Temperatures cooled down enough last night for Steve to turn off the A/C, so now through the open bedroom window I listen to a single sparrow chirp, chirp, chirp like a slow metronome. The cicadas still hum, and beyond the animal voices I hear the far-off mutter of expressway traffic, closer roar of a truck, clipped whine and whoop of a cop car.

It was fun to meet Tom in town yesterday. I miss him so when I'm on the road, and it is nice to think that we can gradually work out ways to be together a little more often during my long travel stretches. This evening we'll be doing our parental duties--meeting up with our son's partner's family in Manhattan, going with them to a show--but the rest of our Saturday is open. So we've decided to check out this spectacle: a public art project in which 40 life-sized buffalo puppets stampede through downtown Brooklyn. I have high hopes that this will be strange and wonderful, but maybe it will just be a crowded mess. With a spectacle, one never knows.