Today, August 20, 2011, is the fifth anniversary of our move to our home in southeast Azusa near Covina and not very far from West Covina. On August 20, 2009 I published a blog entry reflecting on our first two-and-a-half years in Azusa. Since then most of the things we’ve done, the restaurants we’ve tried, and shows we’ve seen have been covered in my blogs, reviews, and photo albums. There has been much since August 20, 2009: over 130 reviews and around 16 blog posts, along with 25 photo albums. Most of these are probably not about places and things in West Covinazusa, but many of them are and it would take too much time to sort through them all.
What I can do for this reflection is mention a few things that I believe are not covered in the blogs, reviews, and photo albums. One is something we call “The Weirding Way.” This is a driveway leading out of the Sacred Heart Church parking lot, through some hedges, and into the parking behind the strip mall containing United Catholics Federal Credit Union that has a driveway connecting to Hollenbeck Ave. We sometimes take this way when it’s too crowded exiting onto Workman Ave. or we need to drive west after mass. The term “Weirding Way” comes from the book Dune. It is the specialized fighting martial art of the Bene Gesserit that incorporated full control of each muscle in the body learned through training known as prana-bindu. The Weirding Way enables one to deliver powerful blows and move with extreme precision and speed.
Another new term that we learned during the past 2.5 years was “Spreading Ground.” In late 2009 and early 2010 there was much road construction around the intersection of Citrus Avenue and Arrow Highway especially north on Citrus and east on Arrow. Often we had to circumvent the intersection by going all the way to Gladstone St. These routes sometimes involved using The Weirding Way. While working out in the (now defunct) fitness room at our condo complex I found a flyer from Los Angeles County. It described that the purpose of the road work was to connect the Citrus Spreading Ground to the Ben Lomond Spreading Ground via underground pipes. Now we knew what that body of water was that we could see out our north window: Citrus Spreading Ground. Both that and the Ben Lomond spreading ground were on L.A. County land. We called them Loch Citrus and Loch Lomond and we could say we lived on the Bonny Bonny banks of Loch Citrus.
We continued to go to Victoria Gardens shopping destination in Rancho Cucamonga that was less than a half hour’s drive from home. On June 14, 2011 we went there to see the weekly free outdoor movie that they showed in late spring and early summer. We had wanted to eat dinner at a southern food place in the food hall that we had seen during an earlier visit. Unfortunately the southern place was already closed and we ended up having dinner at Corner Bakery. They showed the outdoor movie on the dirt of Chaffey Town Square near where they ran the Choo-Choo Monga train for the kids. People had already been sitting on blankets and lawn chairs by the time we got there. The screen was set up using an inflatable moon bounce-type device. We initially sat on a concrete bench but when that got overrun with bugs we moved to a place in the middle of the square. The movie, Despicable Me, started at 8:13 when it was just dark enough. It didn’t have sound for the first 15 minutes. Once they got it working we enjoyed the movie.
The Weirding Way, the spreading ground, and the outdoor movie at Victoria Gardens are a very small fraction of the many things we’ve been able to see and do by living in southeast Azusa near Covina. Tonight we plan to celebrate the last five years by having dinner at Famous Dave’s in Redlands. Our time here has been worth it and we’ll always remember it.
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