Mostly sunny

GOOD AFTERNOON! HALF of Indignity is off the grid traveling until tomorrow—unhooked from the internet, can you imagine?—so we are publishing on an abbreviated schedule this week, picking back up in earnest tomorrow. In the meantime, here are today's and yesterday's reviews of yesterday's and Sunday's weather. No archival sandwiches, but I did have peanut butter and strawberry jam on white bread today.

WEATHER REVIEWS

New York City, May 18, 2025

★★★★ Clouds were strung together like beads. A dark t-shirt soaked up enough sun to counteract a breeze that made the dappled shade flicker rapidly. The leaves along the Loch thrashed and showed their pale sides; red bells of columbine swung. Poison ivy and Virginia creeper were up and pushing through the low fences. A young fisherman at the Meer held up his catch for the camera and then let it go flipping back into the water. The badminton birdie on the astroturf play field twitched sideways on its short drop toward the racquet and then went swerving away from the direction in which it had been struck. Clearly defined raccoon footprints, toes downward, descended the otherwise spotless brushed metal face of a new garbage bin. Elm samaras were being ground to paste on the pathway back through the Loch. More than a dozen birders were set up by the birds' bathing falls above the Pool, sitting like spectators in the bleachers. A whole acoustic ensemble, complete with drum kit, was playing quietly on the lawn. The white flowers growing where the honeysuckle had been turned out, up close, to be wild roses. The perfect balance of the sky tipped over to the clouds, then restored itself again. 

New York City, May 19, 2025

★★★★ The stiff breeze under the clear, deep sky gave a brief confusing impression of October. The sun was higher than that, though, high enough to discourage looking at the phone screen while walking, in case a blinding glare came in over the shoulder. In the patch of sunlight on the balcony, the computer got so alarmingly hot it seemed more prudent to move back inside. The fresh air coming indoors, though, was chilly enough to be falsely demoralizing, even as the leaves outside the window ruffled and birdsong poured in.