Pups saddle up to the Pawbar at Belmont Shore’s Pussy & Pooch

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
The Belmont Shore retail nook that was once occupied by Wiskers now belongs to Pussy & Pooch, but the two shops’ shared affinity for cats and dogs is purely coincidental: P&P was already looking to expand from its flagship location in [...]

Forget 2010: Make your New Year’s resolution today at Naples Fitness Studio

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Since opening in Dec. 2006, Naples Fitness Studio has provided personal training to area residents—from a 13-year-old Junior Olympic water polo player to an 87-year-old woman and fitness seekers of all ages in between—led by owner David Rosett, who sees an [...]

Connect with yourself at Everyday Zen

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Massages are typically regarded as a means to an end, the end being temporary relief from back or neck pain, or relaxation, or both. In the hands of a good therapist, this is an end fairly easily reached: you tune out, the therapist does her job [...]

Turn your lawn into a natural wonder with Apiana Native Landscaping

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
We’re standing at the edge of a small garden on the campus of Fremont Elementary School when Brady Redman pulls a few leaves from one of the plants below and hands them to me. “Rub those in your hands and then smell [...]

Taste it all at the Wine Country

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Neatly tucked in one of Signal Hill’s sleepiest business districts (National Guard building, post office and quiet bakery adjacent) lies the unassuming Wine Country. The sprawling beverage hall echoes upscale markets and cavernous liquor emporiums in selection and quality-of-stock but does little else to recall [...]

Re-purposing ‘junk’ at the Long Beach Depot for Creative Reuse

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Thousands of hopeful submissions to President Obama’s new electronic wish list sit expectantly at change.gov, waiting to be read and considered in the nation’s future plans. Among them is one sent by 46-year-old Long Beach resident Lisa Hernandez. “Share your vision,” the Web [...]

Revisit roller-skating at Moxi Roller Skates

PHOTO by MICHAEL ZAMPELLI
If City Manager Pat West gets his way, Long Beach will one day be known as the most bike-friendly city in the nation—this after the city has already been recognized as the home of the upcoming Toyota Grand Prix and, to a lesser extent (okay, a significantly [...]

Don’t let 2009 become one big fitness fail. Join the party at South Bay Fit Camp

PHOTO by CAROLYN OZIMOK
Surely there is a special treadmill reserved in hell for personal trainers to sweat upon for eternity. (The incline would of course increase ever so slowly—never to the point of being physically impossible, just stupidly painful.) At [...]

The ecstasy and agony of eBay for the holidays
For 10 years, the bright spot on Black Friday has always been eBay. What started as a place to buy and sell Pez dispensers has—and you know you know this—morphed into a bazaar selling everything from the King of Cambodia’s sports car to a Russian MiG fighter [...]

Rose Park Neighborhood Association holds its first-ever Restoration Trade Fair

PHOTO by SARAH G. VINCI
When you buy a historically significant house—be it bungalow, Spanish style or miscellaneous—your signature on the mortgage (initial here, here and here) just opens the floodgates.
Cast-iron drainpipe rusted out after 70 years? Get busy and run a new one, unless you’d rather [...]