This was the view from my office window yesterday afternoon. Bright sun, despite the wind and falling temperatures. I liked the way sunlight reflecting from my building’s windows cast long fingers of light across the street.

Below is what I saw on the way back to my office from a mid-morning coffee run earlier today.

A spare dusting of dry lake-effect snow swirled along the sidewalk like ghostly dervishes and collapsed between wind gusts into white patches along the edges of whatever had momentarily trapped it.

Later in the day, as significantly thicker snowflakes blew past my window, an instant shock of recognition kicked in and I fleetingly experienced that ineffable happiness of childhood when winter’s first flurries  are greeted by the excited cry: “It’s snowing!”