Blue Moon

Driving to abuelita's to make buñuelos... We get on the 5 from the 110... It is, as my Mom used to say, "bumper to bumper". We get off on Broadway and then head south on Spring Street. Trying to figure out if we're going to get on the 101 to the 5 and Leo says, with a twinkle in his eye, "Or do you just want to take 7th to Santa Fe?" Might as well have said, "Or do you want to take a trip down memory lane?" We get to Alameda and 7th and I first see a sign that says, "Legalize LA". Wow, that's deep, I think. Then as we turn, it says, "American Apparel, una compañia rebelde". Hmmm. I thought they were a sweatshop, or accused of being one, Leo says that they probably still are but just have better ventilation or lighting. Hmmm. Weird. Next up. Greyhound Station and all of the Crucero buses sitting in the yard. Wow. It's been A LONG time since I've been on a Greyhound bus or have taken one of the Crucero buses to catch a bus or plane in Tijuana. We turn from 7th street onto Santa Fe and that is when I see the glorious full moon, and a Blue Moon at that. We haven't had a Blue Moon on New Year's Eve in twenty years. Leo pulls over, Amir and Ayende, snoring in the backseat, and I snap a picture. As we continue driving down Santa Fe on New Year's Eve, a man holding a huge piñata and waiting for the bus, I see a fireman in the window of the Vernon firestation washing dishes, Leo tells me about the article in the LA Times today that described the Florencia gang and the neighborhood, "Man. The way they described it was like hell. I went to school with some of those guys and I know their neighborhood and it is not like they describe it in the paper." Reminds me of when I asked Ana Marina about living in El Salvador during the war and she said, it was no big deal, you just lived day by day. So, is it as bad as an outsider says it is? Or is it nuestra cotidianidad misunderstood by an outsider? Avoiding either the drunk drivers or the clowns who don't know how to drive, we finally get to South Gate, where I proceed to stand for the next four hours, frying buñuelos, talking men and religion with my sister-in-laws and convincing my five year old that he really does not need a DS and they're really not that cool... Feliz Año Nueve compañeros... Our Blue Moon is a sign of all of the unusual prosperity that we will all enjoy in 2010.