I’m sure that’s not really going to be borne out, but so far, it’s been a scorcher, which is really disorienting, even as familiar as we’ve become with the fact that the seasons have little meaning here.

We’ve been pretty domestic lately, since I returned from Alaska two weeks ago. We went for a hike last weekend (photo above), up to the old Nike Missile Site in the San Vicente Mountains. We had a gas leak at home, we saw Josh Rouse at Largo, we watched the debates (entertaining, mind-boggling), and we scored another second place at our new trivia place on Tuesday. I’ve been doing a little Obama campaign volunteering on the weekends, and last night, we had dinner with the newly engaged Heather and Brian and enjoyed Iron and Wine and the Swell Season at the Greek, our last concert of the summer. Glen Hansard has more energy than almost anyone I’ve ever seen in concert, and the show was really memorable, thanks in no small part to the unexpected appearance of famed Dinsey songwriter Richard Sherman, who serenaded us all with “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.” Only in L.A… We had brunch with Michael, Ali, and Maya this morning, and went on our second weekend of open house browsing. We’re at the beginning of the process of figuring out how you look for a house to buy, so we’re just seeing what’s out there (nice places, nice neighborhoods) and what it costs (too much, across the board). Oh well – we’ll keep looking. From my flight back from Anchorage last week: