SeBASTopol cat

A friend who lives in a different part of Sonoma County was in Sebastopol for the day.  She had read a few of my blogs and was determined to experience some Very Sebastopol moments.  I explained that they just happen, you can't really force it.  She then decided, being much more extraverted than I am, that she wanted to ask anyone walking down the street what they thought about the alleged vortex. 
Her:  "I just want to ask people, do you feel the Sebastopol vortex?"
Me:  "That question in and of itself is actually Very Sebastopol."
Pause.  "Okay.  I see your point."
Her friend, who lived in west county years ago, pointed out that certain words have different connotations in Sebastopol.  "When someone is talking about alignment, they are usually referring to something spiritual."
"Chakras," I agreed.  "Or at the very least, a chiropractic adjustment."
"Right," he replied.  "In other areas if someone is talking about alignment, they are probably talking about their car.  My ex-girlfriend even used to say she was going in for a 'tune-up' when she got a massage."  He noted it is the same with the words:  light, transformative and someone being conscious.
I asked if there were any other differences he noticed between living here and where he currently lived.  He responded, "Discussions about spiritual topics were so common.  Now when I end up talking to someone and it goes off on a spiritual tangent it surprises me - hardly ever happens.  Here they were a dime a dozen."

At Milk and Honey a young tweener walked up to her mom holding a Bast stuffed animal.  Her mother asked, "Where did this come from?"
"Um, from Egypt."
Mom, laughing, "That's not exactly what I meant, but all right..."

My niece and I were at the library sitting at a game and puzzle table.  We were going through an alphabet board and I was saying words for the different letters.  We got to Q and I was stuck for a minute.  "Q is for...?"  A young girl piped up from the other end of the table, "Q is for Quan Yin."

My favorite recent text:
"I just saw license plate OHM M G.  I thought you made that up!  But I just drove up behind it, lol. It actually exists!"


License plate of the week (from my sister):
4ST GIRL

(p.s. I love that people have been texting/emailing me about amusing license plates they have been seeing...)  =)





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Need to find a good astrocartographerphysicistshaman

(From a friend:)  Man, sitting outside of the plaza coffee spot, talking to someone next to him:  "Have you noticed that the kids around here know a lot more about martial arts than in other places?"

Woman, talking on her cell phone in the Whole Foods parking lot:  "She said they are in a white Prius.  Which narrows it down to half the cars in the parking lot."

A man standing in front of me in line at Community Market was explaining why he prefers shopping there rather than at Whole Foods.  His reasons:  "The hot bar is much better and they are not serving the same food they served since the late 90s.  It is less manic over here.  And people don't step right in front of you as you are driving through the parking lot."  (I can attest to the last one.)

I was waiting outside the library and some people were crossing the street.  One remarked something about jay-walking, and another responded:  "I am not jay-walking.  I am joy-walking."

I overheard a woman saying to someone in front of Copperfield's, "I finally am visiting Sebastopol.  I have heard so much about it at Burning Man."

Favorite (local) FB post:
"I've overheard one too many conversations on chakras today.  Lord-- please help me relocate soon."

And several funny comments to the post:
 - Will have to tell Cami about this.  Not sure if she can see, even if I tag her if y'all aren't fb friends?? I mean we are all one anyway, right?
 - My Akashic Astrocartographerphysicistshaman told me during my last colonic that she could see that although Cami is not my FB friend that we are karmically intertwined through the Dolphin Moon Tribe of Atlantis.
 - Move to Brooklyn...  No chakras here.


Favorite license plates of the week:
SYRAAAH
SAGESSE
LUNAR {heart}





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Psychic gift shopping

A text conversation between a friend and me, while I was walking through Whole Foods:
I can understand lavender lotion and lavender eye pillows.  But I just walked by lavender almonds.
Seriously??  Where are u?
Whole Foods.
{laughing emoji}  I should have guessed.
That could be a good snack when you are hungry and a little agitated.
Ask if they have any chamomile pistachios.
Or kava kava cashews.
Those would be great!  For smoothies late at night when you're also stressed!
I think you may be on to something.

A worker at a local store shared with me one of her customer's remarks: "I do much better with my family when my pyschic helps me pick out Christmas gifts."

I was waiting in line for the bathroom at Whole Foods and a woman in front of me asked (surveying a flier), "What is tantric numerology?"  The women in front of her responded, "I don't know what regular numerology is, so I'm really not the right person to ask."

My friend was taking out her cat litter on the evening of Christmas and it ended up spilling all over her porch.  She told me, "I had litter and crap all over my porch right in front of my front door.  It didn't seem like a good omen.  At the very least, I knew my crystal-at-the-right-angle roommate was going to tell me this was really bad feng shui."

I took a walk at Ragle Park on Christmas day, and what was amusing to me was that it was the hipster-dressed solstice/pagan looking people who kept wishing me Merry Christmas.  (Not even a generic "happy holidays.")

License plate of the week:
PIN DOC

Most notable west county Christmas present:
A wall hanging of the different Chinese meridians in the body cross-represented with Chinese, Vedic or Zodiac astrology.

Happy holidays from Kwan Yin!
(note the chakras hanging in the window)

A green smoothie and epic hug to go

A friend of mine told me about her Sebastopol neighbor who is anti-Christmas and created her own holiday for this time of year.  Kwantice.  I asked her neighbor about it and got a long explanation and some not-so-relevant family history, but the gist of it being it's a combination of Kwanzaa and solstice.  Certain Kwanzaa days, solstice gifts and African drumming.  (And yes, I had to ask for the spelling of it.)

A customer at Rosemary's Garden:
"You know, there is Christmas music everywhere right now and it wears on you.  We come over to shop here and there is all this mellow music like you are in a massage.  But after a few hours of it, that starts to wear on you, too."

On a quiet Saturday morning a woman walked into the post office and another woman was standing by the office window, but it was closed.  She said to the woman who just walked in, "He is going to get a package for me, but he'll be right back and can get your package."
Second woman:  "Oh.  Thank you."  Looking down at her hand laughing, "Oh, right, I'm holding this package slip.  I just thought you were incredibly psychic."
First woman:  "Well, we are in west county."

I was waiting in a coffee shop and heard someone next to me ask the person she was sitting with, "I am saving money consciously and want to be spiritually responsible about it.  Do you know a good accountant for that?"

And from last year's holiday post:
"I don't know what to get her {for Christmas}.  She is getting back from a seven day vision quest thing.  I'm like, here have some earrings after you sat outside for four days and nights with vultures and wild coyotes."
"She sat outside for four days?"
"Yes, that's what a vision quest is.  You sit by yourself by a tree or something and don't eat anything for four days and think about your life."
"And why would anyone do that to themselves?"

A text from my friend Steve, visiting from Scandanavia and driving up from the city:
Should I wear my "CHAKRA KHAN" t-shirt or my "Whole Foods: Now Serving EPIC HUGS" t-shirt?


License plates of the week:
XXOO2U
LET LOVE
LIBRA





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Life is good, life is gr8

Dude standing outside the library, looking at some flowers and plants.
"You can't just have some plants?  There is kale growing outside the library?"

One of two people horsing around on some chairs, sitting on each others' laps at the Barlow:
"Don't worry, we're fine.  There are different rules in this part of the county.  There's even a bill of rights that's different than other towns."
Person sitting to the side of them:  "A Sebastopol 'Bill of Rights?'  I'd like to see that."

Facebook post of the week:
"We ended up going to Di's Diner....  It was good.  I liked the guy that came into the burger joint and ordered hummus w/extra pita.  Gotta love Sebastopol."

Two people meandering by the musicians at the Farmers Market:  "I am so happy to be alive.  I am so blessed to be able to buy organic produce at this lovely market.  I am so happy to be walking around downtown chatting with all these beautiful people. Life is good."
Woman walking with him:  "I think you put too much maca in your smoothie this morning."

A reader emailed this to me:
I was picking out a drink at Whole Foods and a fellow shopper said, "What happened to the acai berry? Remember a few years ago you couldn't buy a drink without it?"
Then the worker said:  "I think it was replaced by chia seeds.  Which have been replaced by anything that says 'gluten-free.'"

A friend's previous roommate had been a grower, who also loved to use spritzers.  My friend told me, "Her car always smelled like this funky combination of lavender and weed."
Me:  "Well, that would be very... relaxing."
My friend:  "Yeah, now that I think about it every time I was in her car for more than an hour I always wanted to take a nap when I got home."

Favorite sweatshirt of the week:
Ask me about the health benefits 
of the chocolate bar I'm eating


License plates of the week:
GR8 EAGL
INTEGR8




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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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