Rose Bowl, episode 3. In which we stop to smell the succulents.

Feeling slightly less itinerary-bound than during my own epic five-day LA 50th birthday weekend, Mari and I had some unusually unheard-of free time when it was her turn to celebrate being fifty. Here we are spending some of that free time enjoying a nice walk in the late summer sunshine along the Pacific Coast Highway pedestrian path in Santa Monica.

Once again, we cozied up to the comforts of the Channel Road Inn but managed to spend a little more than just a few "down" minutes each day enjoying our special room. Thanks, again, to the wonderful staff for your warm welcome (and cookies!) and indulgent birthday pampering. 

Here is the site again should you wish to pursue your own pampering. I'm hoping an annual visit makes its way onto our own travel calendar.

channelroadinn.com

At right, Mari is leading your gaze out to the famed Santa Monica pier that we strolled last time (after paying an inexplicably excessive $15 for parking).

The pedestrian-friendly path alongside the restlessly hectic PCH overlooks the beach below and is itself beautifully lined with flourishing flora and luscious succulents.

We explored a little more of our lush Santa Monica surroundings this time around and enjoyed the somewhat touristy but bountifully festive Santa Monica Place.

A combination of indoor and outdoor shopping mall with plenty of restaurants as well as a movie theater, Santa Monica Place was easily accessible, even walkable from the Pier, but there is also plenty of street parking and a (paid, of course) parking garage.

Be sure to visit the site to do a little pre-planning and to explore your dining options. As you know, Mari and I are fond of the Cheesecake Factory and found ourselves sampling birthday cheesecake on more than one occasion.

santamonicaplace.com

I am fortunate to be a man of few regrets and fortunately most of those regrets merely involve inconsequential longings associated with unpurchased fleamarket finds. Pictured atop the vintage sideboard above is a set of bone china I kind of wish hadn't gotten away that Saturday, but I'm not really sure where the mid-century Royal Vale tea set would have ended up in our home. Mari may be forever grateful that I did not introduce yet another set of dishes or tea set into our life, but at least I was able to snap a photo and walk away without too much trauma. Besides, we had just barely made our entrance into the vintage/antique section of the Rose Bowl flea and there was still plenty of appetizing acreage for my collector's gaze to patrol.

One of the things I like about the Rose Bowl flea is that vendors are allowed to pull up to their reserved spot and unload and display as they see fit. As a vendor, that is the ultimate in convenience. The Long Beach flea, on the other hand, proffers vendors' goods in uncomplicated and neatly ordered rows of tables and booth displays. If you have ever schlepped boxes and unwieldy packages of items for flea sale from a distant parking lot to your assigned 10' x 10' space, then you will appreciate the convenience of the Rose Bowl flea for vendors.

The arrangement also allows for colorfully eclectic shopping experiences like this...

And this retro-friendly favorite...

I caught Mari mid-beeline as her own collector's gaze eyed a charmingly beat-up metal toy truck she plans to turn into a charmingly beat-up planter (for a succulent, of course). Creative vendors like these lend an industrial-sized fleamarket like the Rose Bowl personal charm and give shoppers, browsers, and collectors a memorably charming (or charmingly memorable) experience.

Among my own purchases that Saturday were some additions to a favorite collection. My previously pictured and blogged typewriter ribbon tin collection (NYC Markets revisited, episode 6) received four new old additions.

Not to worry, I bundled the transaction from a single vendor who actually happened to be the only vendor among the hundreds we browsed with typewriter ribbon tins for sale.

Again, it is the font-fabulous graphics and striking colors that draw me to these miniature collectibles. I also appreciate their diminutivity (just trying it out, relax) which makes them fun to collect from faraway markets and likewise easy to drop into bubble-wrap pouches for safe travels.

The living room display is gill-packed now, but makes me happy.

More fleamarketing from the Rose Bowl (and beyond) next time.

NYC Markets revisited, episode 6. In which I share a new type of collection.

I gave myself a little homework assignment this past week because there are very few things
I dislike more than ambiguity (even more than I dislike homework.) Just how many collections are there in our home?  How many have I acknowledged thus far?
As I was preparing to share the newest additions to my typewriter-ribbon tin collection (yes, that's a thing), I couldn't remember having previously acknowledged it (a passing mention in Chicago-Indiana-Michigan, episode 8).

So, I did what any obsessed collector-traveller-documentarian-(slightly OCD) listmaker would do...

...I made a(nother) list.

In previously blogged order...

owls * white milkglass * paperweights

vintage cameras * vintage razors * cuff links

signed books * Starburst dinnerware * vintage linen tablecloths

Christmas nutcrackers * watches * license plates

snuff bottles * old bottles * Playbills/theater tickets

head vases * vintage tins * porcelain bells

typewriter-ribbon tins * Peanuts collectibles * mortar & pestle sets

roosters * Florentine wood items * teapots & teacups

The length of the list surprised me, but it shouldn't have.  There are indeed many transported treasures that I have not yet shared with you and I also did not include Mari's previously pictured vintage jewelry finds.
Let's just add "jewelry" to the list and call it a (collectors') day.  Eventually, some of our discoveries move on to the hands and hearts of other collectors as we travel and find new pieces for our ever-rotating displays.

One of the best pieces of collecting and organizing advice we ever learned was from professional organizer, Peter Walsh, whose series Clean Sweep was a regular edu-tainment fixture in our home.  This was the program in which beleaguered (not quite yet hoarders) homeowners would drag the entire contents of their overwhelmed homes onto front lawns and driveways so couples could fully appreciate (or not) the magnitude of their stuff.  Peter would eventually guide (sometimes force) his clients to the realization that people are more important than objects and only the most loved items would find their way back into freshly painted and organized rooms.  Peter's final piece of advice before leaving was always, "If you bring in something new, get rid of something old."

Armed with Peter Walsh's advice, Mari and I frequently evaluate our ever-expanding collections (and our deeply-diminishing display space) and a resulting yard sale or eBay purge ensues.  I am approaching that "about to burst" stage of one of my newest collections, but was still able to squeeze in two more typewriter-ribbon tins in the lighted living room display cabinet/entertainment center after returning home from our recent Grand Bazaar NYC visit.  Like most of my collections, I did not start out to collect typewriter-ribbon tins.  I didn't even know such a thing existed or that it was collectible.  I know I grew up with typewriters and there was a manual typewriter in our basement upon which I clickety-clacked habitually through my senior year at Sleepy Hollow High School.

Boy if that baby could talk!

I remember changing the cloth, ink-soaked ribbons on that typewriter a few times back in the day, but I don't recall their packaging.  I certainly don't remember finding them in elaborately embellished tins like the ones I started collecting about fifteen years ago.  I do remember first coming across a few of these tiny font-fabulously emblazoned tins at the monthly West Palm Beach Antiques Festival during a holiday visit to my parents and, since I already collected old tins, curiosity got the better of me and I started a new collection.

The typewriter above is one of the last items I purchased at Picker's Paradise in Niles, Michigan before moving to Texas in August of 1989. I knew it would make a great addition to our future home, representing a formerly-functional yet artfully-crafted connection to a past era as well as a sentimental link to our soon-to-be-deeply-missed Midwest.  What I didn't know was that eventually there would be an appropriately accompanying typewriter-ribbon tin collection to display alongside said sentimental link.

Below is a glamor shot of the entire collection along with some IBM Selectric font elements from the 1970s and 1980s down in front (let's not count that as another collection, please, just a subset).  I am always amazed at the detail on some of these.  Remember, this is basically a box that most office workers or home typists perhaps threw away or hopefully reused to store paperclips or thumbtacks or other tiny office supply storables.  When I came across that vendor at the South Florida Fairgrounds so long ago, I had no idea what I was getting into.  I just liked tins!  And of course I liked typewriters, and fonts, and after purchasing three delicately dinged-up tins for twenty dollars I was well on my way to a new old collection.  I don't come across these very often, but when I do I try to buy the tins with curiously-combined color combinations and cool retro graphics.

I confess, I'm a bit of a font fanatic.  Normally, I like to keep it simple (as with the elegant authority of the Helvetica I've chosen to represent my inner thoughts throughout this blog), but I am a great admirer of the subtle artistic effect a decorative font can have on something as intentionally and essentially functional as a storage container for a typewriter ribbon.  Occasionally, I'm lucky enough to find an intactly wrapped ribbon inside a fleamarketed tin like the round red-cellophaned KeeLox ribbon above.  Should I ever enter that lapse in the space-time continuum that will allow me to put my previously plundered slide rule (Chicago-Indiana-Michigan, episode 2) to practical use I will also be prepared with a freshly inked ribbon for my vintage Royal.

We begin the big thaw in New York next time.