New York City, August 26, 2014

★★★ Haze stained the edge of the sky. The two-year-old decided he wanted a sweatshirt, and had to be talked into settling for putting it in his backpack. The air was thicker and more difficult to breathe than it had been for weeks. By any standard other than the blissfully anomalous one of the preceding weeks, though, conditions were still gentle. The subway platform was not quite stifling, but the blast of air from an incoming train felt refreshing. The air conditioning on the crowded 1 was up to the task, by a narrow margin. On the D, condensation dripped and puddled on a seat. Aboveground was nicer than below. The haze submerged the Empire State Building and the Freedom Tower, but at midday, an enormous pile of snow-white cumulus stayed pristine up above it all. Even as the western sky went gray-white, a little freshness lingered. A Japanese maple on a rooftop stood up purple-red against the sky. Heat ripples cast wavy, trembling shadows on the apartment wall as the sun slipped behind the neighboring towers.