New York City, November 26, 2012

★★★ Bright and thoroughly bearable. The wind delivered a sharp poke now and then, but nothing that couldn’t be shaken off by zipping up another layer. It was hard to remember where, in all the pockets, the prescriptions for the baby’s cough had ended up. On the downtown train, a fellow passenger pointed out that the knit hat was forcing the smartphone up and out of the coat pocket, where some misguided thief might wrongly treat it as something of value. Occupying the width of the station steps, at eye level, were ascending boot tags: UGG UGG UGG UGG — ornate purple suede and plain black suede tromping upward together.