soft, irregular taps at my window. i get out of bed to find it's raining, but ever so lightly. we're supposed to have a thunderstorm tomorrow. i hope it's going to be a good one. one of the first years in english who'd lived for four years in singapore in the late 90s said to me that what she misses about life in the tropics are the thunderstorms. and immediately i see them in my mind - rainstorms in singapore are always impressive and slightly thrilling but never devastating - lightning splintering the darkened sky and torrential rain and lashing wind and from the living room i can see all the plants in the garden bent over - once a man-high, heavy pot of bougainvillea tilted right over and fell off its stand - and afterwards it took two of us to set it right again. the bats in the tree huddling and squeaking and the chameleons and lizards hiding under leaves and vines, waiting out the rain, and even the two small stone deer - we don't have gnomes, but we have a mother doe and her baby lurking under a small fern - shivering together, the curve of a fern leaf fragile cover for the stoic doe.