Thunder/rainstorm! At this hour of the morning very surprising. On est e'tonne'. This was why, on the first of January, I went to Rite-Aid and bought a beautiful black-and-white golf-umbrella. I've just finished reading Lady Der Ling's memoir: Such a wonder was that Dowager Empress, exemplifying just about everything that was bad and wrong with Ch'ing China, and knowing it. Speaketh the Dowager Empress: "Be sure not to tell her anything connected with the Court life and do not teach her any Chinese...The less she knows the better for us. I can see that she has seen nothing of our ordinary Court life, as yet. I wonder what she would say if she were to see one of the eunuchs being punished, or anything like that. She would think we were savages, I suppose...It is better that she should not see me in a temper, she might talk about it afterwards."

By the way, that spectacular rainbow/window in the sky we all saw one the 3rd of June is styled by meteorologists (and such) a "circumhorizon arc" ("Zircumbogen" auf Deutsch), who evidently don't know what else to call it. The one we saw here in Spokane was, apparently, a very big and bright one.