Inflation Hits Linda Vista
Plus: New Restaurant Opens in Civita, LV News Briefs, a Novel about the LV Immigrant Experience, and How to Combat the Drought as a Community.
It’s official. There’s no doubt about it. The nasty scourge of runaway inflation has hit our Linda Vista community. And I have the evidence to prove it!
LV residents have obviously been feeling the effects of inflation for some time now. After all, there’s no way of ignoring the fact that local gas prices have been hitting painful record highs. These rising gas prices have been especially stressful for me and my fellow Baby Boomers; we will never get over the fact that U.S. gas prices when we first hit the legal driving age of 16 hovered at about 29 cents a gallon (In fact, engage any Boomer in a discussion about rising gas prices and he/she is most likely to mention that tidbit of information within the first minute of the conversation).
For most Linda Vista residents, the rise of gas prices is enough of an indicator to claim that inflation is a threat to our quality of life, but we’ve also seen rising prices for necessities like beef, chicken, eggs and fruit. Nevertheless, in spite of this rash of inflation evidence, I recently saw the most significant indicator of inflation’s impact—the one indicator that told me inflation could no longer be ignored in Linda Vista—and it has to do with the price of pizza.
Back in December 2020 we ran an article titled “Is This the Best Food Deal in LV?”. The article referred to the $5.00 large pizza offered by Mesa Pizza, which is located at 7608 Linda Vista Road. Many of our readers agreed that this deal could not be beat. Unfortunately, as I drove by Mesa Pizza the other day, I noticed the new banner hanging on the building facade reads $6.99 for that same large pizza. I quickly took out my calculator and determined this price increase represents an inflation rate of 39.8%. WOW!
When inflation starts impacting pizza prices, American really feel it—as badly, and maybe even worse than they do when experiencing gas price inflation. We love our pizza.
But I think we Linda Vistans need to hang in there and remain optimistic in the face of this adversity. After all, when you really think about it, $6.99 for a good pizza is still not that bad. I can live with it. And after a few bites of that delicious pizza, I’ll probably forget all about the extra $1.99 I had to fork over. I’ll chalk it up to dealing with Mesa Pizza’s well intentioned effort to keep prices down for the common citizen.
On the other hand, that ancient Baby Boomer memory of having once paid only 29 cents for a gallon of gas—of having once filled an entire gas tank for less than $5.00—will forever haunt me.
New Place to Eat in Civita—El Tianguis
We recently wrote about the new summer concert series at Civita, the planned community development in Mission Valley. It was enjoyable and we hope more of you will attend their future concerts in the park.
We now have something else to report about Civita. The very first restaurant has opened in the development’s commercial area. The restaurant is called El Tianguis and is according to their website, “San Diego’s Only Rolled Taco Joint.”
And what is a rolled taco? Well, they say it is also known as a flauta or a taquito, or tacos dorados. No matter the name, we decided to give it a try.
El Tianguis has locations in North Park and Otay Ranch, but this new Mission Valley restaurant is located at 7995 Civita Blvd, Unit #1. It is open from 11:00 am to 9:00 pm. You can find it between LA Fitness and the new veterinary clinic, across frim the park.
El Tianguis is a very colorful place. Of course, it is new, so it looks new. Clean and bright with lots of pictures on the walls. You order at the counter and there are tables and high counters you can eat at, or you can get your food to go. The staff was very friendly and helpful.
The menu is not very large. All items are gluten free and they have a couple of vegan items, so it was easy for us to order.
They have beef or chicken taquitos, a California taquito which is shredded beef, potato, and cheese, they also have a Potato taquito with mashed golden potato, and a Vegan taquito with lentil and quinoa.
The salsa options are mild red, spicy red and tomatillo.
Rice and beans are also on the menu.
To make a meal a combo, add $1.80 to an order of 3 or 6 and get rice and beans. In addition, you can get extra sour cream, cheese, guac, or salsa for a small price. The taquitos themselves cost from 3 for $6.22, to 12 for $20.55 with many In between, so mix them up if you want.
Steve and I ordered 3 vegan and 3 potato and we both tasted each. They come on a tray, very attractive, piled with sour cream, cheese, lettuce, guac, and salsa of your choice. We both thought the Vegan taquito was tastier with the lentils making it almost taste like a meat filling. They were crunchy and very fresh tasting. Three was a nice light lunch amount. They also have drinks including aguas frescas, sodas, and beer.
I spoke with the server who said they had only been open a week, but were doing very well. They have a great location with so many people within walking distance, and when all the commercial space is occupied I am sure they will do very well. In the meantime, take a little ride to Civita and look at the beautiful park and surroundings and try a rolled taco or two.
LV News Briefs
—Farmers Market: The Love, Linda Vista Farmers Market will be held today in the parking lot of the Linda Vista Plaza Shopping Center. The Farmers Market will be open from 2:00 pm to 7:00 pm. Come on out and see what all the vendors have available for purchase. Buy those fresh eggs, fruits and vegetables! You can click here on recent issues of the LV Update and read about Farmers Market vendors like Papa’s Garden Egg Stand, Argos Baking Company, Celtic Kitten, Big Al’s Cookies, Majestik Kulture, Sweet Cravings By Paula,Rollin Roots, and Twisted Trolley Traveling Treats Ice Cream, You can also keep up with Love, Linda Vista Farmers Market news by going to their new web site: https://www.lovelindavista.com
— Looking for LV Recipes: As explained in last week’s issue of this newsletter, a project commissioned by the San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture is looking for local recipes that show how food is used to share personal and cultural stories. The project “By Means of Smoke” will focus on a collection of BBQ/picnic recipes compiled from Linda Vista community members. Contributors will be paid $75.00 for their recipe submissions. For complete info on this project, see the official city website by clicking here.
—San Diego Wave Soccer: The San Diego Wave plays its next soccer match on Sunday July 3 at USD’s Torero Stadium. The match begins at 2:00 pm. The Wave will play Orange County. Ticket info can be found here.
—Linda Vista Community Cleanup: The Bayside Community Center will hold its monthly community cleanup on Sunday, July 10. Volunteers will meet at the Linda Vista Library at 10:00 am. A light lunch will follow at Bayside at 11:30 am.
—Park Social Project: As also explained in last week’s issue of this newsletter, John Baca Park in Linda Vista will be the site of an exciting Park Social Project on Saturday July 16, from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm. The “Tree Line” event, sponsored by the organization Studio Nectary, will include inclusive activities that connect participants through three different series of line explorations and engagements. They include a free-parts play activity, community weaving reflection activity, and dance activity. Participants will be asked to bring a piece of fabric to the event which will be woven and/or quilted together and incorporated into a final installation. Check out the Studio Nectary website for further details. We hope to see many of our readers at this event.
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Linda Vista Lore
2003 Book Details the Asian Immigrant LV Experience
The resettlement of Asian refugees in Linda Vista is an essential part of our community’s history. One can just imagine how each individual immigrant’s or family’s experience involving travel to the U.S. and subsequently taking up residence and living in the Linda Vista area has in turn become part of a legacy handed down from one generation to the next, often in oral storytelling format.
But sometimes these stories are lucky enough to be expressed in a more formal and permanent written style. Whether relating the story of Italian immigrants resettling in NYC, or Irish immigrants starting over in Boston, or Mexicans looking for work throughout the Southwest, numerous works of literature have captured these unique American experiences for later generations to appreciate and learn from. It’s no different here in Linda Vista. Though many residents may not be aware, back in 2003, a former resident of Linda Vista—le thi diem thuy (an author and performance artist who spells her name in lower case letters)—published a well-received novel titled The Gangster We Are All Looking For. The novel was based on her family’s experiences beginning a new life in San Diego, specifically in Linda Vista. In fact, the novel begins with the following sentence…
“Linda Vista, with its rows of yellow houses, is where we eventually washed ashore.”
The story, told from the perspective of a child, takes place beginning around 1978 and moves into the 80’s. The book can be described as a literary novel—light on plot and more like a fragmented series of vignettes or episodes, but full of rich figurative language (lots of beautiful similes, metaphors, and imagery). It reads much like a memoir.
If you are a Linda Vista resident, the book is fun to read because of the author’s many impressions of the community. In one part of the book, the author writes…
“We live in the country of California, the province of San Diego, the village of Linda Vista. We live in old Navy bungalows built in the 1940’s…We live in a yellow house on Westinghouse Street. Our house is one story, made of wood and plaster. Between our house and another one-story house are six two story houses. Facing our row of houses, across a field of brown dirt, sits another row of yellow houses, same as ours, watching us like a sad twin. Linda Vista is full of houses like ours, painted in peeling shades of olive green, baby blue, and sun baked yellow.”
In 2011, the author served as Grand Marshal for the Linda Vista Multi-Cultural Fair and Parade.
If you want to read about the Asian refugee experience here in Linda Vista and learn a little about LV history, or if you’re curious how Linda Vista and other parts of San Diego are portrayed by the author, or if you just enjoy clever, lyrical writing, I recommend taking the time to read The Gangster We Are All Looking For. It’s available at the Linda Vista Library and on Amazon.
Commentary
One Way to Combat the Drought
News about California’s record-breaking drought situation just keeps getting worse. It’s been so long since we’ve received any rain. We continue to live under the nagging threat of water rationing. And I just read somewhere that the level of water in Nevada’s Lake Mead—one of Southern California’s major sources of water—has dropped to its lowest level since its opening in the 1930’s.
It’s safe to say things look mighty bleak. What’s especially frustrating is the perceived notion that we as a community can’t do much about this situation. Fortunately, I’ve come up with an idea that will not only make a major contribution to combatting the effects of the drought, but will also help put Linda Vista on the map as a forward thinking, water-saving place to live.
I came up with this idea as I was driving along Mesa College Drive, next to the California Army National Guard building. That’s when I noticed the area in front of the Guard building, an area that at one time must have hosted a large grassy area, is now completely dried out—in effect, completely gone to seed, as if victimized by the harshest of nuclear winters. The area in no way resembles the kind of neatly manicured, substantially irrigated, obsessively well-kept lush green lawn normally found aboard most U.S. military installations. My first thought was to question the judgment of the commanding officer and wonder why he would want to waver from the time-tested military tradition of wasting millions of gallons of water on the vital tactical/strategic military necessity of proper lawn upkeep. But then I started thinking…if sacrificing a green lawn in the face of a major drought is good enough for the National Guard, it should be good enough for our entire Linda Vista community. Maybe it’s time, I concluded, that like the military, we changed our attitude regarding the customary aesthetics associated with green lawns, and looked more to the water saving benefits generated by letting all our grassy areas in Linda Vista go to seed, at least until the drought is officially declared over.
Yes, I know, there is something about a neatly manicured, lush green lawn that many of us find pleasing to the eye. A freshly mowed green lawn is soothing and reassuring. Furthermore, we have long associated green lawns with responsible home ownership. If everyone in a neighborhood keeps a well-maintained lawn, the reasoning has long gone, then the neighborhood real estate prices will keep going up.
But that kind of thinking worked back in the day when water was plentiful--when we could let the sprinklers run for an hour and not feel guilty about such an extravagance. Nowadays, water is such a precious commodity that maintaining a lush green lawn seems like such a horrible waste of water. Besides, California real estate prices keep going up no matter what—greens lawns don’t seem to make a difference one way or another. That’s why I think we in Linda Vista should follow the lead of the California Army National Guard and change our perspective on green lawns. In order to fulfill our civic duty and combat the effects of the drought, I suggest we ALL stop watering our lawns and any other green areas around our residences/commercial buildings, and let them go dry. Make green lawns a thing of the past. No more wasting water in Linda Vista. That goes not only for individual residence lawns but also condo/townhouse development grassy common areas, and grassy areas surrounding commercial buildings as well.
Just think of the great reputation our Linda Vista community could develop if we all voluntarily followed through with such a radical practice. Nothing but dry brown lawns and common areas throughout Linda Vista. We would set such a good example for the rest of California, and become the model community for the state bureaucrats in charge of managing our water resources. And Governor Newsom would be proud of us.
To promote such a worthy community practice while ensuring it is carried out on a purely volunteer basis (without the need for an intrusive Brown Lawn Community Vigilante Enforcement Patrol, or the introduction of Brown Lawn Reeducation camps designed to handle recalcitrant green grass rebels), we could publicize the following slogans throughout Linda Vista, which would probably garner us further positive state-wide media attention:
--Grass may be legal in California, but it’s discouraged in Linda Vista
--Don’t frown on brown
--Green is so yesterday
—Linda Vista…Where grass goes to die…And that’s okay
--We’re called Linda Vista, not Linda Verde
--Yawn about the Brown Lawn
--I Like My Martinis Dry, Just Like My Lawns
--The Grass is Always Browner in Linda Vista
--Brown is the new green
I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Remember, if one person in a neighborhood let’s their lawn go dry, it’s considered an unsightly travesty against traditional neighborhood norms, but if everyone does it, then what we have is a civic-minded community united in the best interest of California. Save that water. Just say no to green lawns!
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Jprentice1@san.rr.com