New York City, February 10, 2016

★★ What looked like mist out the window was fine, drizzly snow, which lost all distinction from rain as soon as it hit the pavement. It accumulated only on the fake leather of a broken desk chair lying with the trash. Before long it gave up and went away, and some tentative sun came out, a white disc at the edge of a clot of thicker gray. By midafternoon everything had gone back to full lumpy gray. The wait for the third grade to let out was deeply chilly without quite being frigid; the four-year-old was grouchy but not grouchy enough about it to agree to take shelter in the lobby. The clouds broke again late, in time to spread painterly effects across the west, as if in conclusion of some more congenial day.