Living in Long Beach, CA

≈Our little duplex (built in 1959) is located in Long Beach, California, at the corner of an alley and . . . well, the city considers the other a "street", but really, it's also an alley.  In Metropolitan cities, you often find these little places, which, because of a lack of uniform building codes during their early history, were "grandfathered in", and continue to exist even though they don't fit into any version of modern city planning designs.  And also, because our "Villa" is located in a rather "urban" setting, we have a remarkable number of people who use our alley.  We have friendly ones, like dog walkers, kids learning to ride their bikes, and Moms out for a walk with their babies in strollers.  And we have a whole mixed group of "unfriendlys".

The "Unfriendlys" are mostly comprised of people, or things, that make living in our location a drag.  Oversized, loud delivery trucks, which drop off supplies to the local business.  Groups of intoxicated adults, who use our alley to walk between two local bars.  Lazy employees, who drive down our alley at God awful speeds to work, instead of using the local city streets.  Various of "trash pickers".  And last, but not least, opportunistic thieves.

While we've lived here, thieves have stolen such a strange variety of things.  Plants right out of my garden.  A bear doorstop I kept by our kitchen door.  An exterior light fixture.  Halloween jack-o-lanterns.  And at least 100 other items.  They have broken into my daughter's car on several occasions.  One enterprising thief even walked into my first floor unit kitchen through the unlocked screen door, while I was in another room, to take what they could carry out.

CSULB Winter Festival Concert decorations at the First Congregational Church of Long Beach

As you can imagine, this setting is not ideal for someone like me, who likes to decorate for the holidays.  Anything that is put outside has the potential to be taken.  I have learned the hard way to think carefully about how I handle any decorating I do.  This year for Christmas, I decided to make some decorative solar lights.  I had seen something like them at Target, Home Depot, and Lowes.  But, cost and replaceability are the two most important factors in any design for our "Villa".  And Target items are too pricey.  So . . . I came up with my own version of "Snowman Solar Stakes".  They are pretty cute, and definitely, inexpensive enough, I made extras to replace the ones which will disappear during the holiday season.