Day and night

The East Side of Los Angeles on a Sunny Day from clark vogeler on Vimeo.

LA Light from Colin Rich on Vimeo.

(HT: The Daily Dish).

California Kills

I know, I know, from these posts, you'd think that California is all sunshine and lollipops. But let me tell you a secret. In California, deadly things lurk at every turn. I know this because I just confronted my first poisonous spider: a brown widow.

I failed to take a good picture of this beaut' because I was only willing to view it through the balcony's sliding door. However, it had a telltale orange splotch on its belly. (Was it an hourglass, exactly? I wasn't close enough to see, but what else has an orange splotch on its belly??) It had created a web stretching from the side of our camellia planter to the balcony wall. For hours, it just hung there, upside-down, giving me a good, long look at its belly.

I hate killing things, but this sucker had to go. Sorry, spider. I can be deadly, too. (OK, I'm being a bit unfair to the brown widow. Apparently their bites are rarely deadly.)

I have also been watching Shark Week on iTunes, where I learned that great white sharks are coming closer to shore than ever before. Tagged sharks were even traced to one of their favorite local hangout spots—right under the Santa Monica pier!

And don't even get me started on mountain lions, rattlesnakes, and everything else that can kill you on a hike.

Now, I know that these species are all largely misunderstood and that probably 99% of the time, deadly encounters are either very unfortunate mistakes or human-incited (shark thinks you're a seal; you stepped too close to a snake's hideout). But...they can still KILL you. So could a rabid subway rat, I guess, or a diseased pigeon, but this is a pretty big wildlife shift from the sights of old NYC.

image credits: shark, mountain lion

Jewelry stand

Until now, all of my "everyday" jewelry has been sitting in a cardboard USPS box next to my dresser. Yup, despite having been here about four months, I still had not unpacked it. In New York, I used the shelves of my old post-college TV stand (covered with a curtain) as extra storage for jewelry, lotions, etc. But I sold the little TV stand before we moved, hence the cardboard box.

I've been struggling to find a solution that works for me. I love little framed earring hangers, but what about necklaces and bracelets? (Even hangers with pegs wouldn't necessarily fit everything.) Jewelry racks and trees are cute, too, but I doubt I'd keep everything neat enough to always be on display. And once again, they probably wouldn't fit everything.

Most home stores sell every make and manner of plastic tray, but those would require clearing precious drawer space. I even considered a tackle box (cheaper than a large jewelry box, easy to transport in a move, and full of little compartments!), but don't have a good place to store one.

What I really wanted was a binder. I even thought about making my own, larger version of this jewelry book using a zippered binder and coin-collecting inserts, but I pictured the pages getting really heavy (and jewelry falling out). Seriously, though--wouldn't that be great? You could just stash the book in a drawer or on a shelf. Your stuff would be stored out of sight, but you could see everything neatly when you opened up the binder. It would be space-efficient and easy to transport.

At the end of the day, I did want things more or less out of sight. I wanted as much as possible stored in one place, and for it to be easily accessible on a day-to-day basis. I didn't want the responsibility of keeping things neat. (Plus, too much dangling jewelry might as well come with a sign that says "Fun shiny cat toys!")

In the end, I decided to try an inexpensive pastry stand. I have bracelets on top, earrings in the middle, and necklaces on the bottom. So far, it totally works! I can't see the jewelry unless I'm right next to the tray, so the "out of sight" element is pretty much covered. (Except for the 2 necklaces I chose to dangle, which can easily be moved.) Pieces are separated (no knots), but don't have to be neat. Everything is easy to access. The tray fits all of my "everyday" trinkets, and it seems that the cat could not care less about the new jewelry rack.

I know these home posts are not as exciting as the adventure posts, but now that we're done traveling for a little while, I'm happy that we're getting some things done here and taking steps to make the new place feel more like ours. It's the little things that count!