I want Spring. Sunshine and bumblebees and little green things sprouting out of the recently turned dirt. The smell of lemon fresh pinesol and fabric softener wafting out the back door while I sweep the porch and set up my outdoor furniture and husband walks laps with the lawnmower.
I want to wash all the windows and pull down the drapes to re-install my summer-sheers. Put the heavy bedding away, and clear off the knick-nack shelves, and hang the clear shower curtain in the bathroom.
I want to paint everything white and clean, even the outside of the house, and whitewash the fence.
I want to wear a new pastel dress with a new hat and a new pair of silver-white pumps, and go watch children Easter egg hunting.
I want to hear the pressure cooker tittling and hissing on the stove.
I want to hear the cicadas singing in the evening, and watch the gnats' mating dances in the sunshine.
Have you ever watched the gnats' mating dance? It's fascinating, really. Groups of males will form a swarm about three to four feet above the ground. The guys will come together as a loosely formed group, and they are all vibrating at different rates. Then they start to tighten up and they get more frantic, then, at a climactic moment, the group will squeeze together and vibrate in sync with one another. Like a tornado of gnats. Then they seem to all stop and relax back into a loose group of individual gnats. These groups of gnats are just a bunch of teenage boys showing off. Then, a bigger, slower female gnat just blunders into the group, the females don't vibrate, they just look dizzy. Some lucky male collides with her and *Plink* they drop straight down to the ground to mate.
I've shown this to lots of people, and now that they can see it, they enjoy watching gnats mate too.
My favorite things to watch are dragonflies. They eat gnats. They act EXACTLY like sharks. The dragonfly will cruise through the yard hitting every group of males with his mouth open. He will make three or four passes, then land to clean off his eyes and swallow his meal, then start cruising through the swarms again. Occasionally, another dragonfly will try to eat at the buffet, and then we have a dragonfly war. They zip around and posture and threaten each other. The winner will think he has run off the competition, but the competition starts pulling drive-by raids. Zip in, snatch one or two and zip back out.

Ok, I've probably just lost you all on the minute details of a bug's life. But I enjoy it.


MsAmber