New York City, June 13, 2013

★ Everyone was preparing for the worst. The kindergartener put his rain boots on and the sneakers in the book bag, instead of vice versa. Dropoff had been moved indoors, which usually never happened unless the schoolyard was being inundated. But the forecast and the radar and Twitter and the naked eye were in accord: It was on its way, like the far end of a gate swinging shut. At last it arrived, lightning and straight-falling rain, as the southern faces of buildings turned brighter than their eastern ones. In 15 or 20 minutes, that rain passed. Things were happening in the sky. The clouds were pinched and creased into dark and uncanny forms; a pale ribbon or sine wave, an undulating slash, ran north-south above the river. Rain crashed down and abated and crashed again, hour after hour, without pattern or tendency. Out in the evening, the ground was soaked and a drizzle was falling. A deliveryman passed through the lobby, wearing an official Seamless parka and, as a hat, a Seamless plastic delivery bag tied around his head.