Mintless mochas

After the last blog post Jennifer, the supplement goddess, relayed:
"The ice cream girl gets the same questions as the vitamin girl!!  I guess all the retail folks get all the same type of questions.  Got to love our town!"
And a friend who used to work at a Sebastopol cafe also agreed:  "The number of questions people would ask to order a muffin or a chai.  Vegan/gluten-free/organic/local/naturally sweetened/non-gmo/sustainable...  I could go on and on."
And at the Dhyana Center I heard two men discussing where you could find non-gmo popcorn.

When you take homeopathic remedies, you have to preclude mint from your diet. I was talking to someone about toothpaste options without mint at Whole Foods when a woman recommended fennel (yes, fennel) toothpaste to me.  She bemoaned, "I didn't think I ate that much mint, but now that I can't have it I'm going crazy.  No chocolate mint ice cream, no mint tea or gum. But the worse is going into Starbucks.  Now all I crave is the peppermint mochas.  My practitioner told me I need to take my health issues seriously, and I said, 'I have given up my favorite holiday coffee and my toothpaste!  What more do you want from me??'"

I was waiting in line at the gas station and not really paying attention to the women in front of me. But they were saying something about lighters and signs.  I assumed, in that preoccupied-with-something-else kind of way, there were lighters by the cash register that had a word or phrase on them.  But as I paid I noticed the lighters said, "Virgo... Pisces... Aquarius..."  They were indeed lighters with signs on them.  For those moments when one wants to convey one's astrology while lighting up.

The movie Awake (about Yogananda) is playing at the Rialto.  One Friday afternoon there were quite a few movie-goers.  As I was leaving I heard a woman remark, "There are a lot of people here today."  Her friend replied, "And most of them are coming out of the yoga movie.  Not the Ben Affleck film."

And from my sister (via Facebook):
You know you've lived in Sebastopol too long when you read:  "So-and-so channeled their profile picture" instead of "changed their profile picture"...  Of course it didn't really say channeled, I just read it that way.


License plate of the week:
OHM M G





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More west county morsels, gluten-free

An acquaintance of mine, sitting at the library on his computer:  "I do not want to make my own veggie oil.  I do not want to sell veggie oil.  I do not want to start a revolution. All I want to do is go buy some veggie oil for my car.  This shouldn't be so hard."

A teenager I know works at a local ice cream shop.  She has complained more than once about all the questions various customers have when they come in.  Are the ingredients local?  Is the ice cream gluten-free?  Dairy-free?  Sugar-free?  (She wants to reply to someone that asks for dairy-free, sugar-free ice cream that maybe they should eat something besides ice cream.)  One woman, in addition to asking several questions, wanted to know if the picture of the cow on the wall was the milk source.  (It isn't.)  And in fact, where does this cow reside?  Another couple were surprised there was milk in the chocolate sauce.  And one woman lamented, "I can't believe you don't have gluten-free waffle cones."

I love when people email or tell me about their Sebastopol moments.  From a reader:
I was playing at the park with my son, when some kids got angry when he moved some of their piled dirt.  They said, "Stop ruining our compost pile!"

And from a friend of mine, who does childcare:  She told me about two six year old girls who were meeting for a play date.  One said, "I brought dress up clothes!"
The other one countered, with equal enthusiasm, "I brought kale!"

A worker at a local café said to me:  "Hippies, hipsters.  Two very different things..."

My toddler niece, looking at some pictures on the wall at a friend's house:  "One goddess, two goddess, three goddess, four goddess...."


License plate of the week:
BADGURU




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If you're going to be a ninja...

Friend of a friend, on the side of a large group talking.  "There was a lot of pumpkin carving at our place this week.  I had to meditate on it for a while, but a snake theme came to me."  Scrolling through pictures of jack-o-lanterns on her phone.  "My son said it wasn't scary enough, so I ended up having to make it into a rattlesnake."

Young tweener sitting outside Whole Foods to his mom:  "I decided I want to be a ninja this year. But a ninja that uses their powers for good."
Mother:  "Like for what?"
Boy, after a thoughtful pause:  "Like for the environment or something."

A local practitioner was describing her Athenian goddess costume to a friend of hers.  "I am going as a priestess of light."
Her friend observed, "Oh, you are going as your aura in the 12th dimension."
"Yes, exactly!"

A co-worker told me she overheard a conversation about conspiracy theories in front of Hardcore Cafe.  One gentleman said, "Just say it really fast and you will get it: Ebola...Obama...  Ebola...Obama..."

Explaining something to a friend of mine, who lives in Sebastopol.  "All right, well there are two types of moms in Sebastopol, the soccer moms and the yoga pants moms-"
My friend, laughing, "Okay, that should go in your blog."

At a local school, on a board with some photos from movies is a picture of Glinda the Good Witch (from The Wizard of Oz).  On a post-it under the picture it reads:  "Glinda is from Sebastopol."


And for those who did not catch this post a year ago, several people have told me it is their "favorite Sebastoblog":
Halloween with a Sebastopol twist
http://sebastopolgal.blogspot.com/2013_10_01_archive.html