Unapologetic vibe

"We are helping people connect with their soul.  So we can charge more for that."

"It's a new moon, full moon, waning moon, super moon.  Always something major!  Throw in an eclipse or a planet going retrograde.  You can't hide from astrology around here."

ISO/take:  does anyone in Sebastopol have a faceted crystal sphere they don't need?  Trying to feng shui my son's room.

My friend overheard at the library:  "Well, I'm sorry if it makes you uncomfortable.  But there is a difference between throwing food on a pile and composting!"

At the Barlow:  "I don't have time to explain chakras to you."

West county Facebook post of the week:

[In a hair salon] "Conversation at the shampoo station...

The woman next to me is talking with her hairdresser. Her hairdresser remarks how her hair is so thick. Woman responds: 'My spirit animal is an otter' and proceeds to tell various interesting facts about otters and their dense fur.

I turn to her and say, 'I like how you know your spirit animal!'

Her hairdresser, an energetic young man, adds, 'I think mine must be a Jack Russell.'

I love Sonoma County."

A woman conveyed to me she likes the focus on healthy living in Sebastopol.  “Of course some people take it too far.  They can be rather judgmental.  I remember my daughter being told at school that her homemade brownies were unhealthy because they had sugar in them.  When she told me I thought, ‘Well, of course they have sugar!  They’re brownies!’”

“There’s kind of an underground new age vibe in a lot of places.  You just have to find the right alternative bookstore and you’ll see a bulletin board like the one here at Whole Foods.  You know, with names of massage therapists and healers and workshops about breath work or fermenting your own food.  But what is unique about Sebastopol is that it is right out in the open.  You don’t have to search for it.  It’s right in your face.  Nobody is apologizing about it.
And you don’t have to believe in reiki, but if you want a reiki session it’s sure not hard to find.”

"As a West Country Tantric Priestess who uses biodegradable lube produced compassionately from the gland secretions of free-range, grass-fed bovines, who has made the ethical choice to let my dollars speak as my vote by purchasing compostable sex toys hand-crafted by local artisans out of organic potatoes, I am only interested in sustainable orgasms."
~Facebook post/Shannon Elsom

Sebastoblog has a sister column in Sonoma West Times

http://www.sonomawest.com/sonoma_west_times_and_news/opinion/columns/sebastoblog-land-of-the-goddess/article_4aec03c6-1cd0-11e8-a2b6-7b9c0bb65b4b.html

Non-crucial crosswalks

Spring Poem
It's equinox
Time for a detox
New beginnings & dreams
Lots of shakes with greens
Release rather than let things fester
Gather many eggs for Eostre.

A text from my sister:
I feel like this sounds so dramatic, but I genuinely went into a state of shock when she told me I had Scorpio rising.
Omg - birth certificate in hand- I'm a scorp rising???!!!  This is crazy!!!  Wow. It's like I don't even know myself anymore. Lol

"Around here you don't refer to chocolate as cocoa.  You say cacao."

These past few weeks on Facebook the blog has been writing itself:

"Be aware of mercury in retrograde..... even if you don't believe in it.... it will still nail you!!"

"Locked my keys in the car.  Got them back, lost them at work.  Had to have my boyfriend drop off the extra set, he dropped off condo keys by mistake.  Have spent an hour looking for them at work and can't find them.  I can't text my boyfriend because when he dropped off the wrong keys he left his phone here. 
It wouldn't be mercury in retrograde without a keys debacle.  Happens every time!"

"I like to play a game every time I go to Sebastopol. Its called: 'Count How Many White Dudes Walk Into Traffic/In Front Of My Car Without Looking.' They never stop or look back. EVER. They just mosey on like they own the world. Seriously. Loads of them, all ages. EVERY SINGLE TIME. Its almost like a video game, just way more obnoxious."
Comments:
   "White chicks too!  Belly dancing through the streets."
   "I have a game that I play in Sebastopol too.  It's called spot the old people that dress like toddlers in homemade pajamas who also wear weird knit hats.  It's all day entertainment."
   "Extra points if they have dreadlocks"
   "So many mornings, back when we lived in Sebastopol when I'd be rushing to get to work, stop for some breakfast at that Whole Foods and inevitably be slowed down by the zillions of hippies who seemingly had nowhere to be except the Sebastopol Whole Foods allllll damn day, and no spatial awareness about where their shopping carts/bodies might be."
   "Sebastopol Whole Foods is one of the most infuriating places on the planet, unless you just walked out of a restorative yoga class and you’re high and you don’t have anywhere you need to be for the rest of the day...."

   "I saw two Priuses crash into each other going 2 miles an hour in the Whole Foods parking lot..."

   "In Sebastopol there seems to be an inverse relationship between how present one is with their inner self to how oblivious one is outwardly...."

"Only in Sebastopol can one be surrounded by animal totems in an ER room!
Ha!"

Sebastoblogette

From one of my community moles:
It is Super Bowl Sunday and we are at Community Market watching the Super Bowl in the bar.
This guy with no shirt on but several necklaces offered a friend a beer from his 6-pack.  She asked if it was gluten free.  He said, “I’m not anything free, I’m just Free.”
Next thing out of his mouth was, “I don’t go to doctors.”

"I'm really stressed.  I've been snorting lavender oil like there is no tomorrow."

Local Facebook post: 
"Where can I get yoga pants around here?
Scratch that - dumb question!  Where can I get yoga pants that aren't 70 dollars??"

Vintage vignette, in honor of equinox~

Coaches Corner a few years ago, mid-March:

Young woman:  "What date is Easter?"

Guy:  "It's different every year."

Young woman:  "But why?"

Guy:  "I have no idea."

Second woman, on a treadmill:  "It's the first Sunday after the first full moon after equinox."

Both stare at second woman blankly.  Finally the guy says, "Oh.  Really?  Is that true?"

Second woman, "Yes, really.  I don't make these things up."  She walks away.

Young woman:  "You're all about equinox, how come you didn't know that?"

Guy:  "I like solstice, not equinox."

Young woman:  "Isn't it, like, the same thing?"

Exasperated sigh.  "Um.... no, it isn't."

In a newsletter:  "In a strange twist of fate, April Fool's day and Easter are on the same day, during Mercury retrograde.  Be careful when you open plastic eggs."

Bumper sticker (thank you Alice W.):
My other car is a yoga mat.
I asked three Sebastopol people what they thought this meant
Sebastopudlian #1:  When you do yoga you do go on a journey.
Sebastopudlian #2:  I have no earthly idea.  I have no cosmic idea either. 
Sebastopudlian #3:  I am a Sebastopol dweller so strapped for money I can't afford a second car, but I do own a yoga mat.

Sebastoblog has a sister column in Sonoma West Times
http://www.sonomawest.com/sonoma_west_times_and_news/opinion/columns/sebastoblog-land-of-the-goddess/article_4aec03c6-1cd0-11e8-a2b6-7b9c0bb65b4b.html

Pricey coconut milk

"I had family over for a Christmas party and hired a massage therapist from Calistoga to come do massage.  She arrived without her bag and asked where she could go in town to buy some massage oil.  I started to suggest a few places, when my sister-in-law piped up, 'Oh, believe me.  There is no shortage of massage oil in Sebastopol!  You could probably buy it from somebody on the street!'"

A shopper at the Barlow telling me:  "Hung out at my friend's house the day after Christmas.  Their seven year old showing me and also naming all the different kinds of crystals there are."

I am playing kids Twister with my niece. I remark, "You are really good at this!"
"Well, yeah.  It's kind of like doing yoga."

At a local coffeehouse a woman whispers, "That's not a cheap drink!"
"Yes," her friend informs her.  "Being vegan is expensive."

"There is a party going on, and it's ended up being more men than women.  I'm a little worried - I don't want it to turn into an extra-testosterone evening."
"The men coming are pretty in touch with their female side.  I doubt it'll be an issue."

Outside of Copperfield's:  "We cannot just get a crystal.  It has to be fluorite.  She made that very clear."

A New Year's eve text:  "I'm at Whole Foods.  Not too many others around.  Just me and the ecstatic dancers."

"There is a group of us getting together to manifest good energy/intentions for the new year, reflect on our path and what we want to release for 2017.  Bring together good energy and ring in good intentions for 2018!"
"I can't think of anything I'd like to do less than that."

T-shirt of the week:
Conscious Cannabis


Local license plates:
ONE SKY
SCAMPR
STR G8
AB DIVN






Shout out to Jaiyen Spa.  Wonderful Thai massage and reflexology. 
http://www.jaiyenspa.com/

Gravenstein ghetto

While in line at Whole Foods, a boy to his mother:
"Can we get candy canes?"
"Absolutely no candy canes."
"But mom, they're organic."

My sister replying to my complaint of a local restaurant that had raised its prices, again.  "I'm surprised some hipster restaurant hasn't added lemon or cucumber to water and started charging extra for water!"

More Sebastotexts:

  >All these shoppers! I can't find f-ing parking, not even for yoga!!

  >That sign is so tacky!!  Gravenstein doesn't need help to look more ghetto!

  >There are some good options today at the hot bar but I don't think you've heard of most of them.

  >You should be able to find us.  Just look for the people in yoga attire doing tai chi by the parking lot.

  >I forgot and put some sour cream in it. Added lots of spices to throw off the taste. 
  >Marge is not going to be happy about that.
  >Dessert got a little dairy in it.  So sue me.

A woman I took a class with emailed me.  "When I first moved here I'd never heard of quinoa.  I saw it at the deli and at a school pot luck for mothers and had no idea what it was.  Then someone made a grain dish with wheat berries and something called amaranth, I thought I'd landed on another planet.  Folks sprinkled things on top of pizza like pumpkin seeds and talked about papaya tablets to help digestion.  There was some culture shock.  Ten years later I go to a Thanksgiving pot luck, all vegetarian and mostly vegan.  I bring quinoa and bean salad with seaweed shavings on top I made while sipping Revive.  Yes I've lived here for a while.  West county changes you."

As I was paying for something at Community Market, a gentleman behind me informed the cashier,
"Yes, I'm back.  To get salad for dessert.  Way too healthy... don't tell my wife."

"They'll believe me.  They'll say, 'He teaches yoga - he wouldn't lie about anything.'"

A few years ago on Christmas Eve as I was walking up to Whole Body a woman exited, cheerily calling out, "Merry whatever!" 
Holiday wishes west county-style.


License plates:
TRUE SKY
SHARXX
MERIT
SNP DRGN







www.facebook.com/sebastoblog/

Rebbl with a cause

At a pot luck dinner:  "Paleo/vegan/wheat-free diets!  I can't keep track of all of them!"

"I accidentally ended up at the tree lighting ceremony.  But I was really trying to go to yoga."

"I don't know how I managed to pull this off... but I'm dressed like a conservative hippie."

A Facebook lamentation about being outside of Sonoma County on a trip: 
"I miss my lemon-scented candles.  I miss organic salads.  And tasty produce and non-chemical soap and talking to people about good enzymes.  I know I sound like a Whole Foods commercial right now."

I was complaining to a friend over dinner about a waiter at a local restaurant.  She replied, "Was he the Sebastopol type who stares at you blankly and doesn't really listen or take your order, and then goes off and doesn't come back for a long time?"

On a trail I was behind two women discussing local dancing.  One was explaining the difference between ecstatic dance, Sweat Your Prayers and Soul Motion.  And the different ecstatic dance tribes and what to expect at each.  I didn't hear which group she was referring to, but at one point she cautioned, "And you don't want to end up there.  A bunch of old people jumping around."

"Sebastopol:  where someone will complain about how much popcorn costs but pay $9 for a loaf of bread."

In honor of holiday shopping, vintage blog moment:
At a crystal store the owner showed me some jewelry pieces.  One had seven colors, each corresponding to a chakra.  As she was explaining it to me, I asked what she said to people who don't know about chakras.  "Well, if they are gay then I say, 'Gay pride!'  If they aren't gay and don't know what chakras are, then I just say, 'Look, it's a pretty rainbow.'"

Bumper sticker of the week:
Back off,
I'm a goddess!

License plates:
1 LUUV
FLY GRL
PIXI DST
JST FAB
WISDOM





Shout out to Rebbl who is donating 25 cents per drink sold in northern California through mid-December toward assistance to fire victims.  (Always nice when my addiction can also help others.)
http://rebbl.co/

BYOK

At a small shop in the Barlow:
"Check out this very hippie version of Adam and Eve."

Chatting at Community Market, I hear about a dinner group in a small neighborhood.  The woman explains to me, "After doing dinners together twice a month for a while we realized there were three very different types of meals.  We had the hometown grill families.  We had the hummus and veggie plate families.  And then the extreme vegan meals that are usually wheat- and sugar free too.  You know, where you're still hungry after.  We had to design a system depending on who was hosting."  She showed me a group email:
D = desserts will have sugar
M = if you want meat/poultry you have to provide your own
V = if you want vegetarian option, have to provide your own
VP [veggie protein] = protein will be nuts, tahini, tempeh, etc.
NS = do not give children anything with sugar
W = wine only, any fancy health drinks like Kombucha... BYO

At the end of a friend's text:
"We meet every third Wed.  And by meet I mean everyone is so cheap & won't pitch in ten bucks a month, so we meet at Community Market.  Because, ya know, it's Sebastopol."

On top of spaghetti
all covered with ghee
I lost my poor tofu
when somebody sneezed.
It rolled off the table
and onto the floor
And then my poor tofu
rolled out the front door.

Somewhere in downtown: 
"I don't need an excuse to go shopping.  I could do it everyday."
"The only thing that will get me shopping is having yoga pants with so many holes I can't wear them any more."

I was tagged in a post by a woman who did a week-long retreat somewhere in the hills of west county:
"Such a lovely vacation.  Really delicious food.  Although it would have been nice to have an option of doing something without it being consciousness-raising or healing or meaningfully life-changing.  Is it ok to do a walk on the property without having to meditate?  Even in town, talking to a cashier about carrots that led to veganism saving the world."

A Sunday school teacher sent me the following:  "We are talking at the end of class about good and evil... kids saying who is good and who is bad.  Evildoers are robbers, thieves, murderers.  I practically fell off the chair laughing when a boy says very seriously, 'The person who built the new CVS.'"


License plates:
JEDI MOM
JOY XX
OH ROCKS
NVR NRML
USED EWE






www.facebook.com/sebastoblog/