I just don’t get around Vallejo enough these days. I was driving along Florida Street a couple of months ago and I noticed a bead shop. The thought of a bead shop in Vallejo just somehow didn’t register immediately -- I love beads, and I love making jewelry even more, so I had to repeat ‘bead shop’ a few times in my head before excitement truly set in. It actually took until Halloween, a day I just could not find a parking space in front of my own house, before I parked near the shop and walked through the doors.

I was immediately greeted by a warm smile and an introduction to the store. My mind was screaming ‘jackpot’ but that familiar anxiety also kicked in as I realized that I couldn’t buy everything in the store. I listened attentively during the tour, talked to another patron who was finishing a couple of projects, and the owner left me to gaze, caress and obsess over strands of my favorite gemstones.

Needless to say I have become somewhat of a regular at Pomegranate Seeds Galleria. Recently, I had the pleasure of sitting down with one of the store’s owners, Tonya Collins and learned as much as I could about what has quickly become one of my favorite neighborhood merchants.

Tonya explained that she had formed a partnership with her parents in 2007 to open a gallery and boutique. Fond of interior design and art, but acutely aware of shifts in the economy, the partners decided to focus on beads in February of 2009. Tonya is an experienced beader - she has lent her talent to Chabot College teaching bead craft and in assisting her fellow beaders in other bay area bead stores.

The owners of Pomegranate Seeds Galleria have a goal - they would like to establish a craft studio to include workshops in wire work, beading, jewelry making, seed bead classes, soldering. Candle making, soap making, and glass bead making workshops will be offered beginning late January.

Aside from just being nice and very helpful, Tonya is very business savvy and understands the business side of beading, jewelry selling and marketing. She’s an instructor at Women’s Initiative in Oakland and offered some solid advice for new beaders and jewelry makers - “Just jump in. If you are a left-brainer that doesn’t think you’re a right brainer, then beading is the place to start. I discovered my creative side by picking my first beads and stringing them. Pomegranate Seeds will welcome you wherever you are in your craft and help you achieve success!”

Pomegranate Seeds Galleria is located at 538 Florida Street in Vallejo.

I haven’t had anything unusual or particularly eventful happen while at home in Vallejo lately and I consider that a good thing. I see a lot of crime reported when I look in the local newspaper, budget cuts, schools threatening to close. These things happen everywhere and yet life goes on and good things do still happen everyday.

When return home from a long day’s work I can often count on the weather being at least a few degrees warmer than San Francisco here, although when it’s hot in San Francisco that usually means it’s steaming in Vallejo. I obviously don’t mind though since it will soon be ten years that I have lived in this city.

The only crowds and congestion I seem to run into here is at the farmer’s market on a sunny Saturday morning or afternoon. Lunchtime in the city means navigating crowds and timing lunch just right so that I can get a seat if I don’t want to return to my desk. Even on the weekends I would love to go shopping and dining in Berkeley, but the thought of traffic and the numerous bodies in my favorite establishments often make me rethink my recreation choices.

The fact that our dollar doesn’t stretch as far as it once did also makes me look around my immediate surroundings for ways to pass the time away. I have been saying for months that I can’t seem to find time to write on my time off -- that’s been nothing more than an excuse. I have some favorite spaces to write I have learned to appreciate as of late that don’t require that I come or go at a given time. I can arrive when I want, find a place to sit and relax, and leave when I please. There are places outside of my home, as well as inside my home. Sometimes it’s either too hot or too cold or I’m too sleepy or just not in the mood to write at home, but the space is here wherever I choose to expand my mind and share ideas with others.

I recently had someone ask me what life in Vallejo was like and I only hope I didn’t scare her away. I wanted to be honest - we do seem to attract quite a bit of crime and we are still suffering under the weight of bankruptcy, there’s no way around either of those facts. At the end of the day though, whether you’re passing through or here to stay, you can find a quiet space, a place to call home, a friendly conversation or an opportunity to expand your creativity here in this quiet and complex city.

You can say whatever you want about Vallejo but this is one of the most peaceful places you can be on a Sunday afternoon, or literally anytime. Of course it does depend a lot on where you live in the city, but my neighborhood is quiet, very quiet and I love it. This morning I awoke to the sound of nothing. I laid back and listened to the sound of the ferry horn. At night when it’s warm and I don’t have the television or music in the background, I can hear crickets. The last time I could hear crickets (and see them, yuck) was when I lived in Georgia. Luckily they keep themselves fairly well hidden here.

I also love the fact that on a clear night I can look up and see the stars. I never experienced this all my years in California until I decided to go camping. Maybe there isn’t a whole lot going on up here, but sometimes that can be a good thing.

I ventured up in the Georgia/Virginia streets region last night to check out the happenings. What I saw was tumbleweed and a few yellowed, torn newspapers flying through the dusty wind.

Okay, I exaggerate but not by much. What in tarnation has happened to our ol’ girl Vallejo? I feel so bad for our city today. Vallejo didn’t do anything to anybody to deserve this, did it? The Wednesday Night Celebration was just fine on Georgia Street. I know I have mentioned before the problems with the teenagers, police, and wanna-be sophisticates, but it really wasn’t that bad. When I wasn’t a vendor I still enjoyed strolling up the street, running into people I don’t get much of a chance to see anymore, and listening to the fantastic entertainment. Now, Virginia street looks like a quarantined area where people aren’t quite sure whether to stay or break free.

Stay or break free. Those are the choices running through my mind as I watch this city show more signs of depression, anxiety and nervous break-down. I live here and will continue to live here indefinitely but the whole dog chasing its tail thing has got to go and I do mean now. BRING THE WEDNESDAY NIGHT CELEBRATION BACK TO GEORGIA STREET AND I DO MEAN NOW! Don’ even wait until next year, because there might not even be a next year. Or maybe that was the plan all along? Take one of the few things that is working for the city, blindfold it, and tell it to walk straight off the pier?

Well I stood for about five minutes on Georgia and Marin and couldn’t even bring myself to walk over to Virginia Street. I’m all for change if change makes sense but this is yet another bad decision that has come to fruition. When it’s all said and done though I hope this can be a ‘teachable’ moment for our community. Preserve the good things and challenge the rest.

This morning I read that the city council is cancelling Tuesday’s meeting and I thought, where are they going? Can’t they wait until the weekend to party?

So the meeting is cancelled because of National Night Out. I’ve never heard of National Night Out, and since the Times Herald (online) offered no explanation, I googled it to try to understand a little better what is going on.

National Night Out has a website and is committed to building stronger communities through crime awareness and prevention. With as many problems as Vallejo has experienced with an impaired police force and increased poverty in California overall, why am I just hearing about it now, and why isn’t Vallejo making a bigger effort to publicize this day? Truthfully I think Vallejo should declare National Night Out, August 4, 2009 a holiday. I’m saying this not so much because of the crime, even though just about everyone on my block now has had either their car, home, or garage broken in to in the past couple of years.

One of my neighbors and I talked a few months ago and agreed that we needed to find ways to pool our resources and become more aware of our surroundings. Just the other night my garage door mysteriously opened and one of my neighbors rang our doorbell after midnight to let us know (I hope she identifies herself one day). I think this was especially thoughtful and caring of the person because our garage door faces and alley and my front door is on the other side of the block.

I wish I could do more, I wish I was the type of person that could strategize, organize and mobilize groups of people and change the world around me. Perhaps I have it in me, but have never tried - perhaps by just being here and trying hard to be a good and productive citizen I’m doing some good. I like the idea of National Night Out, but I think this spirit should be present 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And we all need to get involved to keep each other honest, and to represent diversity. It’s so easy to get caught up in us vs. them mentality. Those people who live over there, those people who talk like that, those people, those people, those people. Unless you’re part of the solution, you’re part of the problem, and Vallejo needs solutions.

I just couldn’t leave you too long with the picture of that horse’s rear-end and have it associated with the 4^th of July parade. Two things - I was actually trying to get a side picture of that horse because it was beautiful but was moving very quickly - and I thought this year’s parade was very nice.

I’ve never been much of a parade person. Partly because I don’t really know how to relax and just sit back and watch things. I want to know when something is going to start, when it’s going to end, how big will the crowd be, who is that standing too close, where are the nearest exits. Once I got situated in my lawn chair, though, I was ready for the show.

The first group I witnessed parading through was the police force on motorcycles. They were moving at a pretty good clip, and I was glad that I had decided against crossing to the other side of the street because I would have been, as they say, toast. The movement continued with the fire department, the mayor, churches, cheerleaders, war veterans, clubs, dancers, Neptune and his friends, big dolls and various other sites not necessarily in that order. All in all it turned out to be a fun morning and it’s always a good time to see friends in town that I would not otherwise get the chance to see.

My only let down, and this really has nothing to do with the parade, was the fact that the city could not raise enough money to display fireworks that evening. Some years I have been able to just stand out on my front porch and watch, and other years I stood at the waterfront and watched them go off. It has been so nice to not have to go far to enjoy them and I hope they can come back soon.

On a happier note, I had been looking forward to hearing Norman Connors perform in Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza but I had been invited to my neighbor’s home to enjoy the rest of the afternoon. After it was all said and done, I was able to enjoy their company  and hear all of the performances from my neighbor's backyard at the same time. Now who says you can’t enjoy the good life in Vallejo?

This is one of the many pictures I snapped at the 4^th of July Parade, which was very nice this year, I must say.

I’m sure your next question is, why of all the pictures I could take, I would capture a horse’s ***? Or, more importantly, why would I put it up on this blog entry? Well, well, well. Just the other day I was driving along Broadway near Tuolomne, in the right lane, and as soon as the light turned green another car came over from the left lane to make a right turn -- right in front of us. Luckily we suspected the driver was going to do something, uh, to borrow a phrase from my cousin, FOUL, so we waited a couple of seconds before accelerating. We watched the car disappear up Tuolumne and had to wonder where was the fire?

That was not the first time I’ve had to defend myself along various points on Broadway. There’s the time I couldn’t make a left turn near Tennessee because some fool decided that he was just going to drive up the wrong side of the street, blocking my path and scaring me more than just a little bit.

I’m sure this happens at some point everyday, in every city, at various points in time during any given day. I just really, really wonder what goes on in some people’s minds. People routinely get mowed down along Tennessee, and Sonoma Boulevard is always slow-going as some people don’t even bother to drive the speed limit - I guess it’s called cruising.

My only real point here is that there are some really silly people driving around your neighborhood, so keep your eyes peeled whether on foot or behind the wheel .