New York City, September 22, 2015

★★★ The clouds were smooth and solid but unfraught with rain. The four-year-old needed his jacked, meaning the four-year-old needed his name written in his jacket. The sun was a white spot. Flattened, matted horse dung had been aging in the roadway. In the middle of the morning, light came through as if it meant to, but then went away again. The clouds were the same color as before but their aspect was changed, lumpier. Then they broke up into an afternoon hodgepodge, clouds of all shades and kinds, high and low, little ivory cumulus puffs in the distance and big dark ones nearer at hand. There was even some sun — enough to flood the landscape along Broadway before dinner, to brighten Columbus Circle and Lincoln Center and the Ansonia, and to shine on the white bricks of the little veterinary hospital on the cross street. Bright pure silver-white stood above pink shreds, and then the silver went pink, a full florid sundown routine. The chill on the night air, on the way to get tissues and medicine, was the only thing that made the sinuses feel any better.