This morning, when a flannel shirt felt right, the flare from the rising sun made the photo seem too hot. But now an afternoon wind sweeps the scent of drying sage down the canyon and I fear the photo isn't nearly hot enough.

Soft skies this morning at Zuma beach:

Out to sea as the tide shifted:

And the moon set:

Le sigh.

(Alpaca at the San Juan County Fair in August.)

When the moon rises tonight at 6:39, it's already an astronomical event -- a supermoon. It'll be 20,000 miles closer, which will make it look almost 15 percent larger. Add in the lunar eclipse later on in the night (the schedule is here) and everyone is in an uproar.

NASA made a cute(sy) little explainer video; and here's an eclipse story from Wired.

Some info on where to watch in SoCal from KPCC, and from the LAT.

Meanwhile, the beach this morning, mostly gray and almost still. It's afternoon now and remnants of the marine layer are hanging tough, obscuring the sky and horizon. So despite understanding that if this haze does burn off it's because temps east of here have spiked into the 90s, I can't help rooting for clear coastal skies. In the name of moon science.

A driver near the civic center in Malibu makes his feelings clear.

You had to be up early to catch the pearly gray of today's marine layer, but at least it was there. Ocean temps here are setting records, and the effects, including a possible world-wide coral bleaching, are dire.

Throwback Thursday: Broad Beach in December 2006.

May we have some cooler weather? Pretty please?

Near dusk last night, the last of the birds, the first of the bats, and a coyote starts her bark. It's sharp, it carries, and a second coyote appears. He stands a few feet away, ears up, snout up, reads the canyon breeze. She keeps barking.

A minute in and you catch her rhythm, a triplet, loud soft soft, high low low, over and over and another coyote comes. He's a stranger, or maybe new because neither the barking coyote nor her watchful companion acknowledge him.

Darker and still she's calling. The stranger gets too close, gets reprimanded. Stars now, and all three are looking, scenting and listening when suddenly, seven coyotes. They're swarming, weaving and tumbling, circling, an ornate greeting of yips and snarls, bits of play and bursts of violence.

They're the color of the hills and if you move your gaze for an instant in this last light, you lose them. The barking ends, the greeting ends and they're on the move, up the hill, across the ridge by ones and twos, silhouetted, then gone.

Already 73 degrees at 6 am here at the coast. Ocean temps too warm to allow much overnight cooling and the sun as it rose promised another day of heat.

Out on the horizon, meanwhile, a smudge of wildfire smoke as the western edge of the country burns.

Long, long ago (and a short distance away) no building was allowed to rise higher than LA's City Hall:

For decades, developers lobbied the city to relax the restriction, to no avail. Los Angeles made only one exception: in 1926, it allowed its own City Hall to soar to 454 feet. It would remain the city's tallest building for 40 years.

Lots more about the history of the downtown LA skyline in that post by Nathan Masters, from KCET's wonderful blog, SoCal Focus.

Sand and waves -- the stuff of (Malibu) life.

They began to arrive yesterday, a few in the morning, more in the afternoon, and today there are 22 of them, sailboats and at least one catamaran moored beyond the surf line. Not a regatta and not a flotilla, neither a fleet nor a convoy (I checked), just a collection of little boats anchored in the Cove. Pretty.

Walter would like you to throwthrowthrowTHROW THE BALL.

The Tiny Labrador is pleased to have caught it.

We have clouds and sun and the occasional errant sprinkle. The landscape here feels stunned, birds perched, coyotes silent, every living green thing glowing after that unexpected drink.

Woke to rain at 2 a.m. and until just a few minutes ago, it was still falling. The Pacific is 75 degrees, the 1.75 inches of rain that fell downtown overnight shattered the record for not just the day but for the entire month of September, and it all came as we learned the Sierra snowpack is at its lowest level in five centuries.

In the Cove, the beach is gone and boulders swirl in the surf. Kayaks are floating away -- see the red one, suspended in mid-air? No normal, only extremes.

It rained this morning, just a sprinkle here in the hills above Zuma, a lot more in the Cove where an umbrella would have been nice, and a rainbow -- a double -- was best of all.

Sometimes this place just takes your breath away.

It's Admission Day for our fair state, an event once celebrated with special stationery. And because your faithful blogger is a bit nerdy (33 Across in today's NYT crossword, in case you needed proof) here's some Californiana to help celebrate the day, 165 years ago, that we joined the union.

It's fleet, the time from that first brush of summer to this angled light of not-quite fall. We could philosophize, or better yet, pretend it's not happening. In that spirit:

Not so long ago it was adios LAX--

...hello, San Juan Islands--

...where a sea plane splashed into a harbor.

A little fox came to visit.

On a farm, everything, the front gate--

...the cutting garden--

...the hens--

...sunflowers--

...apples--

...grapes:

...damson plums--

...even the garden pests--

...felt like a fairy tale.