Cradling a saucer and a demitasse of espresso, I’d thought about the swamp it had all been reclaimed from and of the clouds of gases that must have hung over it. And the oil fields that followed, the greasy plumes of industrial reek. And the ’70s heyday of smog, before the catalytic converter and unleaded gas.

Those bruised yellow skies had never quite returned, but not for lack of trying. Traffic was a waking nightmare, but it had less to do with overall density of vehicles than it did with streets closed for lack of maintenance or the wreckage from a fatal accident that was never cleared or traffic rerouted around an incoming column of Guards or burst water mains flooding or downed power lines snaking or some group desperately protesting the condition of the roads and highways.

All that aside, the price of gas had put enough hybrids on the road and knocked enough low-income types off their wheels that the air quality probably would have been at its best in years, if not for the occasional explosion and the constant pall of smoke drifting in from brush fires to the south, east, and north of the city.

When I thought about it, I often regretted buying the house in the Hills rather than the one I’d looked at in Santa Monica. Sooner or later the last stand would be made with our backs to the sea and our ankles in the surf. Not that I relished the thought of being there for that final scene. Far from the point of things, that would be.

I spent the bulk of the day tending to my garden and my collections. Rotating pots and planters in and out of sun, pouring water liberally here, misting there. A bit of mulch. Then inside, running a dust cloth over the tops of canvases and prints, an urn or two, the flickering screens of two video installations that faced each other in an otherwise empty hall, adjusting the setting on a humidifier for fear the air might become too dry in a room devoted to original pen and ink drawings.