Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

I was walking home from the subway this evening at twilight, and saw a firefly. I was startled and thought it might be a random reflection from the stone wall (which contains mica), so I watched until it blinked again. Then I called cattitude, who was walking through the park to meet me, and told him to keep an eye out. I saw another firefly on the other side of the wall, half a block north (less surprising, since there's grass on that side), and then nothing until we rendezvous'd. Cattitude said he had seen a firefly, after getting my call and crossing the street; we saw another, or the same one again, when we got back to that bit of the park.

It's May. The very end of May, but still May. I've gotten almost used to how many things are flowering early, but the fireflies are still a surprise. (I suspect that, as with most of the flowers that bloomed early, the firefly season will end earlier than usual this year.)

I was on my way home from the gym, so here's ( the usual gym stuff )

Bumblebees are soft.

I keep waking up too early; when it's not the extremely noisy children upstairs, it's sunlight finding a gap in the curtain and landing on my pillow at 6:30 in the morning. (Putting something over my eyes once I've wakened doesn't help much.)

I had a fine day out at the Jardin Botanique with rysmiel yesterday: many flowers in bloom, some plants--including taro and coleus--with impressive purple leaves, and ponds full of thin blue-bodied dragonflies; I saw three different pairs of the dragonflies mating. We skipped the greenhouses, because we wanted to stay outdoors and there's plenty to see this time of year without going in. I was glad to look at the alpine garden when there was lots in bloom there and elsewhere; I've been there in early Spring when it was the only place outside the greenhouses with flowers.

As cattitude and I were walking home through the park last night, a firefly lit up next to us, about waist-high. A moment later, another, on my other side. I took a moment, chased on, and got it to land on my hand for a moment, though it flew off before lighting again.

This afternoon, I was standing on the lawn across the street (also in the park), watching the swallows swooping after mosquitos, and realized that one of the swooping animals I was watching was a dragonfly. Having identified one, I spotted a couple more: they're a lot smaller and lighter, and move a bit differently, but you notice the kind of thing you're looking for, and I've been watching the swallows for weeks. This is the first dragonfly I've seen in 2006, fittingly just after the solstice.