Beyond the gated arbor you step into a garden providing a veritable feast for the senses. Flowers bloom in profusion. Arbors provide shade and a ready supply of red and white grapes. Orange trees bask in the sunlight, herbs perfume the air, new world vegetables, old world vegetables, dwarf trees and bushes with fruits from around the world grow in abundance. Talk about your fresh produce!

Watering even such a small garden would seem to be a full-time job in the hot California sun. A closer look reveals tiny water lines interwoven with the foliage and the arbor supports. Drip emitters deliver water directly to the plants, and flash evaporation from the micro-drop mist system keeps the oasis pleasant on even the hottest days.

Isn't there a law that requires every house in California with running water to have at least one hot tub? To stay in compliance with that state ordinance, the obligatory hot tub stands ready for use in a shaded corner.

Wicker furniture provides a comfortable place to sit and talk, to look out at the garden, to listen to the sounds of the city, or to relax at the end of the day. And, since cats and comfort are all but inseparable, a large spotted outdoor cat has taken on the thankless and never-ending job of quality control in the garden. This tireless soul selflessly tests the furniture for the proper degree of comfort, tests the sunbeams for a sufficient degree of warmth, tests the water for the proper degree of wetness, and ensures that the catnip plants show the proper degree of respect for the comfort quality control cat. And, having a very busy schedule, the quality control cat has no time to indulge in idle chit-chat or the human adulation so richly deserved; a half-glimpsed tail vanishing into the garden tends to be the most permitted view granted to mere humans.