With the advent of some much needed rain, I couldn't resist the opportunity to capture just how breathtaking these flowers can be. The colors were truly so deep and lush and velvet; the raindrops on the petals seemed like multi-faceted crystal world's, each complete in itself until; becoming more and more swollen it spills out and, amoeba-like joins its neighbor.

Rain is an odd thing, if you think about it. We often wish it away, or at least for a more convenient time, we fuss when we get wet and, certainly in California, we drive badly. Perhaps rain is especially relevant to me because I grew up in Africa where the effects of rain or no rain are a little more obvious, a somewhat harsher reality to be sure. I vividly remember reading a newspaper story in which a first grader in the Kalahari, which granted is a desert, but this little guy, at 7 years old had never seen rain - never! He didn't know what it was, which was what the story was about, but it really stuck in my mind, 7 years old and never seen rain.

Rain in Africa is also different than rain here, at least in California. You really can't miss that it's raining when it rains. Rainstorms for me meant summer, between 4 and 4:30p - you can almost set your watch - dramatic build up, darkening cloud mass and electricity in the air; humidity, so much so that when it did rain, the streets and pavements steamed like a sauna. The thunder and lightening was often spectacular, although quite frightening and several people are killed each year. Houses have lightning conductors built onto them - and you never take a bath, use the computer or call a friend during a storm - or at least so goes the lore, but most of us stuck to it, just in case. The rain is hard, torrential at times and like a tantrum, no sooner is the energy expended, then it's back to sunny smiles and you wouldn't know there'd been a cloud in the sky - until about 4pm tomorrow that is.