Golden Shores, Long Beach, day 7

i woke at 4 am. It’s not unusual.  I drank a bottle of Perrier water just before bed.  I’d been watching an Equalizer movie, with a black woman and girl and white bad guys.  I liked the action.  I’d to had the tv out and off the wall but today I had device from Best Buy that would allow my AirPods Pro #2 to work with the tv.  I thought my neighbours would appreciate if I find a solution to my deafness. I don’t like wearing my hearing aids for tv.  They cost me $8000 so I only like using them for work and special occasions, I take them off at home when I put on sweat pants and t shirts to relax.  I ronically I don’t feel so protective of the AirPods and was hoping to use them. 

The Equalizer movie was Diversity and Inclusivity but I couldn’t help but wonder when we’d progress out of the Marxist aetheist revolutionary model of the 19th Century because I’m watching the roller dex go round and waiting for Inuits to star with Cree aboriginal as the enemics.  There’s one Inuit heavy metal band but so far no Inuit play girl.  That rolly poly look isn’t conducive to the Hollywood plastic surgery syndicate.  

This morning it was the fog horns I’d had my electric heater give up the ghost yesterday and I’d replaced it with an industrial one from Long Beach Ace.  I worried that was making this sound because it’s turning on and off synchronized at times with the fog horns. I only realized it was a fog horn when I opened the door and couldn’t see.  White pea soup.  Now here I am, a sailor and I didn’trecognise the fog horns.  I was pleased i wasn’t’ something wearing and tearing in my unit.  

I’ve a laundry bag full to drop to be done.  There’s laundry here but I’m happy to have this bag last weeks travel clothes all done. I may use the local laundry if I’m staying longer There are a few empty sites but I’m only booked here till the 9th, a day I’m working. I’d like to book another 2 weeks leave on a Friday when I’m not working. Less disruption.  I’d like to go on to the Salton Lake for provincial camp ground camping for a week or too. I’d like to go to Yukon for a dental cleaning and visiting Algodones.  I’d like to go to Rosario too if I get the courage to travel into Mexico and stay at the RV park there.  Right now I’m tired still from the ride down.  It’s pretty exhausting and lots of adapting. I liked arriving here , seeing folk I knew and settling into a safe and recognized routine. I’m not sure I want to face Spanish, I’ve studied it all my life but am so poor at it.  Using it would help and when I feel less tired from the changes I might well have the courage to move on.  

I’m enjoying this morning. I wanted to be up at 8 am because I have a Cyberdocs meeting.  However, that’s on Saturday and today’s Friday , something I realized when I couldn’t connect on zoom  At least I’d walked him first thing and he’d had a poop.  He had another little accident in the night at the door which is related to all the chicken he ate yesterday and that while he was out riding on the Vespa and having little walks he’d not had enough of a long walk . If I’d taken him to the park I expect he’d have pooped but I just took him around the RV park and he met other dogs and it was novel and he just didn’t have time to poop.  I suspect the fog horns might have bothered him as well.  I think he tried to wake me but I ignored him so thanks to Lysol wipes I was able to address the problem before I stepped it it.  

The fog has lifted enough that I can see a Snowy Egret walking along the shore.

I dreamed of Donald Trump and Elon Musk last night. I d looked at pictures of them partying New Year’s Eve at Mar-a-lago.

In thee weird dream I was asked by Trump to sing. It was a small room with 20 guest sitting on high school bleachers.  As I stood up all I could think of was a Leonard Cohen song I knew. I’knew Hey that’s no way to say Good bye but had listened to Pentonnixx singing Hallellujah, yet I didn’t know the words.  When I began to sign poorly mumbling the Christian girls had started singing a round, some sort of generation X game karaoke song. Laura was there being supportive.  It was like seeing her for Christmas dinner with her family and I was being handed this sheet.  I was reminded of bible I gifted the god kids with at the request of Anna.  Action bibles.  I just thought they were today’s versions of the action comics we read as kids.  

Trump said it’s okay.  ‘You’re not prepared’.  I’d had my ‘autidition’ I guess and wasn’t ready and yet he wasn’t judgemental just moving on. Musk was smiling and helping him on with a seal skin scuba outfit. It was some new underwater suit that allowed him to live in that medium..  “It’s okay you’re getting old, like me, but I’m keeping up.”  I felt like I was aging and that was related to a colleague saying he was 78 and slowing down.  He also said he wasn’t working for money.   I’m still working and don’t know when I’ll have ‘enough’. 

I walked around the RV park and my camper rig is one of the lower middle class units as there are no low class units. I like my rig. It’s not class A though.  there’s some high end class A units but mine is good for off road and on road so I’m not in the yuppie or retired rich class but rather an off road on road kind of guy.  I belong sufficiently but without children and a wife and family I’m an outsider.  Outsider is also “under achiever’.  I feel that way joking to friends saying I’m running out of time to get a Nobel Peace prize or be offered a free ticket to Mars.  The dream captured the emotion of awkwardness and aloneness and that desire to be apart of and apart from.  Tommie wrote in a passage to day about loneliness.  She ascribed it to alcoholism but i think it’s more a product of the existentialism of being human.  I’m a spiritual being in a human adventure.

In the SRF monastery I learned the GURU songs “I am he, I am he, blessed spirit I am he No birth no death no caste have I, father mother have I none I am hee I am he blessed spirit I am he”. I suppose I’d change that to I am Thee.  I liked Dolly Parton’s song “What a freind we have in Jesus’. It’s a hymn originally written by Joseph Scriven a minister in 1855, to comfort his mother living in Ireland while he was in Canada. 

I know a prescience. I experience synchronicity. My mind is more a garden than a bad neighborhood.  I say ‘thank you Jesus’ but feel equally good saying ‘thank you God’.  I don’t think of God as an authoritarian sort. I had a fellowship with my father and have been friends with mentors and authority frigures.  I have a friend Kirk and we can disagree and agree.  I’m a people pleaser with most.  I’m sensitive to others emotions most likely because of the abuse I experienced at the hands of corrupt authorities.  I relate to Trudeau bring in the martial law on Freedon protestors while getting down on a knee with the BLM and terroritsts. He’s such an evil little Herod like Pose . I’ve had the experience of life threatening punishment and Count of Monte Christo over punishment and false accusation.  I know the despot and relate to the tyranny of Trudeau like arbitrary authority like Aren’t describes. There’s this little boy, little girl within that’s prone to self pity. I’m afraid and alone and relate to Jesus saying “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?”  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

I know my broken finger nail isn’t the machete stroke across the belly of the dying soldier. I’ve had a good life and been blessed in so many ways.  I go to a men’s’ group some of who belonged to the ‘whine and snivel’ club They say ‘Get down off the cross we can use the wood’. 

The girls ‘ go on and on with the ‘one down a ship victim industry’.  Women are commonly ‘rescued’ and their crying will occasional ‘proxy violence’ by chivalrous men.  The sad part is they know it and intentionally cause war and deny accountability. Yet there was John the Baptist beheaded because Herodias his wife encouraged her daughter Salome to ask Herod for his head on a silver platter,

I was set upon by a gang when I organized a sock hop as class president in Viscount Alexander. I wa gr 9.  These guys were destroying chairs and I approached them and asked them to stop because the principle would use that as an excuse to not have any more dances .  They stopped but threaten to beat me up outside . One of the guys said his girl friend wanted me to do this because my girlfriend looked down on her.   I went home early to avoid a confrontation.  My mom asked me why. I told her.  The next morning in the wee hours I went to his house and into his room and sat by his bed and scared the shit out of him ‘what are you doing’. I told him I heard he wanted to fight so was here to fight, no audience, no group.  He said ‘it’s okay we’re cool’. 

I’d taken care of it. All was well,

Then he came next day at lunch and said ‘you squealed on me’.  I said “I didn’t.’  ‘Yes you did. My mom got a call from the school and said your mom called and complained and I got expelled”.  With that he hit me three times in the face and I didn’t hit him back.  I just walked away. Knowing I could have beat him physically but I’d been betrayed by my mother,  

I confronted her and she said ‘she knew she’d promised not to say anything but she could sit back and let her son be hurt by a gang’.

After that I was attacked by several of the guys individually and let them punch me in the face. It was a terrible time.  Such embarrassment and humiliation.  These guys were part of a bigger gang with a couple of the guys having little motorcycles and hanging out at the billiard club. It’s all so strange to think back.

My friend who stood up to them had been attacked by the group and stomped. He was shospitalized and brain injured . I’d see him years later after he’d gone from being the top student to ending up in jail and asylum. We talked about that time.  

I was fortunate to get away and work at Camp Steven’s the YMCA camp that summer.  I was on the volley ball team and we became the provincial champions I joined the drama club and wrote poetry and that a university girlfriend.  By contrast high school was when I peaked .I’d continued to study martial arts and working canoeing and camping and doing gymnastics I had muscle and skill .  I was president of the amalgamated Baptists youth groups and played guitar and wrote beat poetry I performed around the city in coffee houses making a group of older friends in too music.

Year later I did a step 4 and looked at this event and how I’d not trusted my mother there after.  In the triangle with my father and mother he and I weren’t close like my brother and he.  I truly admired my father was I got older and in so many ways followed him.  Imitation is the sincerity form of flattery.  My brother and I took so much from the lives of my parents but I would argue with Mom and Mom would call in Dad as punisher,  Years later as head of a university family therapy service I would learn that my mother was using dad as proxy violence and many a son is alienated from the father by the mother who claims she ‘has to do’ but indeed she doesn’t ’have to’.  The most successful have a discussion between the adults and make a rule they stick too.

Years alter I’d live a life of being with wife’s who would lie.  I ‘d write down agreements at one timne in frustration and have her sign then because she was changing her mind and changing reality and history. I kept records because of the crazy ladies.  One wife hid my shot gun and I was facing a bear at night with a broom . 

I loved when a woman patient who was a a national rugby champion told me she couldn’t stand women who didn’t play team sports “They’re all little princesses and Priam Donna’s ,  They don’t know how to cooperate and play together, They are always caught up in blame and fault and don’t care about the team winning’.

The trouble with being stupid and dead is you don’t know it but everyone else has to live with it.

My brother and my father had problems with major work consequences of my mother’s ’loose lips ‘ and unwillingness to consult and discuss with others.  She was the epitome of ‘I did it my way’. Irish.  She was much loved.  Emotional .  Unforgiving though.  My mother held grudges and blamed.  

My father went along with her.  She was also his best friend.  They were the greatest of lovers and so enjoyed each other. She was his queen and he was her king.  

I was truly blessed to have them as parents but I do struggle with God.  Eli Eli lama sabachthani?”  

God grant me the serenity to accept the thing we cannot change and the courage to change the things we can and the wisdom to know the difference.

I’m going to run the laundry over to complete one task. Leave the little guy here. He walked and pooped. I’ll come back and taken him or a walk in the park when the fog lets up some too. Then I’ll be back for the Friday afternoon meeting and looking into local meetings and also get to the Latin art  Musem here this evening.  

Thank you Jesus.  Brother.  Friend. I sure do miss my brother Ron and my friend George and Hank and Bernie and Archie.

It’s just the sadness of waiting for godot.  

God bless all my family and friends and keep Madigan safe.  I’d take him bu there’s no room on the bike for the laundry and him,  

Thank you,, 

 

Tranquility by the Sea, Golden Shores RV Park, Day 7, Long Beach, California

I woke at 3 am.  I’d hardly been able to keep my eyes open at 8 am. It was a long day.  I’d arrived in Los Angeles at the Golden Shores RV Park in Long Beach.  I’d waited to be registered uncertain if I’d have a place.  At 1 pm I was there to register.  Larry and Peter drove in just then. What synchronicity!  There was a place open till the 9th. I took it.  I set up  even unloading the Vespa.  

Peter came by with Bella and Luka.  The dogs were discombobulated .  Bella and Madigan know each other from the north but this is the first time they’ve met in the south.  We all walked together in the little park along the shore.  

I actually got organized to make a run to Vons on the Vespa. I explored Long Beach a bit. With the help of my iPhone 16 GPS I found it by typing in grocery stories near to me. I was 2 blocks away at the time.  I wanted to celebrate and treat Madigan so I bought a couple steaks, a zucchini and potato egg salad.  I bought another milk forgetting I already had a quart so expect I’ll be having macaroni and cheese.

I walked Madigan again.  

There’s a routine to life with a dog.  There are a lot of little dogs here.

I tried to go back to sleep at 3 am and nodded till 4 am but was on a todo list.  I left my recliner at home with the ATV. I’d bought it in Yuma last year and loved it but didn’t want to be carrying it all this way with the Starlink near where it is carried. I’ve thought of how to protect the cord,

I need a new water hose since there’s a very slight leak but enough to be a problem in California. 

If I take Madigan I need to take his box which I then have to carry about with me.  

I have the Garmin GPS which I need a mount for the Vespa if I plan to go to art galleries on the freeway that are 30 minutes away.  I can check my phone but have problems with that though the buzzing in the watch might work

These are all Cadillac problems

I climbed out of bed at 5 am and meditated.  At 6 I was in the shower and cleaning the bathroom.  I spilt a blue ball of toilet sanitizer and rinsed that down the drain today.

I’m tired.  I didn’t want to stay in bed wrestling with insomnia but the truth is my schedule is off and I’ll need some naps and rest days to recuperate.  My problems are all just Cadillac problems.  I’m watching the light come up out my window. I have laundry to do but think of dropping it off somewhere because I have limited time in LA right now and don’t want to be spending a morning doing laundry if I cab drop it off.  

I’d like to go to the Art Gallery.  There’s a Long Beach Latin American one. The ones I looked at before I came are 30 minutes away.  I’m a bit anxious about the high speed 10 lane freeways on the Vespa.  I expect I’d appreciate the art if I served

I love this view.

Thank you Jesus.

South to the Sun. Lake Cachuma to LA, Day 5, New Years Day,

It’s been warm since half moon bay. I’m thankful to have my iPhone 16 back and functioning thanks to the San Luis Obispo Apple Store. I have a dint in the roller for the canopy I don’t use. It was a fairly uneventful drive to Lake Cachuma..  I couldn’t find the Avilla Beach RV Campground in the dark but was able to give Madigan a run on the beach.  A little further on I stopped in a parking lot facing the beach and took him for another romp. I even sat in the swings, first time in decades.  I napped in the camper till 8 pm and set off again.  

At Lake Cachuma Campground there were not envelopes for late check in so I just stopped at a pick site and went to sleep.  I’d been having problems earlier after San Luous Obispo with the car lights and so many. It turned out that was rush hour.  Later it was easier especially because I found the night screen switch on the Ford GPS.  

I had had a coffee energy drink so didn’t sleep well at Lake Cachuma.  I remember looking and it was 1130 .  New Year’s Eve.  Not a party animal.  At 1230 I looked again and then slept till 4 am.  I was up and gave thanks for the year, the weeks, the days ,  I meditated and walked the dog. I was on the highway at 7 am.  

I was signing, Sun coming up and I’m riding with Lady Luck getting into Santa Barbara.  Warm and lovely seaside air.  Great sun rise.

Now I’ve made it to Golden Shore RV Park at 9 am.  I phoned and left messages and see that there is a vacant site till the 9th. I told the maintenance fellow that and he asked I wait in the parking lot till 1 pm check in. 

I’ve had a mother nap and read some of my historical Sea novel.  I walked him a bit and took pictures of the birds I can see from the camper .  Now I’ve made coffee and it’s 12:15.  I’ll wander over in a bit and check in.  I’m tired.  A break from driving would be welcome.  I’d like to take Madigan for a longer walk then take the Vespa off and riding into town for some groceries and also to see and art gallery.  

. __________

I’ve checked in to Golden Shores RV Park.  Just as I was checking in Larry and Peter (parents of Bella and Luka) drove in,  What synchronicity!  They’d recommended it and left a day after I did. They first came over a decade ago.  

Peter and I walked the dogs.  Bella and Madigan were best of buds up north and now we noted how bewildered they were to meet

“Madigan is my friend from up north in the wet not Southern California,” Peter quipped for Bella.

Nonetheless they all greeted with little dog barks then happily went on a walk to the nearby park. We’d all walked many times together.  Peter pointed out the ferry and the Queen Mary and told me where the restaurants and shops were.  He’s a regular promoter and guide. The best natured person with such positive comments about his surroundings and people we know.  Fun to walk the dogs just like we did up north.

I have my Vespa unloaded and all camper set up with jacks, water, waste and electricity all hooked up. I’m not taking the camper off the truck. I hope I can do everything with the Vespa.  I’m planing on visiting Vaughan Market. Peter says it’s just like Safeway. I also have to get a mount for Garmin GPS for the Vespa.  Barrelling along on the freeways following the GPS I don’t know how I ever got about before them. 

Feels great to be here.  I’m thankful for the break from driving and arrival. I’m booked in till thee 9th and may be able to move to another site or will go onto Yuma as I have in the past or Rosario south of Ensenada.  Right now I’m ready to rest.  I’d like to take a ride on the Vespa leaving Madigan and returning with food so he is reminded of that before I leave him for a longer period when I want to visit a gallery or museum.  It’s cool enough here in the later afternoon he’ll be fine.  I just hope he doesn’t bark and wine but I’m thinking connecting with Bella and a nice walk has pacified him,  He’s calmer.  I’m looking out the window and see the tide is going out.  Peter says that’s the LA river across the way. It was hot at noon. I love the blue sky but there was fog and smog earlier coming into the city.  It’s just so peaceful here.  They call it ‘Tranquility by the Sea’.  It sure is.  Love the birds and flowers to.  Egrets.