Fireflies

Either I am totally losing my mind, or there was a firefly in my bedroom last night. I woke up to a particularly loud crash of thunder, to see a tiny and very brightly illuminated something perched on the chandelier in my bedroom. After several minutes of sleep-infused confusion, I realized it had to be a lightning bug. We don't have fireflies in California, so it took a minute to figure it out. The last time I saw lightning bugs I was 8 years old, on the East Coast, in the backyard of my best friend's uncle's house, catching the fireflies in pickle jars, giving them names and detailed family histories.
Well. If fireflies don't exist in Buenos Aires, please don't tell me, because it means I'm much crazier than I realize.
And speaking of madness, Buenos Aires seems to be a more chaotic mess than usual with the paro del campo going on. No meat, chicken, or milk can get through to the capital. At least I'm learning a lot of new Spanish vocab and don't have to plan lessons this week, because every one of my students is content to give me a lesson on Argentine politics and what is going on right now and their opinion on the farmers, the strike, Cristina, and how she needs to cool it with the botox. And I am of course more than happy to listen, I have a pretty complete idea of what's going on now, much more than I could have just from reading the newspapers.
What I really wanted to post was this story, a well-known Buddhist story as retold by fantastic Bay Area writer Annie Lamott. I try to keep it in mind, especially with all the little things in my life that I'm worried about, like what the hell I'm doing with my life and the fact that I'm about to be living in a refrigerator box on Calle Florida because starting May 1st I will be homeless.
So here's the story:

An aging farmer in China one morning discovers that wild horses have crashed through the fences that surround his farm. "Oh, this is terrible," say the neighbors, looking at the wreckage. The farmer shrugs. "Good news? Bad news? Who knows?" Then the farmer's son is able to catch a few of the horses. "This is fantastic!" say the neighbors, watching the great horses in the corral. The farmer shrugs: "Good news? Bad news? Who knows." While trying to tame the last of the wild horses, the farmer's son is thrown, and breaks his leg. "Oh, this is awful," say the neighbors, knowing how greatly the aging farmer relies on his son. "Good news? Bad news? Who knows," says the farmer. And then, while the son is convalescing in bed with his badly broken leg, the Chinese army comes through the countryside, conscripting all the local able-bodied men for the war raging in the South...