Page 17 | Bohemian | Sonoma & Napa Counties

Swap-A-Luma, Novato Cemetery Tours and Fantastical Creatures

Crush

Mar 31, 2026

Petaluma

Swap-A-Luma

Forget “retail therapy.” Take a sustainable turn instead at Swap-A-Luma, Petaluma’s community-minded clothing swap that treats fashion less as consumption and more as circulation. Hosted by Swap Nation, the event invites participants to refresh their wardrobes by trading pieces instead of buying new—diverting hundreds of pounds of clothing from landfills in the process while turning reuse into a social experience. Expect a curated, boutique-style setup with a fashion show woven into the afternoon and a steady undercurrent of environmental awareness. The idea is simple: Swapping extends the life of garments, reduces demand for new production and builds a sense of community around style and sustainability. Proceeds from this edition benefit Cool Petaluma. Noon–3pm (fashion show 2pm), Saturday, April 4, Life on Art, 133 Copeland St., Ste. C1, Petaluma. Tickets at bit.ly/swapaluma.

Novato

Pioneer Park Cemetery Tours

History gets a little more interesting at Pioneer Park, where the Novato Historical Guild resumes its seasonal cemetery tours—walking visitors through the stories, lives and legacies that shaped early Novato. Led by guild board member Sharon Azevedo, the guided experience offers a grounded way to connect with local history, moving beyond plaques and dates into the human narratives tucked among the headstones. The tour traces the roots of Novato Township through those buried there, offering context, color and the occasional surprise. It’s a reminder that local history isn’t distant—it’s right underfoot. 9–10:30am, Saturdays April 11, May 9, June 13, July 18, Aug. 15 and Sept. 19, Pioneer Park (meet near playground), 1007 Simmons Ln., Novato. $10 suggested donation; register at novatohistory.org.

Glen Ellen

Spirit Guides

Mythical creatures take root among oaks and pathways at Sonoma Botanical Garden with Spirit Guides: Fantastical Creatures from the Workshop of Jacobo and María Ángeles. Inspired by Zapotec cosmology, the exhibition installs eight monumental, vividly patterned sculptures across the landscape—hybrid animals imagined as protectors, reflections of personality and carriers of story. The Oaxaca-based artists draw from the idea of the tona and nahual—spirit companions tied to birth and identity—translating those traditions into bold, contemporary forms rendered in color-saturated geometric patterns. Set against a newly expanded native plant garden, the show creates a dialogue between culture and landscape, past and present. Exhibit runs April 10–Sept. 7, Sonoma Botanical Garden, 12841 Hwy. 12, Glen Ellen. Admission $17 adults; discounts available; free for children 4 and under.

Mill Valley

Visual Journalism

Architecture gets a human read in this hands-on workshop at the Studio at MYSTIC, where participants are invited to paint building façades as if they were portraits. Led by creative technologist and artist Michael Scherotter, the session explores line-and-wash watercolor techniques that translate structure into expression—turning windows, lines and shadows into something more personal and interpretive. Part of an ongoing visual journaling series, the class emphasizes process over perfection, offering tools and repeatable exercises designed to keep a creative practice alive long after the session ends. All levels are welcome, with participants encouraged to bring a sketchbook, supplies and a reference photo of a building to work from. The goal is less architectural accuracy than discovery—finding character, mood and story in the built environment. 6–8pm, Thursday, April 2, the Studio at MYSTIC, 31 Sunnyside Ave., Mill Valley. $75. Ages 15+. bit.ly/mysticmv-journo.

A Very Good Boy and His Human

Locals

Cincinnatus Hibbard

Mar 31, 2026

I like to bring the readers of this column weekly optimism and uplift. But I admit, I do have my misanthropic moods. Glancing over the headlines, I am in one now.

Sick of people and their problems, I thought I would interview a dog for April 1 (more the fool, I). I didn’t have far to look—fortunately, I have a superlative pooch in my circle, dog-influencer Mako, the wonder pooch. Kaya Suncat, his dog mom, met me at my house with Mako and a bugling bag of his favorite snacks and assorted toys.

Cincinnatus Hibbard: Mako, opening question: Will we be able to stop Trump?

Mako : …

Will we be able to reverse environmental devastation?

… [Mako runs in a circle, clockwise, chasing his own tail.]

Will AI liberate or enslave humanity?

…

Mako. Mako… Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy?

[Mako yips and hops up.]

Woof woof you. Woof woof you.

Their tendency to wet on newspapers or tear them up can’t be taken for a political statement. Our dogs’ ignorance of the issues is part of their charm. But if they can’t read newspapers, they can read our energy, and the pure presence that they offer us is a great gift in this over-talked world. And so I turned to Kaya Suncat, who had gathered Mako up into her lap.

Girl, I know you have been going through it. Tell me how Mako supports you…

Kaya Suncat: When I get home from work, Mako is right there by the door, waiting to give me a hug, and he’ll lick my face, and I will come right back into gratitude that I have this cute little fluffy doggie—and everything seems OK. [Laughs brightly.]

Do you consider yourself his dog mom?

I am a dog worshipper [laughs], and yes, he is my dog son—although I think he is nonbinary.

What jobs does he have in your household ?

He is a furry doorbell, he is a flycatcher and he is a towel—if you get out of the shower, he will lick the water droplets off of you.

As well as being a perfect lapdoggie.

He loves to cuddle and get petted all day. He’s my little teddy bear. He likes to be held like a baby when I need emotional support or be my pillow.

How old is he?

He’s three years old—and a Virgo. Before I got him, I dreamed of him. I didn’t see him in the dream, but I felt his energy, and at the end of the dream I said, ‘Time to come home, Mako.’ When I woke up, I opened my Instagram, and his picture was at the top of my feed [laughs]. I always told the universe that I would have a Pomeranian and a Shiba Inu. I never thought the universe would put the two breeds in one.

Although Kaya and I are old friends, I found myself asking the same old questions strangers ask each other over their butt-sniffing dogs at the park. While there can be concern that inward-turning people can focus their love on their dogs instead of each other, dogs provide us with one of the very few ways that strangers can still spontaneously connect. Love of our pets is one of the things that make us human.

Learn more:Mako is a dog-influencer. His instagram is @makothefirst. His influence is to make us want to be better people (who actually deserve our pets). He was adopted from @lovesecondchances. Consider donating to them or to your local humane society.

The Foolest Month, Celebrating Our Humanity

Open Mic

Daedalus Howell

Mar 31, 2026

The Foolest Month, Celebrating Our Humanity

Given our publication date for this edition, I’ll admit I had some dastardly April Fool’s Day plans—like printing definitive proof that Petaluma Junior High is built on top of a portal to Hell and that my entire tenure in local media is a prolonged performance art piece by conceptual artist Kit Fergus.

And though I’m deep in the trickster hero phase of my professional aspirations, I couldn’t fathom publishing stories that could be perceived as a willful indulgence of “fake news.” That’s not to say I don’t think we all need a laugh right now, given the profound absurdity and horrors of our present moment. As they say, laughter is the best medicine so long as one doesn’t overdose.

Yes, laughter can kill. The most common way is through laughter-induced syncope, in which a person loses consciousness while laughing and then dies by some other means, i.e., falling, choking, or if they happen to be laughing at ICE.

A famous case from antiquity occurred to Chrysippus of Soli, the noted stoic philosopher active in Greece late in the second century BC, who spied a donkey eating some figs and joked that someone should give it some wine to wash them down. He found his own joke hilarious—guess you had to be there—then proceeded to laugh, until he was shot by ICE. So much for being “stoic.”

The fact that we have an April Fool’s Day at all betokens some hope for humanity. We are the only species on Earth that can laugh at itself, we’ve decided, which speaks to the humility of anthropocentrism as we steward this planet and all its living creatures into the apocalypse.

And though we only reserve one day a year to celebrate our foolishness with jokes and pranks predicated on deception (which we are sooo good at), the truth is many of us are fools every day of the year, if not every day of our lives. Today is the day we celebrate that commitment. It takes a lot of guts to say, “Get in the handbasket, loser, we’re going to hell.”

And for those of us who can’t, the least we can do is laugh about it. Crying about it will only contribute to sea level rise.

Daedalus Howell is editor of this paper, host of ‘The Drive’ on 95.5 FM, director of ‘Werewolf Serenade’ and a newsletterist at dhowell.com.

Roots in the Community: Dorrances Make a Difference

Food & Drink

Amber Turpin

Mar 31, 2026

Roots in the Community: Dorrances Make a Difference

Proprietors of BloodRoot Wines, Kelly and Noah Dorrance have been organizing an annual music and wine festival called The Ramble, as a fundraiser benefitting GIFFORDS, a national organization dedicated to preventing gun violence.

The partnership began as a way to honor the memory of their niece who was killed in the shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville. Since 2023, The Ramble has raised more than $250,000 for GIFFORDS.

“As hospitality junkies, we find fulfillment in creating joyful spaces where people can connect, celebrate and share in community. We created The Ramble to honor our niece Evelyn, transforming a painful moment into an experience that brings people together while supporting a vital mission… This is how we know to make a difference, through hospitality and the joy of community,” says Kelly Dorrance.

Tickets just went on sale for the fourth iteration of The Ramble, taking place on Saturday, June 6, at Abel de la Luna Community Center Fields in Healdsburg. The event will feature headline performances from award-winning musical artists Spoon and Lucius, plus many more nationally acclaimed musicians.

Expect a ton of local food vendors, the debut of a new culinary stage featuring local chefs doing interactive cooking demonstrations, as well as representatives from local wineries, including the Overshine Collective.

Amber Turpin: How did you get into this work?

Kelly Dorrance: A little bit of kismet, a little bit of passion and a lot of initiative. We assumed we would eventually move back to the Midwest and thought a try at the wine industry would be fun before we did so. That was 2008, and we’ve never looked back. Noah worked at a custom crush facility in San Francisco and made some wine on the side.

With collaboration from friends in the industry, Banshee Wines was formed. We then went on to form Reeve Wines (our son’s name), BloodRoot Wines and Remy Saves The Sea Wines (our daughter’s name).

Did you ever have an ‘aha’ moment with a certain beverage? If so, tell us about it.

Nothing quite beats an Aperol Spritz under the Italian sun. Sun in the glass, sun overhead—la dolce vita all around.

What is your favorite thing to drink at home?

Honestly, we do get high on our own supply, mostly Reeve Wines Pinot Noir of varying degrees.

Where do you like to go out for a drink?

So hard to choose. Madrona, Little Saint, Lo & Behold and Geyserville Gun Club are our favorite cocktail spots. Location depends on mood, and whether or not you want to be seen or hide in a dark corner.

If you were stuck on a desert island, what would you want to be drinking (besides fresh water)?

Emphatically—rosé. It needs to be light, bright, vibrant, which is typically a rosé of pinot noir or grenache.

BloodRoot Wines, 118 North St., Healdsburg, 707.387.7058, bloodrootwines.com.

Ring Thing, Seeing What We Want

Jeff Burkhart

Mar 24, 2026

As Charles Bukowski wrote in his novel Barfly, “It’s not that I don’t like people. I just feel better when they’re not around.”

But Bukowski was a bar customer, not a bartender. And we bartenders feel exactly the opposite.

The two women sitting in front of me were fairly well gussied up. In olden days, people dressed for dinner, but it’s much rarer to see that now. If someone is dressed for dinner, it usually means they have plans for after dinner, or even before.

Since it was slow, I struck up a conversation. And while Oscar Wilde famously said that men and women can’t be friends, it would be wise to consider who Oscar Wilde was, and why he said that.

The three of us chatted for a while. “What are you up to tonight? That sounds interesting. Are you from around here?” All the usual small talk.

But then we got around to flirting. Harmless friendly funny flirting. We were all in the same age bracket, so the same cultural references landed, the same musical artists were noted, and the same jokes registered.

It was all good harmless fun. They had on wedding rings. I had on a wedding ring. We all knew where we stood, and we could have fun with it. One of the great things about being a bartender is that bartenders are non-threatening, meaning that we are expected to engage with everybody.

Over the next year or so, I saw the two women several times. They were on their way to the concert, or they were just out for a hike.

But it was always good harmless fun.

When one reaches a certain age in life, one usually takes things a bit less seriously. However, also when one reaches a certain age, there are some things that one does have to take a little more seriously. And when one reaches a very particular age, one must take tests to see just how seriously.

Luckily, my doctor was funny, which certainly helped. I think he even asked me if I was “anal retentive.” He laughed, and I laughed. It was all good fun surrounding a relatively unfun procedure.

I made my appointment and went through all the steps. My wife supportively tagged along as my driver.

Then the nurse announced my name to the waiting room. She looked at me, and I looked at her. She was one of the two women.

“Is that your wife in the waiting room?” she asked in the hall.

“It is,” I said.

“I didn’t know you were married,” said she.

“Well, I am,” I said.

Which was followed by a rather uncomfortable silence broken only by a seemingly unnecessarily terse, “Change into this, and leave the back open.”

Ten minutes later when she came to collect me, I was painfully aware that I wasn’t wearing any pants. Which was only made more painful by what she said.

“I never noticed your wedding ring,” she said, her own wedding ring being as obvious as mine.

“I never take it off,” I said.

Not really the kind of conversation one wants to have standing in front of someone pantsless when one is going to be unconscious and pantsless in just a few minutes.

When I walked into the procedural room, my doctor noticed my discomfort and made a little joke.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll be gentle.” Leaving me with these thoughts:

• It wasn’t the doctor I was worried about.

• Anal retentive describes a psychological state, not a physiological one.

• Jokes are only funny if both people think they are.

• A little harmless flirting can sometimes bite one on the rear end, metaphorically speaking, of course.

Jeff Burkhart is an award-winning writer and bartender.

Virtual Reality’s Role in ‘Marjorie Prime’ at 6th Street

Caitlin Strom-Martin

Mar 24, 2026

Virtual Reality’s Role in ‘Marjorie Prime’ at 6th Street

Quietly disquieting, spare and at times delicious in its ambiguity, Jordan Harrison’s subtle sci-fi play Marjorie Prime is anything but uninteresting.

It’s one to mull over afterwards, thinking about its themes of loss and mortality, and the inherent tragedies of family. Now running through March 29 on the Monroe Stage at 6th Street Playhouse in Santa Rosa, this is a play well worth one’s time.

Set in the near future and focused primarily on how humans replace their deceased loved ones with “Primes”—that is, holographic AI models of said loved ones—the story feels easily believable. Indeed, the sci-fi nods aren’t sensationalized; they are simply part of everyday life.

Director John Browning has a nice cast at work here. Actually, there are two: the “Saffron” cast (featuring Laura Jorgensen, Marty Pistone, Bronwen Shears and Amir Ghazi Moradi) and the “Seasons” cast, which includes a fantastic David L. Yen (does he ever miss?) as Jon and a deeply touching Tamar Cohn as Marjorie. Bohn Connor, as Marjorie’s Prime husband, Walter, is both kindly and a bit unsettling in his non-human mannerisms. Mary Samson, as the conflicted Tess, is a standout as well, and has a strong stage presence. In fact, all the cast members are very nuanced and grounded.

They float about the beautifully appointed set by Laurynn Malilay, often lounging on the floor and drinking tea, while sharing family stories (or their perceptions of stories) with Marjorie and her Prime, so that the 85-year-old dying woman won’t lose her precious memories. It’s sad and poignant, and Cohn is so moving that one wants to give her a hug. Her smallest mannerisms and sounds are wrenching, but Marjorie is a force of nature despite her diminishing state.

There are some pleasant surprises (for me at least; I’m never one to quickly guess the twists), and the play unfolds breathlessly until the finale, where silence takes hold and settles over the audience in a delightfully satisfying way that definitely doesn’t neatly tie up anything. I adore that the fraying edges of humanity, and the messiness of human relationships, are given their due in this play. It’s what makes live theater so very remarkable too, as we see the audience grappling with their questions in real time.

I hope many conversations were had on the journey home, because Marjorie Prime offers plenty of fodder for discussion.

‘Marjorie Prime’ runs through March 29 on the Monroe Stage at 6th Street Playhouse, 52 W. 6th Street, Santa Rosa. Thurs-Sat, 7:30pm; Sat & Sun, 2pm. $27–$48. 707.523.4185. 6thstreetplayhouse.com.