I feel blue. In this time of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s I feel an oppressing pressure to be joyful. Solitude -which I treasure- turning into loneliness at warp speed and in slow motion at the same time. I do envy those who truly like being alone. And regret not being one of them. I am grateful for so much and so many but today I just feel blue. Winter creeping on me both physically and metaphorically.
Remember the movie Inside Out? On Halloween the year the movie was out (2015), I dressed up as one of the characters: Sadness. So this is an accurate portrayal of my state of mind now.
In the past my solution to my “blueness” was to travel. But I can’t anymore, so when I’m low I reminisce and travel again in my mind. For some reason Vietnam came to it. Which is odd, for of all the countries that I visited in Southeast Asia, it was the one I connected to the least. Yet, it was there that I was introduced to Caodaism. According to caodai.org: “The noble effort of CaoDai is to unite all of humanity through a common vision of the Supreme Being, whatever our minor differences, in order to promote peace and understanding throughout the world. CaoDai does not seek to create a gray world, where all religions are exactly the same, only to create a more tolerant world, where all can see each other as sisters and brothers from a common divine source reaching out to a common divine destiny realizing peace within and without.”
I realize I am in Rossmoor and that in Garden Grove, only 17 minutes away, is a Cao Dai Temple resembling the one just outside Long Xuyen, Vietnam that introduced me to this religion. Did someone say I could not travel? Off I go in a virtual journey no more.
So the path to the temple in Vietnam is dirt and rubble. Here it is busy streets that lead me to a residential area in Garden Grove, CA. I see the colors and it’s as if they are mermaids singing to me. I must go to it. Hopefully this visit has a better outcome than when the mermaids lure sailors in.
They have a parking lot and as I park I hear the sounds of a language I have not learned and probably never will.
The entrance is a mini-me of the temple I so admired and moved me in Vietnam.
However the main pole in front of the temple does not have the reversed swastikas which happen to have a Buddhist influence and is sacred to many Vietnamese. The swastika (a Sanskrit word) is also a tantric symbol to evoke ‘shakti’ or the sacred symbol of auspiciousness. I don’t doubt that its absence is due to trying to avoid controversy.
I take a few photos. Take off my shoes (as ordered) and enter another world.
The place is smaller than than its parent in Vietnam but is just as colorful. The quiet I expected is not quite there for the side doors are open and in comes loud voices in Vietnamese from the courtyard. There’s a gathering of followers who are sprucing up the church. One side door is being primed and the other has already been painted yellow. It is noticeable that the congregation takes pride in their home. I kneel and find my inner quiet.
As I look through one of the windows and hear the background chatter, I am almost transported to Long Xuyen.
It is in the little touches of daily life and some writings that I linger.
Before leaving I explore the back of the temple. I pass about 15 people sitting around a table chatting and as they turn their head to see me, I join my hands in prayer mode and bow slightly, saying nothing. They go back to socializing; I go back to the car knowing that I will visit again.
And keeping my promise that I would end each blog with a song or two. Here are two. I did not see the movie that “I’m Standing With You” comes from (I think it’s about a mother and child) but I feel we all want that someone that stands with us through whatever we go through. I’ve been lucky to have those people beside me.
And then, one of Peter Bradley Adams, a singer that brings me happy memories. “For You” How can you not love a song that says: “If your wandering ever leads you, To a place where you don’t know which road to choose, Leave your worries behind, Take the road that leads to mine, And I’ll be waiting there for you”
It initially makes me yearn for my little antique/collectible stall I had in a mall in Orange, CA but this store ended up like mine, shut down and lonely. The Hope Store also is closed. 
All that is left are the signs. In the “garden” a tractor that is very much like the ones I saw in my birth country of Paraguay. 
This one has no more life in it. 
She wants the owner to meet me. Unfortunately he was undergoing some medical procedure and I didn’t get to chat with him. There’s a petting zoo here. 
One where a camel and an Asian water buffalo co-exist and, dare I say, have formed a friendship. 
to drop off a few things. 
and a ski haven, therefore a more touristy town. 
for an hour and a half. And before that a 45-minute car ride to Riverside, CA train station. In between, a 5 1/2 layover in Los Angeles. Oh, and then a 3-hour car drive from El Paso, TX Depot Station to Carlsbad, New Mexico, my final destination. All in all, about 27 hours of travel. Is it crazy that my enthusiasm and gushiness have not subsided?
The answer is a rotund yes. I’m due for a road trip even if it is on a train! 
where a friend I haven’t seen in a while agreed to meet with me to make the wait before my next train shorter. It’s 5:00 pm 
and the rush hour commute is full on as well as a sea of blue that arrives to go to a Dodgers game. 
went in and it is there where my friend Jon and I head to. There truly isn’t anything better than a friend to the rescue, good conversation, oysters and beer. 
I’m excited to see my friends at the station but I also am sad leaving the train. I kind of want this trip to continue on. Maybe forever. My friend tells me that I should buy burritos from this lady on the platform. They are tasty, really big, he says, and cheap at $2 each. 
But my friends will be picking me up and I’m sure we will eat on the way, which turns out so. We stop at a local mom and pop restaurant with fantastic service and that has their last name. 
I have a menudo. No. I am not keeping to a Keto lifestyle. 
Inane thoughts come up before I even open my book with the determination of finishing it: My legs are still tanned from my jaunt to Miami. I love to hear the chirping of the birds in the silence of the morning. Darn it, the garbage pick up truck is piercing that silence (I get up and bring the can in.) 
The basil plant 
still has many leaves -even after such a big batch of pesto I made.- I toy with the idea of lighting the fire pit for some warmth. 
Discard it because half the fun is seeing the flames which I won’t really see now. Need to stop the cascade of unmatched and unnecessary thoughts (lots of “un” words in this post).
Maybe it was a regift since I got a set of 8. They stick (though now they are making them with Teflon coating too).
(lifestyle doesn’t apply since I do get off it at times) so bread is out of the question. I’m not one for breakfasts unless with someone, so this is unusual for me but the front patio of my friends’ house, which I am pet and housesitting for, makes it an inviting proposition.
I have recently formed part of the jury at a film festival: the 
In case you are thinking that he only has dogs in his menagerie, he also has bunnies.
(this a self-portrait) and of his Two Marilyn Monroes that impressed me, even more, when I read that this one was number #27 in the silkscreening process. “The silkscreened image deteriorates with each printing, acting as a physical metaphor for the waning of fame and the fading of memory. Warhol’s diptych of Monroe is of an icon losing her essence, becoming distorted by time and saturated retelling.” Per the Broad as well: “Marilyn Monroe died in the early hours of August 5, 1962. A few weeks later, Andy Warhol began silkscreening Monroe’s face onto canvases. Using a portrait of the celebrated star taken from a publicity still, Warhol cropped tight around the edges of Monroe’s face and hair with a grease pencil. Warhol had only learned how to silkscreen a few months earlier, but already he was able to achieve his desired effect with the medium.”
(Desire, painting by Edward Ruscha), that I have not bored you. That you have learned something and that you will want to return to the museum by my hand or without me.
(I’m Sorry by Roy Lichtenstein).
Near the entrance here is a little section that seems straight out of Southeast Asia. Possibly Thailand. I reminisce and long to be back.
The niches of some are still decorated for Christmas. Very much a Latino/Mexican culture tradition.
I put on my walking shoes and out I go. There is so much to see and enjoy along the way. What seems a community garden populated by a giant spider that once must have been covered in flowers and a Love sign with ball and chain attached (quite appropriate I thought).
I truly like these oldies, even the decrepit ones. Then a church in white and blue bathed in light.
a climb up graffiti lined stairs as I huff and puff up. Don’t know to where it leads. Don’t much care. A bit the way I’ve been leading my life lately.
Lest we not believe so, LA welcomes you.
I like encountering people along the way that take it as a fact that only a local could be out and about early morn. A commonality, real or assumed, that brings out the most cordial in people. I get many good mornings along the way.
with its super cool murals. 
It amuses me that they also had to write on it: “This is not a hotel.” probably from the myriad of inquiries they get. 
