Buddhist license plates

A woman admiring a cashier's necklace of amethyst and dark purple stones:
"I really like that.  It looks like it has magical powers."

A local told me what her son's teacher mentioned after Valentine's day:
"She had a boy in the class who told her he didn't celebrate Valentine's day because they practice love every day at home and don't single out just one day for it.  And also he's not allowed to eat chocolate."

Favorite recent Facebook post about a Press Democrat article:
"In Sebastopol, even our newly hired policewoman is a yoga instructor. :)"

I was glad to see my bathroom cleaner noted it is gluten-free.

I dashed over to Community Market one evening just before it was closing at 10.  It was pretty hoppin'.  The cashier and I were joking that there isn't much happening in Sebastopol on a Thursday night if the health food store has a crowd.  (I should mention they do have a small bar, but nobody was in the bar.)
"After hours at Community Market," he remarked with drollness.  "It's the place to be."

As I was walking through a parking lot to my car late one evening:
Dude #1: "Look at that, it's a buddha on the license plate."
Dude #2:  "No, that can't be..."
Dude #1:  "Yes it is.  Look!"
Dude #2 bends down:  "Dude, it's the statue of liberty."
(substances may have been involved in this interaction)

At the Rialto Cinemas, where there is now a food and wine bar (in addition to really good popcorn):
Person in front of me:  "So you can just come here and get a salad and wine, and not have to see a movie?"
His wife:  "I think so."
Him:  "Would people really do that?"
Her:  "I really don't know."
Me:  "But more importantly, could you just come get some of their popcorn to go?"
Her:  "Now that is a very good question!"

I was conversing with an older gentleman at Community Market who mentioned he used to live in Sebastopol but was now visiting for a few weeks.  We got on the topic of spirituality.  "The spirituality around here is hard to describe.  It's spiritual but it's not.  Like when you go hear jazz but it ends up being jazz fusion.  It sounds like jazz but it isn't bona fied jazz."
Me:  "Kind of like 'spiritual funk?'"
"Yes!  Spiritual infusion funk."


(If only I was paid for spotting west county license plates:)
ZOOMORE
SEEK JOY
ZEBRAS
GRND WVR

Karmic debt

A Nectary customer was telling me about her Very Sebastopol neighbor.  "She is the kind of person you can't ask a question and get a simple answer.  Or even make a statement.  Like I'll say I'm thirsty and fifteen minutes later she is still talking about hydration and fourteen reasons why you should drink coconut water.  Or why hemp ice cream is healthier for you than coconut ice cream.  Or why quantum touch is better than massage.  Or what kind of tea to drink to help your REM sleep so you'll dream better.  One day she told me the type of yoga I do is not right for moving kundalini energy.  I could go on and on....'

At a coffeehouse I somehow ended up talking about the song "Age of Aquarius" with a few people.  One woman remarked, "I never really understood the significance of this song until I took an astrology workshop.  The lyrics from that song are very important!  If you know anything about astrology.  If not it's just people singing a really peculiar song about the planets."

While I was waiting for a meal at Peter Lowel's, the guests next to me:
"Here is that salt again.  There has been pink Himalayan salt everywhere we've gone this weekend."

A local told me about her land mate:  "She said it's okay for her to go into debt.  She has good karma with credit cards.  I'm thinking to myself, what does that even mean?"

A mother to her friend, talking about the neighborhood she used to live in:  "My kids got along fine with the other kids on our street.  But a few of the moms were kind of prejudiced toward my kids.  They just weren't Waldorf-y enough for them."

My friend and I were cruising around Whole Foods trying to decide what to eat.  We ended up at the smoothie counter, and he commented:  "We have been walking around and talking about tantra and ayahuasca and The Cosmic Serpent and beet juice, and nobody is fazed by any of this."
Me:  "Yeah...  That is kind of the point of my blog."


License plates:
OOOOHM
ACTION
APAWSUM
BAT NRSE







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Do healthy McNuggets exist? (and other west county musings)

A conversation I heard walking to my car in the Whole Foods parking lot:
"Let's go to Slice of Life.  They have chicken mcnuggets now."
"They do?  Are they real?"
"No, they are tempeh healthy vegan mcnuggets.  But they're good."
"Nothing 'mc' about that."  (I couldn't tell if that was a good or bad thing.)

More comments on the Sebastopol women's look:
"I had a friend who commented that all the women in Sebastopol look like woodland fairies."
"The first time I went to a mom's play group, when I hadn't lived here for long, I looked around and thought a lot of these moms looked like they should be at a tribal dance convention.  Moms in Stockton sure did not dress this way!"
I lamented to my sister (after someone told me I dress "quite conservatively"):  "Well, I'm sorry I don't dress like I'm on my way to a tantra workshop or a Renaissance faire!"

My niece and I were tossing a stuffed animal back and forth on the stairway.  At one point it landed on her forehead.  "Are you all right?" I asked.
"I'm okay.  It just hit my third eye, but I'm okay."

My sister was telling us how people are renting out spaces for storage because of the limited housing and storage in Sonoma County.  "Maybe I could rent out my garage for a storage space."
"And this is Sebastopol.  For an extra charge you could tell the person you will smudge their boxes once a month."

While standing in line at CVS a woman was describing to the cashier about the bathroom reading material at her relatives' house.  "It's so Sebastopol.  It's all about spiritual alignment and Rumi and how to make a cake with no sugar.  At my place it's just Reader's Digest."

An acquaintance, visiting from the city, commented to the group I was standing with:  "There are more yoga places in Sebastopol than gas stations."
His friend:  "I think there are more yoga studios than banks."
Me:  "I believe there are more yoga studios than grocery stores."


License plates around town:
BLITZIN
VEGEVAN
SUN GYPSY
WAFL MAN

Practical New Year's wishes

Favorite comment from the previous blog (regarding Sebastopol women's "look"):
"We were just browsing in Funk & Flash last night.  I love 'Peter Pan pirates' so much more than 'Tribal.'  If I wore those clothes I would have to be six inches taller and 40 lbs. skinnier and learn how to care for wearable feathers."

While I was waiting for someone an event let out and people were streaming past me, wishing each other happy new years.  Two of the well-wishers stopped near me, talking about January goals.  They gave each other a hug and one said, "Happy new year's!  Blessings for a healthy, healing, light-filled new year!"
To which her friend replied, "I need a job!"
First woman:  "Blessings for an abundant, healthy, healing new year!"
Second woman:  "I want to get a job.  I need prosperity!  I need a financially sound new year!"
A mini-discussion about the difference between abundance and prosperity ensued.
And as my sister and I drove up to Community Market in the late evening on New Year's eve, I was glad to see the car we parked next to had a banner on the back:  I AM THANKFUL.

From a worker in a health food store:  In the supplements section a woman talking to his co-worker remarked, "Sebastopolians buy and ingest a lot of supplements.  People around here must have very expensive pee."

In my yoga class a woman made the comment, talking about another restorative yoga class:  "That one was too restorative for me.  It was just doing shavasana with different props, for like an hour-and-a-half."

When I was walking to my car parked in the plaza, I heard a young woman saying to her friend:
"I totally judged him.  Because of his hipster beard.  I admit it."


License plates, the tale continues:
BUG GRL
HAHA GRL
VANTASY
BASS GUY


Someone accused me of reusing the same license plates, so I looked back on some older blogs to make sure this wasn't the case.  I did come across:
NLITEN UP
LI-10 UP
LITEN UP
... so I could see the similarities.
#evolvedvanityplates







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Peace on earth (via pyramids)

Correction from a previous blog:
My friend actually said - when we were in downtown Santa Rosa dealing with aggro-bike riders and meth users -  "We aren't in Kansas any more."
(And by Kansas, she meant Sebastopol.)

My friend's colleague was telling me about a roommate she once had when she lived in northern Sebastopol:  "He was so into eye gazing.  I think he may have even taught a class about it?  Or something like that...  I couldn't ask him a question without him gazing intensely into my eyes.  For a while.  I'd say, 'Look, we are just talking about the garbage pick up.  Can you stop staring and just answer my question?'"

Looking for holiday cards one evening in Copperfield's I heard a woman ask how late they were open until.  The worker answered, "Nine o'clock."
"Nine o'clock? In Sebastopol??" I responded, I guess more loudly than I realized because the other half dozen people in the store all laughed.
"This is very exciting," another shopper added, noting that every other shop on Main Street was already closed at 7:30.
I quipped, "We can pretend we're in San Francisco."

I was sitting in front of Whole Foods one evening finishing a smoothie when a woman walked by and said in a resigned tone (to everyone sitting on the benches):  "The moment you realize your vegan salad has goat cheese in it."
For some reason this prompted me to say:  "The moment you realize your chakras are not aligned."
Which in turn gave way to an impromptu popcorn-style group outburst.  Some of the exclamations:
"The moment you realize gluten-free bread sucks."
"The moment you realize you burned your last scented candle."
"The moment you realize you were so relaxed you left your raincoat at yoga."
"The moment you realize it's been too long since your last astrological reading."
"The moment you realize your acupuncturist did know what she was talking about."

A text from a friend when we got separated shopping in downtown:
"I'll be over there in a minute.  I am listening to a guy tell people how spiritual pyramids can save the world."
Me:  "Duh.  Everyone knows that."
Her:  "An energetic vibe something that runs on something and if people around the pyramids tap into something it can help stop climate change and make the world a more peaceful place because of something.  I'm not really getting all the lingo."

My friend used to work in Santa Rosa and had a co-worker who lived in Sebastopol.  Another co-worker inquired of him:  "Why is it the women out in Sebastopol dress like Peter Pan pirates?"


And as always, the west county-themed license plates abound:
YIELD 2{love}
ROCK KAT
NMASTEE
R GENIE
ECO RIDE

Hippie chicks and hypocrites

Since Milk and Honey changed ownership I have not frequented the shop as regularly as I used to.  I was looking for a gift last week and after browsing for approximately four minutes I'd overheard a conversation about a customer explaining which vagina candle was the best, how quickly their phallic candles have been selling, and an app for vagina emojis.
Me, laughing:  "This is why I haven't had as much material for my blog in the last few months, because I don't come in here as often!"

My friend and I had dinner at Slice of Life recently and she noticed the kale caesar salad has "massaged" kale in it.  Over in Rohnert Park, she says one doesn't generally see massaged greens in salads one orders.  When the waitstaff asked us about dessert, my friend wanted to know if any of the desserts had been massaged.  (We agreed if the chocolate cake was massaged it should be with lavender oil.) 


Walking through the parking lot of Coaches Corner, my friend and I couldn't help but notice an abundance of west county-esque bumper stickers.  There were the standard issue COEXIST and GODDESS ON THE LOOSE ones.  Additionally I saw a few I hadn't seen before:
VEGAN POWER
SORCERER ON BOARD
IT'S TIME TO AWAKEN =) 
 (the smiley face is part of the bumper sticker. "It's time to awaken" in clouds, with a smiley face -
 a text from the Great Divine)
CHRISTIANITY HAS PAGAN DNA
HIPPIE CHICKS ON BOARD
A car at the Barlow sported a triple-array of bumper stickers:
What would Tara do?  What would Durga do?  What would Kali do?
(And actually, if you know anything about these goddesses, that would be three rather different answers to the same question.)

For Black Friday, Funk N Flash (a downtown store) was offering a "blisscount."

An impassioned diatribe from a Whole Foods shopper:
"I know that eating hot dogs is not a very vegan thing to do!  It makes no sense that I won't touch eggs or yogurt or brie, but I'll eat a hot dog.  I know it's not logical, but my love of hot dogs is not logical."
Person with him:  "And pastrami."
"Okay.... yeah, pastrami, too.  I'm a vegan hypocrite when it comes to pork and good sandwich meat.  What can I say?"



License plates around town:
CA{heart} ZEN
OSTPATH
DEER TRL





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Pawn shops and poisonous snacks

I don't know what the conversation was about up to this point, but I overheard a woman at Slice of Life say to her table-mate:  "He was wearing a sweatshirt with an om on it, what do you expect?"

A worker at Rite-Aid told me a guy came in asking her if there was a pawn shop in Sebastopol.  She told him she really didn't think there was one around here, maybe in Santa Rosa.  "I kid you not, he pulled out a big bag of crystals.  He was trying to pawn crystals.  I thought, if you're trying to do that, this would be the right downtown to be looking for a pawn shop."

I pulled up behind a truck with a large picture of a vodka bottle, noting it was gluten-free.  In all fairness, the truck was probably not from Sebastopol.  But I was relieved to know I could buy gluten-free hard alcohol.  (A number of years ago I saw an ad for vodka, stating that it was "low carb."  The vodka advertisers stay on top of the current trends.  Maybe next week I will discover vodka with chia seeds.)

At a small gathering I ended up talking with a friend of a friend who mentioned she had read several of my blog posts.  "I thought you must be exaggerating some of these stories until I took my five year-old to a group play date at the park, and couldn't believe how the kids gave him horrified looks when we pulled out 'real' gummy bears.  Not organic, fruit-sweetened Whole Foods type of gummies, like the other kiddos had, along with their edamame and kale chips.  These were the real deals.  One of the kids pointed to them and told my son these were 'very bad for you,' and he wasn't allowed to eat poison." 

"How was the workshop?"
"SNAGs galore."
Another friend also told me about S-SNAGs, which means "sexual-spiritual new age guy."  A term she and her roommate came up with after attending a tantra retreat.

Sitting in downtown Santa Rosa with a former neighbor, we watched a few strange interactions of passers-by (several drug addicts, two smokers who stopped right in front of our table and a very hostile guy on a bike) after which she observed, "I don't think we are in Sebastopol any more."

Friend #1:  "I didn't really know what chakras were til I moved to west county."
Friend #2:  "I didn't know what chakras were til I started reading Cami's blog!"


And the license plates continue:
GO HIKIN
RAIN DNC
COZMO JO
RAW MAMA