the way down one side of the yard. The bees were prolific, but we would pluck the flowers and pull the bottoms off slowly which caused the stamen to pull out a drop or two of the sweetest necter that we would then deposit on our tongues. That and eating mulberries while still up in the branches is what the bliss of childhood is.

Risha, I used to eat honeysuckle the same way!

Thank you Liz :)

And hi everyone! I love reading ya'lls summer memories, so so glad I am not the only one who "smells" her emotions LOL

There's truly no place like home is there! I love that smell of fresh cut grass mixed with honey suckle and roses - all the smells that conjure up my homesickness.

Isn't it weird how something as simple as a smell wafting through the car can send us back?

;)

aaahhhhhh....Bob.

Lightning Bugs and Autumn are pretty much the only things keeping me on the east coast anymore.

Do you have wild raspberries and blackberries out west? I would really miss them too...

...oh, I guess I'd miss my family :)

I didn't know there were no fireflies in CA! Wow!

Love the pic of Bob.

When I first moved to Manhattan, I really missed the earth/worm smell after a good rain. I don't blame you for missing home. The Italian word for homesick is "nostalgia". Seems perfect.

Mandy- wild blackberries for sure!
Not so many wild raspberries in my experience, but many a summer I was happily stained with blackberry juice and had telltale scratches on my arms and legs.

I made note of the first lightning bug I saw this year - June 11th in Central Illinois. Our Junebugs come out in April and May now. Also, the first cricket chirping at night was May 27th. And my husband saw the first cicada two days ago. It was on his deck chair. They're supposed to wait until the end of July...

True, no fireflies, but also no mosquitoes!

ACK - South/Central Texas, here---- I love lightnin' bugs, too! But they're hard to see when you're dodging the stupid kamikazi June Bugs.... blech.

ah, I was just hanging out on the back porch last couple of nights watching the firefly's at dusk and drinking a glass of wine.

I grew up in CA, and never saw a fire fly until was 24 years old and moved to MA. Every night of the summer my daughter and I look out in the back yard at all the fire flies fliting around the yard. When she was 7 or 8 years old my daughter said "They look like fairies, don't they?" and I said "Yes, they do." It was the sweetest memory and one I never want to forget.

Love the picture too. My cat does that all the time. And when she does, she expects you to rub her belly.

I miss fireflies, too. I haven't been back home for firefly season in seven years.

I have a honeysuckle bush at home that I must take the time to stop and smell. Haven't seen a firefly/lightning bug in like forever. I remember them when we would visit Grandma on summer vacation. We would build a fire and burn Cow Pies to keep the mosquitos away. Now that is a smell I don't need to remember.

Thanks for the langorous pic of Bob. My red-gold companion, Sheldon, does that number also. Oh, poor me - I don't remember ever seeing a firefly. All I had, growing up in North Dakota, was the nightly summer show of Northern Lights. My entire family used to lie on the front lawn, holding hands, occasionaly swatting huge mosquitoes, while we watched the celestial curtains drape and shift like a stage setting for the universe. So dear to my heart. Thanks for setting the stage, Laurie.

Growing up in California, I never saw fireflies until going to the South/back East last year. They're amazing! They seem like they couldn't be real.

Bob! Shameless hedonist. Who gave you a license to bare all!

From So. California, I miss the absolutely idiotic June bugs that stick to the screens and then, when they finally fall off, land on their backs and can't get up. I miss coming home smelling like the beach, with my suit full of sand, to wash off with my grandma's sun-heated garden hose. I do NOT miss the hordes of snails crawling up the stucco. I miss big, sweet gardenias my grandma floated in a crystal bowl that perfumed the whole house, huge birds of paradise in my parents' yard, fresh home-grown lemons and ripe tomatoes, a pretty kind of deep green moss called baby tears, myoporum (sp?), my avocado tree, bamboo, and toads that hid in the garage. This might be sick, but I distinctly remember the smell of seasonal hill fires. From Chicago, I miss the lightening bugs but not the horrid humidity, and sitting on the screen porch with my little kids trying to eat popsicles before they melted off the stick. From England, I miss the fact that you do not even need screens on the windows because a bug would never dare come in (no mosquitoes!), bonfires on Guy Fawkes day, and whole hedges of rosemary and lavender. From NC, I miss everything except heat. From AZ and NM, I miss the smell of summer rain on dry grass and adobe, and the sound of monsoon peeper frogs. In CT, I love the wood thrush with its haunting summer song, which I never heard in my life before coming here.

Not too many fireflies in the suburb in which I grew up (residual DDT?) but my summertime memory was/is going up to the Adirondacks and, when we were on the dirt road our little lakeside cottage is on, rolling down the car windows and taking huge gulps of the most delicious air. That and searching for red efts.

You'll have to get an agent for that Bob of yours. He can be on your sitcom!

Not too many fireflies in the suburb in which I grew up (residual DDT?) but my summertime memory was/is going up to the Adirondacks and, when we were on the dirt road our little lakeside cottage is on, rolling down the car windows and taking huge gulps of the most delicious air. That and searching for red efts.

Whoops! I did it again

I've lived in NYC for 12 years and forgot fireflies existed. Last summer I was home in Maryland visiting my parents and when I saw fireflies, I felt the same wonder I felt as a child. Nothing's ever made me feel that way, it was amazing.

it's soooo amazingly humid here today (raleigh, nc), that just walking outside curls your hair! i love the smell of fresh cut grass, mulch, anything earthy & sweet ... and i can see fireflys in my yard in the evening. funny you should mention some tourists taking pictures ... i saw a woman leaning out her car window as she drove by to take a picture of my next door neighbor's yard (i live in the "hood", and they currently have less trash than usual in the yard, and an abandoned wreck of a car parked inside the fence ... looks real nice next to the swing set.).

Being born and raised in the Pacific Northwest (which I discovered is completely different than being raised in the Northwest) my sister and I were amazed by fireflies when we visited family in Illinois (the real Northwest, apparently). We are/were both in our 20s and I think the family got a kick out of us chasing bugs through the soy bean fields. It was hours of entertainment for all involved and I would miss it more if it weren't for the humidity.

I don’t miss the humidity, but definitely the fireflies and river canoeing and the cricket/frog symphonies at night. <3 Bob

We don't have fireflies in Seattle, either. But I grew up in Nashville and we had TONS of fireflies (or lightning bugs, as we called them)in our front yard. My brother and I would catch as many as possible and put them in an empty 2 liter Coke bottle, the thinking being that if we caught enough, they would flash at intervals that would end up providing constant light. We never caught quite that many. We had honeysuckle vines in our backyard, too, and we would go out and pull the flowers and lick the stems because they actually taste sweet. Or maybe we were just weirdos.

love the kitty belly!!

and love fireflies too. one got in the bedroom a couple of weeks ago. surprisingly, the cats left it alone. i thought for sure one or both of us would be awakened by a cat leaping for a blinking light!

I think Bob has the right idea. If Bob can be said to have ideas!

hah hah... yes, Bob is not known for overTHINKing things. Bob does a lot of goofy cuteness, though.

Not weird!

Somehow I don't remember seeing fireflies in Wichita where I grew up, but we used to chase them whenever we went to Grandmother's house in Fort Scott, so they are a happy childhood memory for me. And we did the honeysuckle thing too. If honeysuckle grows in Houston it wasn't near anywhere I lived.

So last week I (finally) got off my butt enough to go take some healthy walks, which was one of the things I said I was going to do when I moved somewhere not as hot and much less smoggy (and traffic-y and crime-y and dirty and...) than Houston. I go in the evening because I don't like to go out in the sun. My reward? Lightning bugs, everywhere, and the smell of honeysuckle. I should have moved back to Kansas sooner, I think.

Bob is (excuse me while I remove a cat from my desk) so cute!

LOL, I opened this post as I sit in my screened porch drinking a glass of Cardinal Zin and watching the lightning bugs. It is 90 and humid here in Chicago tonight, and yes the Cicadas have started to appear. I think next year is the big year for Cicadas.

Since I am still in the midwest there aren't too many smells I miss, but when I lived in Spain, I missed the thunderstorms like CRAZY!

Honeysuckle and lightning bugs remind me of growing up in central Illinois. Everyone always thinks about the south and honeysuckle, but there was a vine that grew up the downspout (whoa -- that's a word from the past, too!) outside my bedroom window, so I could smell it every night with the windows open.

I wouldn't want to trade my A/C for open windows (especially since I live in San Antonio now!) but I'd sure like more honeysuckle and lightning bugs. I can't wait to go home for a week in August.

(Bob's belly is just dying to be tickled....)

ah.. fireflies.. my puppy's favorite delicacy. Seriously, she has been jumping into the air to catch them & happily munching away!

The cats are so jealous! :)

Ah fireflies! That's one of the things I missed most all the years I lived in California. Every June when they come back (now that I'm back in Nashville) I recall all the times I missed them before.

They are beautiful this year and there's an empty lot across the street from my house where there are so many of them it's amazing.

Oddly enough, I read somewhere today about the fact that they are actually beetles, that there are a bazillion varieties and they differ by the timing and details of their "lightening" and that they are most active in July when they are mating! Who knew?

There may not be an fireflies in LA, but there are the yearly Malibu fires.

Honeysuckle reminds me of my mother.

Not weird at all. I'm right there with you (except on another continent). I love the beauty of the rugged land we live on here in So. France, but I was thinking just the other day I'd love to catch some fireflies with my little ones. It's the little things you love and the little things you miss.

There are no fireflies either in the northeast. When I'm homesick for the south I think of fireflies blinking in trees, cicadas singing in trees, and mint juleps. Luckily I can make my own mint juleps.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

I love the scent of honeysuckle. It's just so sweet and comforting and .. ahhhh. And it's sad you don't have fireflies. I just noticed them swarming around the other day .. it was a -real- sign of summer.

Happy Birthday!

I miss fireflies too. :( I don't they exist outside of the deep south. (Or Africa...which is where I grew up)

I get depressed every time I ride Pirates of the Caribbean, half because I know that there are kids who have grown up and those dinky little lightbulbs are the only fireflies they've ever seen, and half because I miss being back in Missouri where it's normal and we actually have things like fireflies and summer thunderstorms.

Oh yes, and I just moved to the Valley myself...and so much of your writing about the Valley begins to make so much sense...

Zach was beated by the honeysuckle smell. :)