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