New York City, August 21, 2012

★★★ Superior cloud-watching. In the morning, thin high stripes of white and pale blue stretched north and south, against the deeper blue. A contrail cut across them at a 20 degree angle, like a stray white thread on a bolt of patterned cloth. The whole fabric of it kept moving north, or north-northeast, and the straight lines gave way to feathery whorls, likewise northbound. Outside under it, the sun came through untenderly, not to be trusted around babies. The babies were covered by cloth, by sunshade, by sideways headflap on the baby-wearing harness, by color-coordinated stroller-mounted parasol. Keep the babies in the shadows. Day’s end brought ridiculous painterliness in the west: gray-blue puffs rimmed with gold, pulling apart to show robin’s-egg blue; a progression of rose-blossom colors, from peach-colored rose through rose-colored rose on into the deep magentas, those roses people buy when a dark-red rose just isn’t red enough.