I'll have white wine and a Snickers

My friend and I saw a Celtic band at the community center.  While there was no shortage of wine if you wished to purchase it, the desserts were disappointing.  Eyeing a basket full of Twix and Snickers bars, my friend wanted to know:  "Where are the Sebastopol desserts?  No vegan, healthy cacao desserts here?  What is wrong with this picture?!"

In my Bollywood class another dancer told me he used to live in Sebastopol.  "People there were so nice.  You'd come to a stop and the drivers would be like 'you go,' 'no, you go.'  I'd think, 'Somebody fucking go, I've got to get to work!"

"This little piggy went to market...
this little piggy stayed home in their yurt...
this little piggy played in the pesticide-free garden
this little piggy played in the dirt."

While asking for a root beer at the Rialto, I requested little ice in the drink.  The worker showed me how much he put in and I approved.  "I'm sorry to be picky, it's just hard to pay four dollars for a cup of ice," I explained.
He shrugged.  "One woman got mad at us last week for not having an organic popcorn option.  This is nothing."

My former co-worker when we were at the Barlow last Saturday watching the tourists:
"Are these people walking around here from Sebastopol?  They are not dressed like they are from Sebastopol.  And they are walking around drinking glasses of wine.  Sebastopolians walk around drinking yerba mate."

According to an animal medicine source:  "People are trying to make bats the new owl." 

A woman told her neighbor at the farmer's market last weekend:  "I'm waiting for a friend whose getting a massage, listening to drumming and eating seaweed salad.  There's really been no sign of Easter all day.  Except for pictures of Easter baskets I got from my grandchildren this morning, I would not have even known it was Easter Sunday."

I walked up behind someone at Community Market staring at several rows of healthy juices, herb-infused shakes and kombucha.  After a minute I asked him if I could grab a drink.  He turned to me.  "Oh, I'm sorry.  I was in the zone.  I'm not used to such a selection of healthy drinks.  They don't have that where I'm from."

Often when I emerge from my yoga class I walk past several people smoking who have stepped outside from the Main Street bar.  This week one slightly-intoxicated fellow asked me if I had just done yoga.  To which I replied yes.  He said:  "You have that yoga smile.  And you're wearing yoga pants."
Me:  "I have to say, yoga pants are not necessarily an indication of actually going to yoga in Sebastopol."


More license plates:
SLONOMA
LVNG JOY
ARIES I B
CHAI 5S





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Groovy hip peas

Talking to someone about my blog, she summarized Sebastopol culture in her opinion in one statement:  "You've seen one white dreadlocked guy, you've seen them all."

Another tale from my yoga classmate who just moved back here from Fresno:
"I'm sitting in my car at the Barlow.  I'd been backing out when someone called and since I'm used to Fresno's suffocating summer heat I don't turn the car off.  When I look up a woman has materialized in front of my car waving her arms in front of her face like my car stinks and is shouting 'turn off your car, you're ruining the environment!'  I would have been mad but all I could think was that never happened in Fresno."

My sister's rant after my last blog posting:
"Thank you Cami for channeling so well the enlightened sarcasm we as a community can only obtain when we've reached the place of nirvana where being able to laugh at ourselves comes only with the knowing we are all the authors of this cosmic joke of a life we are living."
(and for those few people in west county who don't know my sister, this was also dripping with [enlightened] sarcasm)

In front of a few people in line at Whole Foods yesterday, I heard a woman say to her friends:  "We are in Sebastopol.  We try new things when we come here.  Look at these drinks and their containers.  They look really groovy so they must be good."

A library worker told me she overheard this comment a while back:
"No, this is the library.  Not Kinko's.  And not a spiritual book store.  There aren't random Wiccan books on the shelves just because it's Sebastopol."

A Ford Focus I pulled up behind, with a message:
Focus on 
  peace

From a former co-worker, who does not live in Sebastopol but has worked here long enough to realize:
"One of my coworkers (who lives in a yurt. So you think he'd understand Sebastopol better) was complaining about how he can't find a woman because they all think they are goddesses and he doesn't really get it. I responded that he shouldn't say that to any of the women in Sebastopol because that's probably his problem. Plus, all women are goddesses! But if he doesn't want a goddess Sebastopol is the wrong place to be looking."


License plates:
HIP PEA
BLIEVE IT
DG HAIR
SOL RISE 

The renaissance at Ragle

You know how you go for a walk in Ragle park, and you come around a bend and there are two women trying on renaissance clothes?  Attempting to pick out which ones will look the best in a picture.  And then twenty minutes later, in a different area of the park, you see two boys dueling with toy swords.  One is wearing a feudal outfit.  You think, somehow these two incidents must be related.  But it turns out they are not.

An email from a reader:
"Only in Sebastopol would you see fliers for math tutors that are kind and supportive."

Outside Pacific Market I saw some girls selling Girl Scout cookies.  One was talking/shouting about different kinds of cookies, and then suddenly started doing the "gluten-free dance" as she called it.  I asked the adult behind her if there were, in fact, gluten-free cookies now.  She shook her head.  "No, lots of gluten and lots of sugar still."  Slightly shrugging her shoulders she pointed to the girl who was continuing to boogie.  "I have no idea what this is about."

A fellow yoga classmate has just moved back to Sebastopol after living in Fresno for a number of years.  She was telling us the things that happen here that would never happen in Fresno:  for example, the sheer number of places you can buy fermented beverages around town - this does not exist in Fresno.

A customer behind me in line at Whole Foods disclosed she got a speeding ticket earlier that day.  She ended up telling us that she wasn't that bothered by it.  "I'm not upset, I don't know why.  Maybe it's total denial, or maybe the meditation CDs I've been listening to are working."

"I know she parked in this parking lot.  Hers is the one with the Zoroaster Temple bumper sticker on it."
And the most Sebastopol bumper sticker of the week:
I LOVE LOVE

My four year-old niece:  "Aunt Cami, why don't you have a Prius?"

"Slice of Life has changed some, it's different owners.  The menu is new and improved.  And they remodeled inside."
"Yeah, it doesn't look so west county ghetto any more."


License plates:
OM TARA
R YOU KND
ZENWOLF
SUN BEAR







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