A friend (Hi Diana!) and I were in Chinatown a few weeks back, lost in the maze of an indoor shopping bazaar, when we saw this emphatic sign about the price of these baby blankets. OK?

Hot dog.

Thirsty dog.

Happy dog.

Things are always flying off the golf carts that, present company excepted, people use to reach the beach here in Paradise Cove. Towels, trowels, bits of surf gear, t-shirts, sunscreen and the occasional bikini bottom have been left by the side of the road. And often enough, here's where they end up, on this concrete wall, our unofficial (and not always efficient) lost and found.

Because the guys working on my house are replacing the 1973 mobile home paneling with drywall, and because those same guys are replacing the 1973 single-pane window, which chatters like a talk show host in any gust of wind, with a strong-and-silent (and energy efficient!) window, and because they're swapping my 1973 sink and leaky faucets with a new sink and non-leaky faucets, this all required taking everything out of my bedroom and bathroom so they could actually do the work, which means the rest of the house is, well, you can just imagine.

Anyway, all I have to offer you today is this sunrise.

No walls + no bathroom = no language.

Kablam!

We've been hearing about the higher temps out there, over there, inland from here, I mean. On our slice of coast, so far, it's been foggy and foggier, cool as an evening breeze.

Here's what greeted Cove residents headed out early this morning -- an enormous eucalyptus whose roots gave way in the night.

It's blocking the road now as crews saw it to bits and haul it away, and the people in the houses next door breathe sighs of relief that it fell this way and not the other.

Even the citrus vendors are getting into the spirit of Halloween at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market with grapefruit:

And lemon:

And a navel orange:

So the big white pickup is jammed into the driveway and the big black air compressor is roaring on the deck and the two guys who make using enormous power tools look easy are dismantling stuff.

Big stuff.

Like my bedroom.

Which means the entrance to the house is an obstacle course:

And the study now holds a bed, which the pets have decided is the only safe place to be. And since everything in the bedroom and bathroom is now everywhere else in the house, this vase of sweet peas has become inordinately important in that it could be all that stands between me a prescription for Valium.

Dear Internet,

I know, I skipped posting for a day or two. Thank you for noticing. Thank you for not swearing like a sailor yelling in a loud voice in your emails. Speaking of emails, do I owe you one? I will send it. Ditto for phone calls. Also, the check is in the mail.

Here's today's sunrise, the first spill of sun on the horizon.

Ahhh, better now.

So, why are things fraying a teensy bit around the edges? Nothing major really, nothing too big, just the fact that Phase Three of the Great Remodel of '09 has begun and my bedroom is torn up and I'm living out of boxes and sleeping in the study and the cat just had a $200 vet visit and the truck has a flat tire and and oh! Is that a deadline pounding on my door?

The days broke gloomy all weekend, a lowering sky, slate gray, light shifting so slowly it felt time had stopped.

Amid the muted, muddied colors though, this lone datura glowed, sleek and white and toxic, a ghost amid the spiky brush.

One of the best-kept fast-food secrets in Malibu is the take-out window at Tra Di Noi. While diners get table service on the lovely, shaded patio, those willing to stand in line can browse a more casual menu, and get treated to more creative spelling.

Remember this?

It wasn't easy:

They certainly called in the big guns:

But now it's this:

Here's the view from atop the Santa Monica mountains this morning, looking over the west Valley:

And here's the view over the eastern edge of Ventura county.

Pea soup.

Make no mistake, that's a promise of revenge in the little dog's eyes.

Meanwhile, why is the creek foaming?

The creeks around here flood when it rains, funnel every errant drop of water down to the ocean, where the force of the flow breaks through the sandy berm. This time, though, the rain came early. The annual scouring storms that shift the sand have yet to do their work, so the beach still has its summer heft.

Tonight, if the promised second storm arrives, the creek will flood again and this time, the channel will be complete. But for today, anyway, we have a new lagoon.

It's still today, the sky so low it suppresses sound, bounces light off the bay, gray all over, a single sailboat barely swaying.

So, the Malibu Pie Festival. A few hundred people:

watching judges:

as they sampled several dozen pies:

Among them, a certain apple pie:

Not among them -- a fresh cherry pie that was so fragrant, so sweet and lovely it never quite made it out of the kitchen:

And look! Another ribbon for the apple pie, 2nd place -- red -- this time. (There were actually two more ribbons in the past few years but I lost one and Maisie ate the other.)

Meanwhile, here's that apple pie when the slices went on sale a few moments after the judging. A little later, all gone.

A long-held sentiment in one of our more remote canyons.

You can't bake just any old pie for the Malibu Pie Festival. It has to be your best effort, with fabulous ingredients and a visit to Surfas, the baking emporium where all things are possible and, quite possibly, for sale.

Like rolling pins:

...and baking pans:

...and spices.

...and oh! The chocolate!

And should you make it out alive and perhaps need the sort of drink that looks best with a tiny umbrella, well, Surfas can make that happen, too.

As with every event in Malibu, first comes the sign:

Then comes some shopping:

See Canyon Apples at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market:

Absurdly delicious apples, and excellent customer service

Next comes the fun part -- baking:

Everything about this moment -- the gathered clouds, the slate gray sea, a horizon obscured:

...all of it says autumn in our little slice of coast.

Even if I'd had something other than my little point-and-shoot with me, I'm not sure I could have mustered the will to do much more than point and shoot at this tractor/dozer/backhoe combo, which is just one of the enormous pieces of machinery presently decimating one of my favorite hillsides.

Once upon a time, before there was PCH, a family-owned railroad ran along the coast of Malibu.

Here's an old street sign at the top of one of our canyons, homemade and, so far, untouched by vandals or city code enforcers.

Jake the Giant Puppy Dog weighs 111 pounds. We know this because he had a vet visit yesterday, where he bravely balanced his bulk on one of those jittery platform scales. In his mind's eye, though, in his deepest secret soul, Jake is sure he's a two-pound chihuahua.

He loves tiny dogs, quivers with joy when he meets them, is ever so gentle as he sniffs their little heads. The tiny dogs, they're thinking helpmehelpmehelpmePICKMEUP! But Jake, he's all ahhh, my people.

Which is just a convoluted lead-in to the look on Jake's face here, a game of catch in Bluffs Park, in which my sweet behemoth is sure he's fooled us all, run and hidden in the two-foot scrub, utterly invisible. How will we ever find him?

I was pretty happy with the little pumpkin that managed to survive the hungry gophers in my garden this year. Being adorable:

...outweighed being inadequate:

And then, at the market yesterday, we saw this pumpkin (make that PUMPKIN!) which needed not just a pickup truck to haul it:

...but some serious restraints to block its escape: