New York City, January 12, 2015

[No stars] What had been a promising rumor of snow was now the joyless, inconvenient fact of rain and darkness. The rain came on harder, softened, intensified again. At elementary-school pickup time, it was light and bearable; ten or fifteen minutes later, when the substitute teacher finally gathered and brought out the second graders, it had become a soaking downpour. A stream poured from a scaffold. Uncollected dog turds melted and spread. The second-grader’s knit gloves, clutching his umbrella, got drenched. A taxi was necessary to get from the preschool to the swimming lesson — or not to the swimming lesson, but to the nearest non-flooded stretch of curb. After the swimming, wet socks went back on.