As temperatures soar through the 20s (or 70s, in local-speak) I've been doing a lot more sea-gazing from beaches and cliffs than writing. The waves have been awesome all week - I tried to photograph them and took so many shots I was out of battery by the time I reached Pillar Point where wet sand reflected the turquoise & pearl-pink of the sky in exactly matching luminosity. None of my pictures convey the impact of these long rolls of marbled water, barging into each other like rogue elephants, cresting erratically then detonating, sending shock-spumes of white spray spirally high - it's the ferocity and erratic rhythms that make this unending turmoil such compulsive viewing.
Equally constant, high and vast, is that unutterably blue Californian sky, cut with vapour trails like shimmering fireworks.
When the tide's out, practicing press-ups in preparation for later bombardment, you can play a game with the sea along the four miles of sand from Half Moon Bay to El Granada: the aim is to walk the line reached by the previous wave - identified by a rim of sparkling foam - adjusting to each oncoming deluge without getting wet jeans. Mostly the sea wins. On this beach I feel like Woman Thursday, I saw only one other person though plenty of plovers, sandpipers, and gulls, and one seal.
Later that evening, with freshly charged camera, I caught the most splendid sunset I've seen anywhere in the world.

With mid-term election results now in, I'm particularly lucky to be staying in California - and in a household where there's no discussion of politics, apart from the noncommital comment "We shoot Republicans on sight."
In The New Republic, Democratic journalist Jonathan Chait prophesies there'll be a move to impeach Obama. Not yet, but sometime, maybe soon. In a piece ominously entitled Scandal TBD he expands: " You can always find something... A poll found that 35% of Republicans already favor impeaching Obama, with just 48% opposed and the balance undecided. Wait, you say, what will they impeach him over? You're not thinking like a Republican. This is the Conservative view of Obama - a left-wing radical who seized power in an economic crisis, smuggled radical views into the White House, and used unfair tactics to force an unpopular transformative left-wing agenda upon a conservative country. Why would Republicans impeach Obama? The better question is, why wouldn't they?" So that's the news Stateside. And glum news it is.