Attack of the Mutant Tumbleweeds!

Now that I have your attention....I thought that subject line sounded better than "Greetings from someplace else in California!" which is what I was about to write. It's actually Corona, CA--I'm at my cousin Teddi's house. I showed up considerably later than I expected, because when I got to Los Angeles the traffic became strangely slow and congested. I guess this city doesn't have a subway system. Hectic. It only took me ten and a half hours to drive from Portland to Val's house a little south of San Francisco, so I showed up about three hours earlier than I expected. For the trip today, it felt like it took me the same length of time. Actually, it took approximately eight hours, not the six that it was supposed to take, but that was in part because the bridge was out on 129, so I ended up backtracking on the highway and using the Mapquest directions; and later on Hwy 46 the traffic came to a complete stop due to construction. I don't really think Mapquest is omniscient, but given that it didn't want me to take those routes, I almost have to wonder.

I had no idea there was such pretty scenery near Los Angeles: I think Los Angeles and the first thing I think of is pollution. Nasty. But no, there are some green dramatic mountains, and something called the Angeles National Forest before you actually get to the city itself, and there's a beautiful lake called Pyramid Lake, probably because of the weird triangular trellised formation in a mountain on the lake. It scarcely looks like a natural formation.

Oh, yes, I have to mention this:

As I was driving toward Los Angeles I saw tumble weeds in a field, and they were bouncing around like gamboling gazels, and since they were approaching the highway, I slowed down...although not quite enough. The tumbleweeds attacked my car! They bounded out of the field and into the highway, and a couple of them hit the front of the car, and one smacked into the windshield and then flew up above the roof of the car. It didn't damage the windshield, but it sure was startling.

Six dogs live here. I'm glad cats don't bark. There's also a black cat that lives upstairs and came mewing down and was all cuddling and purry on the living room floor--actually, he wanted to go outside, but I just pet him and gave him a massage. The dogs bark if I'm on the other side of the gate (in other words, beyond the kitchen), and they even rather oddly barked at me when I was out in the back yard. One of them is a basset hound (I first typed "basset house" perhaps because this is the biggest basset hound I've ever seen). The others are a big poodle and a small poodle and a terrier-type creature and something that looks like vaguely like a Muppet. Oh, yeah, and a Cavalier King Charles spaniel. And there are coi in a little pond in the back yard, and there's an aquarium with some more fish--it's 13 in the pond and 9 in the tank.

Tomorrow I'm planning on leaving at approximately 10 am to head for Phoenix and crash at my brother's apartment again.

More on the Grand Day Out in California

Last night we went to Val's insight meditation center, and we had a 45 minute sitting followed by the dharma talk from the above-mentioned Sri Lankan monk. He wore brown robes instead of orange, but he had a charming smile. And his voice reminded me of Mukesh--people from Sri Lanka, surprise, talk like people from India. I'm sure the language is very very similar. Anyway, he told us stories about the Buddha that I wasn't familiar with, like the one about a monk who decided to go ask for alms in the evening because that's when people take the time to make rich food. The Buddha didn't argue with him, even though this was against their vows, and when the monk got a bowl full of rich food, someone dumped dirty dish water on him, and some of the water got in the food and ruined it. The visiting monk also talked about his childhood and his dysfunctional family, during a question and answer session, since someone asked about behaving compassionately with her teenage kid. And after all this, we each went up to the monk and he tied a multicolored blessed three jewels ribbon around our right wrist. He had knotted the string by hand, rather like a crochet chain. It reminded me of Sarnath.

Oh, yes, also Val introduced me to a couple people who went on Shantum's pilgrimage previously. And they knew some of the people who I met on the Dharamsala trip--in particular Paula and Richard, Manny, and Kathy. It was one of those "it's a small world" moments. And of course Val and I talked about the pilgrimage and India quite a bit. She and her husband and the couple I met at the meditation center are all going trekking in Bhutan and Nepal, and it turns out that in Kathmandu they'll be staying at the Vaishali Hotel, the one where I stayed.

Greetings from California!

I'm visiting Val right now, in the vicinity of Santa Cruz, CA. She took me on a tour of a Tibetan monastic community called the Medicine Buddha, which was pretty much out in the woods (like redwoods), with winding paths and prayer wheels and a temple with a big gold Buddha and murals telling the life of the Buddha and children rehearsing for a play. And there are seven special places where there's a wooden sign in front of a bench, and the sign has dharma quotes from a book by the Dalai Lama called Lojong something something. There was also a little pond containing timid little coi.

Then we stopped at a little cafe and got snacks and beverages and took them to the beach, where the water was very blue with white waves along the sand, and we were actually on a cliff overlooking all this, and there was a concrete ship rotting away in view of us, just off a pier. Not a safe place to climb on anymore, rather like a condemned building. I rather enjoyed seeing seagulls and watching doggies playing in the waves.

We went to an idyllic place that's actually a nursery, and it's called the Bamboo Forest (I kept thinking the Bamboo Grove, because that's a place we visited in India, an early monastery of the Buddha's). It had a shop where you can buy bamboo mats and pottery and bamboo fences. There were also paths into the bamboo woods, with a wide range of bamboo--I had no idea it came in so many thicknesses and colors. There was a pond with a waterfall and a gazebo, and in the pond grew what looked remarkably like lotuses. They may have been water lilies, but they sure looked like the lotuses we saw in India.

Tonight I'm going with Val to her sangha, Vipassana Santa CruBhante Seelagawessi who's from Sri Lanka. This is so exciting!

Tomorrow I'll be driving to the Los Angeles area and visiting my cousin Teddi, before I head for Phoenix the next day.