Sebastopol tidbits

Returning from a walk, I saw someone I knew in the parking lot by the Teen Center.  It looked like a kid-friendly event was coming to an end, lots of parents and children walking to their cars.  I asked her how the event was, and her response:  "It was nice.  There always seems to be a number of Sebastopol feral children running around at something like this.  I don't know where their parents disappear to.  But it was fun."

Another afternoon I was walking by the Teen Center and a woman was asking about a class that was just starting.  Someone else, standing at the door, said to her pointing:  "It's in the room over there.  Just follow all those women with the long, flowy pants."

I was asked if I wanted to buy some Girl Scout cookies one day outside a grocery store.  I shook my head, as I can't have refined sugar or dairy right now.  But I was curious.  "Has anyone asked about gluten-free cookies?" I inquired.
One of the girls smiled and nodded her head.  The scout leader standing behind her started laughing.  "Gluten-free, sugar-free.  Somebody asked if we had organic ones.  I mean really, we are talking about Girl Scout cookies.  There's nothing special about them just because we're in Sebastopol." 

Waiting outside the library for someone, I heard a twenty-something complaining to her friend about texts from her "crazy landlord."  She started to read one and muttered, "It is probably something really important like which aromatherapy candle she ran out of."

Favorite pet name:
Blissful  (a small white dog)

From an email:
"You've got to love driving through Whole Foods at dusk and having a man dressed in tie-dye sweats from head to toe step right in front of your car and walk slowly just at the particular angle where you can't go to the left or right.  Just have to slowly follow him as he walks aimlessly nowhere." 

And my sister and I watch the Oscars last night in a bar.  Right next to a sign that said, "You Are Loved."


Favorite license plates:
IAMAGEM
RX YOGA
B NICER





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Oh Ganesh

I was standing behind a woman at Community Market who was returning a lunar calendar because it did not start in January, it began in July and had special designations for different moon phases. Several of us were joking about how untraditional this calendar was, and one fellow customer observed, "You know it is very unconventional if you can't even get away with selling it in Sebastopol."

In my yoga class I attend the conversation can naturally tend toward healthy living topics.  After a recent class one of the women said to me, "At this other class I used to go to this woman kept talking about - I thought - a 24-hour cheese cycle.  She would bring it up a lot, and I kept thinking 'What in the world is a cheese cycle?'  I didn't know if it was some weird digestion thing she was talking about.  I finally had an acupuncturist mention the body's 24-hour chi cycle and realized that is what she had been referring to.  Which of course made a lot more sense." 

While I was looking for some ginger tablets at Community Market:
Customer:  "Do you have something for stress?"
Worker:  "Yes, a few different supplements."
Customer:  "What about something for persistent cough?"
Worker:  "Yes... {explains several options}."
Customer:  "That's great.  Do you have something that will make my roommate stop talking so much about himself?"

At work I was sharing a story about (years ago) accidentally eating homemade cat food that my vegan roommate had prepared.  It was pretty strange and bland-tasting, and when I found the veggie casserole about an hour later I realized "Oh, that is what she had made for dinner.  What did I eat??"
As a good follow-up Sebastopol inquiry, my co-worker asked, "Was the cat food vegan?"
Good question.  I honestly couldn't remember. 

My friend showed me a key chain she got for her birthday:  What would Ganesh do?  She was explaining to her "rather puritanical" grandmother who Ganesh is, and her grandmother asked, "So this elephant god, do you pray to him?"  She told me, "I wanted to say to her, 'Well, I don't but there are people around here who may.  Or maybe have a Ganesha on their alter.  But I thought that was getting too Sebasto-complicated for her.'"

Another friend was shopping in the produce section at Whole Foods and heard a young girl ask her father what "conventional" means.  His reply: "Poison."


Favorite license plates:
ZEN BIZ
OGANESH