New York City, June 25, 2015

★★★★ The three-year-old insisted on applying his sunscreen himself on the walk east, in the cool of morning. A tree crew was out with a cherrypicker on 67th Street, stripping small limbs off a bigger limb that twisted out and up beside scaffolding. Down in the Park, the soccer field was roped off with yellow caution tape as another tree crew got ready to work there. The would-be soccer campers dispersed, the three-year-old agreeing to take the southwest way out and to ride the downtown train. On the office roof deck, flies were clinging to the cornhole bags, or to the smell of whatever was inside them. The child wanted to know where he could get a flyswatter, prepared to fight whatever the outdoors might bring him. He soon judged the roof too hot, but went uncomplaining down all the stairs and blocks homeward. The sky with no special haste or severity ended up gray.