Foragers, joyagers

One dude standing between Slice of Life and Whole Foods to another dude:  "Don't go foraging for food around here.  You are just going to come back with sprouted nuts and kale."

Someone who read my blog entry a while back about customers getting confused with the recycling/compost/trash bins at Whole Foods emailed to let me know that there is a new wood structure that holds all three bins in front of the store now, but none of them are marked.  "It is hilarious to watch people walk up and just stand there and stare at unmarked bins.  I noticed a few people just walk away with whatever they had, or just put things on the ground.  One woman put some trash in her purse rather than put it in the wrong container."

Mother to her son in a cart at Whole Foods on a Sunday (during Farmer's Market):
"Oh come on, now.  We are just going to go across the street.  It will be fun.  We can count how many men with dreads we see."

Milk and Honey customer, picking up a bumper sticker that read What would Kali do?  "She would poke your eyes out and lick your brains, that is probably what she would do," he informed me.
A few moments later, a female customer eyeing the bumper sticker asked, "Who the hell is Kali?"

A friend and I were in the walkway between the library parking lot and Main Street, and she pointed to "Planetary healing through cookies" (under the Sebastopol Cookie Company window).  She remarked, "Why does everything in Sebastopol have to be about global healing?  Even cookies!"

At a small store on Main Street:
Cashier, after trying to ring something up several times:  "I don't know why this isn't working."
Customer:  "Maybe we should not have been making fun of the eclipse."
Person in line behind them:  "That will do it."


I have been asked by more than one person if I am making these license plates up.  The answer is no, although I noticed them very peripherally before starting this blog.  This week they have been popping up all over the place:
JOYAGER
CRAC POT
LITEN UP
MINDFUL




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Retro and retrogrades

You know you've lived in Sebastopol a long time when you can listen to a conversation that ties together laundry and karma and you are not fazed by this.

A shopper at Milk and Honey to her fellow shopper:  "Well, she's not the hippie-clothes, yoga pants type.  And she doesn't like the retro look, either.  I'm not sure we can find anything on Main Street for her."
Fellow shopper:  "Does Rite-Aid carry clothes?"
"I'm not sure, but that may be our only hope."

Facebook remark from my sister, in a commentary about yerba mate:
"Imagining my life without EmpowerMint (which, by the way has 'evolved' because it's new name is 'EnlightenMint') ..."

My sister has also devised a new game in the neighborhood near downtown where she resides, How many Buddha statues can one count on an evening walk?  (One evening she counted seven.)

In line at Community Market:
"Is Mercury in retrograde?  How do you find that out?"
"You can look it up on the internet.  Although I usually find out about it standing in line here or at Whole Foods."

A woman was complaining about her infrared sauna not working.  She was quite emotional and went on about it, this being an overwhelming problem in her life.  After she left, an acquaintance of mine noted:  "Well, there are third world problems, and first world problems.  And then there are Sebastopol problems."


License plate of the week:
AMTHYST


"Mercury Retrograde Body Mitten"
And if you missed this circulating during the last mercury in retrograde, it is hilarious!  (I am especially fond of the unicorn hair marinated in lavender oil.)
http://sextile.com/2014/06/13/mercury-retrograde-body-mitten/

Fries and fixes

I was standing behind the counter at Milk and Honey and a woman was waiting to purchase something.  She asked how my weekend was so far, so I felt obligated to ask how hers was going. She replied, "I"m having a pleasant day.  Getting my Sebastopol fix."
Going from polite conversationalist to Trolling Blogger, I of course had to ask what she meant by that.
The woman lives in Sonoma.  "I only get over here a few times a year, but I love it.  So far today I've been handed a flier about soul painting, listened to a discourse about the health benefits of maca by a young couple and discovered a new store named Karma.  Where else would you find a clothing store named Karma?"
(Unfortunately she did not still have the flier.)
"Oh, yes," she added.  "And I drove past a lavender-colored RV on the way into town.  With mandala blankets hanging in the windows."

According to a teen I was talking to outside of Rite-Aid:
"There are two kinds of students at Analy.  Those who walk to Safeway for lunch - most of them.  And those who walk all the way to Whole Foods."
(And during the school year, having been in Safeway, I can say there is a subset who never make it further than the Starbucks counter.)

A friend of mine from her visiting friend:
"This morning driving through downtown I couldn't help but notice how many people were walking with yoga mats under their arms.  How many yoga studios are there in this town??"

Favorite text to me, from a friend at Community Market last Thursday evening (during the weekly street fair):  "Leaving now.  I think we may have seen the zen hula hooper."

A woman seated outside Slice of Life:
"Baked french fries?  Who wants baked fries?  What is the fun in that?"  She puts her menu down. "If I wanted something healthy, um, I'd order lentil soup."


License plate of the week:
BAT LVR
(And there was a bumper sticker of bats soaring in front of the moon, just in case one wonders if this car belonged to a baseball enthusiast.)




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