Sunday

We've had quite a few spectacular storms over these last few days. Once or twice I've seen night fall outside, only to realize it was still mid-afternoon. The cloud cover was just so thick it actually blocked out all the sunlight. This tropical rainy season, two months old already, has reached its fullest potential I think, dumping awe-inspiring amounts of rain several times per day and then showering lightly a half-dozen times in the interstices. The terrible humidity I encountered when I first arrived here last October hardly ever breaks unless one of the downpours aligns with dusk; but the heat we were getting--in what would have been last autumn in the rest of the northern hemisphere--seems like it must be a late-season characteristic. There isn't enough time between the latest bluster and the next for it ever to get hot outside. It's now totally impossible to do anything without accounting for the coming storm. Last weekend, we dodged a couple violent systems while running around placing orders for two sweet formal áo dài's Sunshine can wear over our coming vacation. Yesterday, we were caught in the quickest and blackest storm I've seen yet while getting one of these custom dresses slightly altered. We got lucky today: the huge rainfall was early enough this morning to clear up again when we went to pick up Sunshine's finished orders, and we were home before it started up again. She now has some super nice nice new dresses for whatever formal events we might have tickets to in Nha Trang¹ in the coming week-plus. We'll be heading to this spectacular beach resort pretty early tomorrow morning and we'll return late on the fifteenth. While we're away, updates to this column might become sporadic and, well, thematic. Fair warning. [Cavin]