Saturday

I didn't mean to leave yesterday's post hanging. It was about umbrellas: how the little ones are convenient for carrying but not for using, and the big ones are the opposite. Here are two ways to tie the topic up: One, I found a folding umbrella at the grocery store that telescopes to about two-feet long closed; and it's as large as a golf umbrella opened. It was about six bucks. I'm returning for some more of them. This covered me during our four-day birthday retreat last weekend. Two (and the reason I was thinking about this yesterday), on Thursday night after perfect Japanese noodle soup with a perfectly fried egg floating in it, I went to Lush, a club near the corner of Lý Tự Trọng and Tôn Đức Thắng streets, and retrieved my lost black umbrella. It had been thirteen days since I'd left it in a locker there, but they still had it. I'm very happy about that. During all this rain protection talk I've forgotten to mention all last week's flooding. The very Friday afternoon that we flew to the soggy central highlands city of Dalat all hell broke over Hồ Chí Minh City. It rained so hard during the last ninety minutes of the workday that many streets in the usually somewhat safe downtown area were flooded--including those streets right outside Sunshine's office building. Parts of central downtown were under nearly two feet of floodwater just in time for rush hour traffic. Scooters and cars stalled out all along downtown Hồ Chí Minh City's busiest streets, and gridlock stalled remaining traffic for kilometers in every rain-soaked direction.* Of course, we were safely in the air between rainstorms and by the time we came home Tuesday, all was right with the world again. [Cavin]