Laguna de Santa Rosa

OilMan gave up on the idea of playing golf this morning before he ever got out of bed. Instead, we took Ozzie to the Laguna for a sedate walk and a beautiful wide view of the plain between Santa Rosa and Sebastopol. The grasses are eye high on Ozzie and the picture of the lines next to the trail  and the river lined with newly planted trees*, reminded me of the South of France.

Our next mission was to visit Acre coffee's new store in Sebastopol. A couple of months ago, as we left a restaurant there, we were hailed by Andrew and Rob, both of whom used to work at our local Santa Rosa Acre store,, and they told us that Acre was doing up a space right across the street. The two of them were the main reason I continued to go to Acre in Santa Rosa as it became increasingly crowded and noisy. When they left to manage other stores, we moved to Trail House where we watch young men hurtling down hills on bikes, skateboards, skis or snowboards on large screen televisions (with the sound turned off), and young women make coffee for patrons waiting for their bikes to be repaired in the back of the store. One can even get a beer there, but at 9am (or ever, in my case) this is not an appealing prospect.

We found Andrew* in the the new Sebastopol store this morning, and chatted with a fellow who was there with his little dog. He said she was his first dog and, as she was a rescue he didn't know exactly what she was, but she appeared to be a combination of terrier and border collie. As all dogs and small children are wont to do, she gravitated straight to OilMan. Ozzie languished in the car parked in the shade.

It is a very pleasant space (which used to be a Starbucks, dark and not so pleasant) with sun streaming through the windows and the signature Acre minimalist style. OilMan and I agreed that we still liked Sebastopol a lot and enjoyed going there. I said we ought to move back there to a small house on a small, flat lot and he said, 'You mean like where we used to live'...'Yeah, said I. just like that'. All we would have to do is dislodge the tenant and convince the owners to sell it to us. 

All fantasy of course, so we moved on to Sebastopol Hardware, another institution we both love. We bought a big steeping jar for the limoncello (from Italy, appropriately) dog food, a new garden hat for OilMan and soil for the new tree that came in the mail yesterday. And we had a conversation with a lady who works there about taking  blow dried, powdered beets for lowering blood pressure....

The things one can learn in small towns....

*Extra