Echeveria Sempervivum

I woke this morning with Spike's nose touching mine. He was staring as fixedly at me as he does at his Kong when he's trying to get it to move. 
The difference was that it worked with me. I got up, fired up the coffee machine and took Spike down the driveway  to get the newspaper. He has no clue how to fetch the newspaper but he loves to chase around the lawn after the Kong.

When David delivered the bathtub yesterday he gave me a website to go to to order bathtub and shower fixtures. It turned out to be two hours of navigating a minefield of choices and combinations...rain shower or hand held shower,  or both? Multi function or single function shower? Diverters...what are those? Faucets seemed fairly straightforward (except for the diverter part) but 90% of the shower heads can't be shipped to California because they do not meet the maximum water flow of 1.8 gallons per minute.  The ones that are California compliant won't ship for months. The website had a 'project  notebook' but was opaque about how to add or remove things. I had to write an email that was longer than the order list just to explain it to David. He'll be rolling his eyes when/if he reads it....

The weather has definitely changed.  It was cool and cloudy all day. No rain but the promise of some is encouraging. This hump season can't be counted on one way or the other yet, but I suspect it will warm up again before it rains. I looked around for some fall color which can be found in other parts of town in abundance, but not so much here where the oak trees have either burned or still have brown leaves on them. They aren't ever going to fall off but some of them are deciduous and haven't shown any sign yet of changing color. We have a Chinese pistache planted at the bottom of our driveway and it IS changing color, but it's still pretty small and not ready to make the splash it will in a couple of years.

One thing we DO have in abundance is succulents...the bugs don't eat them, nor do the rodents. They don't mind the summer heat and will even survive the occasional frosty night. I love today's shot of an echeveria sempervivum...well, I love the plant anyway. Sometimes known as hens and chickens they usually spread out on the ground, but this one, planted in a smallish pot has chosen to grow up. I fiddled with the color a bit as it was looking a bit wan in the cloudy light, so I will call it' iPhoto color' rather than 'seasonal color'.
 
Life is a bit boring right now, especially as I'm not very motivated to go out and seek adventure, but I'm not bored.  I assure  anybody who has made it this far that boring is good this fire season....