New York City, December 28, 2015

★ There were clear skies in the west! And then, by midday, there were not, as loose clouds overhead brought back the gray or removed the blue. The clouds pulled together more tightly till the whole sky was dark and the river looked brownish. Nothing was any better than it had been. Soon enough it was worse. A rattling against the windows at dinnertime was too crisp to be rain; a hand stuck out the window to investigate came back in with a hard little lump of fallen ice sticking to the side of a finger.