9am – Visibility from the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building is 50 miles.
M-ito came with me to work today. He did yesterday also. Yesterday he worked for three hours on two journal entries (he has to do ten this summer) on two books he’s read . He’s a voracious reader so this shouldn’t be a problem -but it is. He spent almost two hours this morning on one entry, then did some math problems and called it a day. I had to leave the office for a meeting at NYU for two hours so Momita looked in on him while I was gone. The rain storm hit about noon.
12 noon – Visibility from the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building is 0 miles; thunderstorm closes the observatories.
I got soaked on the way back to my office. I was wearing sandals so it could have been worse. I didn’t have an umbrella. It’s a good thing I brought a change of clothes. I took a half day off so at 1:30pm M-ito and I went to lunch. The rain was still coming down, almost sideways with the wind. By the time we came out of Rickshaw Dumplings on 23rd the rain had almost stopped and there was a little bit of sun.
2pm – visibility from the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building is 10 miles; the observatory is open again.
We walked up to the 34th and 5th avenue entrance. There was no line. We walked past empty red velvet ropes and brass stanchions in room after room. Men and women in red suits and caps directed us onward. There were only three elevators going up. We got off at the 80th floor, went up another elevator to the 86th and out onto the observatory there.
2:22pm – Visibility from the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building is 2 miles.
Clouds came in quickly. We could see down and a little ways out, maybe twenty blocks or so in all directions but the clouds were moving in quickly. We circled the observatory once then headed up to the 102nd floor. We had to pay $15 each extra for the trip.
2:35pm – Visibility from the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building is 0 miles.
Getting off the elevator the man in the red suit shook his head with a smile. The world was white around us, It was dizzying and disorienting. “Another storm,” he said. M-ito pressed his nose against the glass and said, “This is so cool!” It was like Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief and we were in Olympus in the middle of the clouds. We took pictures of each other and the man in the red suit took a picture of the two of us together with the white clouds as background. We walked around about fifteen feet to the other side and watched the clouds. They looked like thick cotton.
2:41pm – Visibility from the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building is 0 -10 miles
After about three minutes of watching the white shift and spin, then press up against the glass in front of us, a dark shadow appeared and the cloud thinned and M-ito and my mouth’s dropped open. We looked at each other as a hole in the clouds opened up and showed us the city below. The Flat Iron building and my office at the Mason’s Building stood out eleven blocks away. It was like hands had parted the white and made a special view just for us. The man in red called out to us, “Do you see it!” “Yes,” we called back looking at each other, then out at the city again. The clouds closed up as quickly as they had opened. We waited a few more minutes and it happened again. When the clouds closed up we headed for the elevator and down back to earth our feet floating off the ground.
2:58 – Visibility from inside M-ito and Dad-dito’s heads is unlimited.
