New York City, December 18, 2016

★★ The remaining chunks of snow were incongruous to the point of being baffling in the warmth of morning: How had that only happened a day ago? The rain jacket, turned up after a ransacking of the coat closet, was barely needed for warmth and not at all for dryness in the late morning. But the clouds coming from the west grew heavier again, and the wind moaned over the building, and rain started ticking against the windows. A crack of light ran across the north, below the lumpy and undulating cloud bottoms, but nothing broke apart even as the light through the crack turned pink with sundown. After dinner, the snow at the foot of the wall in the forecourt had made it through the thaw, and people were already back to bundling up again.