Mahjong!

[This'll be brief - it's fairly late, and I'm beat!]

The day began by defying all promises of thunderstorms, only to dash our hopes later by delivering just that. Dark clouds, plenty of thunder, and big, fat, luscious drops of rain took center stage all day.

We had no recourse but to hunker down indoors, pull out all the food and drink on hand, and -- the mahjong set. I had a brief warmup session two days ago, so tonight, my mother declared we needed to raise the stakes, and play for money. Gulp.

Three and a half hours later, I emerged, bruised and battle scarred, but with enough victories under my belt to retain just a modicum of self-respect.

Good night!