Pacific Sun

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Cheetahs are the fastest land animals, but they can maintain top tempo for only about 20-30 seconds before overheating. When they’re hunting, they usually get just one speedy dash to catch their prey. They must spend far more time stalking and positioning than running. The velocity is sensational, but their patient and prolonged strategy is even more essential. In the coming weeks, Aries, I urge you to be like the cheetah as you pursue what you need and want.

I used to make phone calls to help get out the vote. It’s a terrible volunteer job. Lots of people yelled at me to stop calling, even though I had never dialed their number before. The worst, though, were the ones who hung up on me. Sometimes, I went through my whole spiel, waiting for their response at the end. Dead air. I didn’t even know how long I’d been earnestly talking to myself about the importance of exercising the right to vote.

PetalumaShifting Ground Northern California artist Karen Olsen-Dunn takes a familiar landscape and rearranges the view in Terrain Shift, her solo exhibition at Petaluma’s G Street Gallery. Drawing inspiration from Sonoma County, The Sea Ranch and the Northern California coast, Olsen-Dunn begins with recognizable bluffs, cypress groves, pathways, fences and vegetation, then rebuilds them through saturated color, geometric interruptions, repeated lines and layered perspectives.

While Iran was being threatened by Donald Trump with economic D-Day, Canada was being threatened with a political D-Day. While a dispute over tariffs appeared to cause the breakdown in negotiations, Prime Minister Mark Carney suggested something else was responsible. “Last-minute changes in the U.S.-proposed terms were unfair, uneconomic and called into question the reliability of any deal,” Carney said. He’s right.

Must we endure another dispatch from “Cassady Caution” complaining about tourists? Without visitors, the North Bay economy would collapse faster than a tipsy bachelorette climbing out of the fountain in the Plaza. Tourists fill our hotels, restaurants, tasting rooms, boutiques and parking spaces. Yes, especially the parking spaces. They arrive with money and leave with a hangover and a mystery wine club membership. This is called “commerce.” Remove tourism and what remains?

At weddings and other lavish affairs, “farm-to-table” can sometimes feel like another decorative flourish: romantic, tasteful and conveniently difficult to verify. For Dee Wagner, however, it describes the often complicated work that begins long before the first platter reaches the table.

If laughing painfully and uncomfortably is one’s thing, they’re in for a treat with Marin Theatre’s The White Chip, a dark comedy about the destructive nature of alcohol addiction, now running in Mill Valley through Sept. 20.

Over the many decades Albert Lee has been strapping on an axe, he’s earned the nickname Mr. Telecaster. As one of England’s pre-eminent country-rock guitarists, Lee has been plugging in with his trusty Fender as a member of Emmylou Harris’ Hot Band, doing a five-year stint as a sidemember for Eric Clapton and as a musical director for more than 20 years with his heroes, The Everly Brothers, a stint that started with the duo’s 1983 reunion concert.

Mostly, I consider Nextdoor a cesspool of comments by NIMBYs. Occasionally, though, I see an intriguing post, like the recent one about meeting five other people, strangers, for a meal at a local restaurant. I signed up for SIXTOP. While I’ve lived in Marin for decades and have a posse of good friends, at 63, my world is changing. People close to me are retiring and moving to less expensive areas. Some have passed away.

Maggie Huffman has worked in all facets of the wine industry, but as a born and raised Sonoma local, it wasn’t actually her first inclination. She left home after high school, earning a bachelor’s degree from the University of the Pacific, and then a master of arts in Berkeley.