Week of September 28, 2026
Heatwave Alert: Rivers, Pools, Beaches
We are headed into a heatwave this weekend. It looks like it’s going to be 96 degrees on Saturday and 93 degrees on Sunday. Whew! I rounded up a few rivers, pools, and beaches that are open this weekend and have included a few spots to avoid. I'd love to hear what's missing so add your favorites that aren't mentioned!
There’s one spot in particular that’s on my radar called the Shorttail Gulch Coastal Access Trail, which is about a half-mile walk to what looks like a gorgeous beach in Bodega Bay. There’s a gate off the same trailhead that leads into Estero Americano Coast Preserve, where there are 547 acres of coastal prairie, bluffs, and estuary, now open daily for free after being closed for a century.
I came across Shorttail Gulch in a viral video posted about two weeks ago with a firsthand account that not a single person was on the beach that day! Now, of course, the empty beach may be a different story by this weekend, but I’m going to give it a shot. Maybe I’ll see you there?
RIVERS
Monte Rio Beach: The beach and upper parking lot remain open year-round. The seasonal beach operation has ended, and the lower parking lot is closed.
Steelhead Beach (Forestville): Open 7 a.m.–sunset both days. Fall parking is $8/car; free for Sonoma County Regional Parks members.
Sunset Beach River Park (Forestville): Year-round Russian River access, 7 a.m.–30 minutes before sunset. Fall parking is $8/car; Regional Parks members park free.
Del Rio Woods (Healdsburg): Year-round Russian River access, 7 a.m.–30 minutes before sunset. Fall parking is $8/car; Regional Parks members park free.
POOLS
River Electric (Guerneville): Closed for a private event Saturday, October 3, but open Sunday, October 4. Their website was broken this morning, but we called, and they have 85 passes still available for $35.
Hamilton Pool (Novato): Lap swimming for ages 13+, 8–11:30 a.m. Saturday and Sunday. The pool closes at 11:30 am. Recreation swim and the activity/splash pool are unavailable this weekend.
Petaluma Swim Center: Lap swimming Saturday, 6:30 a.m.–noon; closed Sunday. Regular recreation swim is closed until spring 2027.
Ives Pool (Sebastopol): Family swim goes from 12:00–2:45 p.m. both days, in the small pool only. Admission is adults $7; children 11 and under $5; seniors 60+ $6.
Finley & Ridgway (Santa Rosa): Lap swimming 9 a.m.–1 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday. Admission: $7; seniors $6. No regular family recreation swim this weekend.
Flamingo (Santa Rosa): Maybe you should treat yourself to a daycation pass for $50. Looks they have availability on Sunday only for adults. Think about it!
BEACHES
Shorttail Gulch Beach (Bodega Bay): Open 7 a.m.–sunset. Free, with limited roadside parking in designated areas. The beach is half a mile from the trailhead—downhill going out, uphill coming back. A beach-walk and picnic option.
Heart’s Desire Beach (Tomales Bay): Open 8 a.m.–sunset. Standard parking is $8/car, payable by credit or debit card only. The lot can fill early on weekends. We love this place because there are bathrooms and gentle waves for kids, so we go year-round.
Chicken Ranch Beach (Inverness): Open sunrise–sunset. Free, with limited roadside parking. But FYI stay out of the drainage channel because Marin County’s results for the week of September 28 list Chicken Ranch Beach as “OK,” but “Chicken Ranch Ditch–Channel B” says to “AVOID.”
Doran Beach (Bodega Bay): Open 7 a.m.–sunset. Parking is $8/car; Regional Parks members park free.
CLOSED / DOUBLE CHECK
Prince Gateway splash pad (Santa Rosa): Closed for the remainder of the 2026 season.
Morton’s Warm Springs (Glen Ellen): Closed for the fall/winter season; its website lists reopening on May 1, 2027.
Inkwells (Lagunitas, West Marin): It looks like the recent Marin County results for the week of September 28 say “AVOID” water contact.
Spring Lake swimming lagoon (Santa Rosa): October 3–4 is “Water Bark” which means that only dogs may swim during the event. But maybe you should take your dog to cool off?!
Johnson’s Beach (Guerneville): The Lodge and Tiny Cabins are available year-round, and you can always walk in there, but the seasonal summer beach operation (boat and chair rentals, snack shack, etc) ended....
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Meet Porches Scout Devon Sampson Wills
Devon Sampson Wills has spent his career asking one big question from a lot of different angles: how do people run a business while caring for their community and the land at the same same time? He's asked it as a flower farmer, a Fulbright researcher, a radio host, and a data scientist. Now he's bringing it to Porches as one of our Fall Scouts, with a series profiling local businesses that take sustainability seriously.
His foundation is in agroecology, the study of agricultural systems as ecosystems. Devon earned his undergrad and graduate degrees at UC Santa Cruz, where he taught a class on the campus farm to 120 students.
Around 2010, he and his wife Chelsea Wills put the theory to the test with Paper Wings Farm, growing flowers between Sebastopol and Petaluma. Selling at farmers markets and to restaurants was a crash course in the economics of farming. They learned that flowers are as hard to grow as vegetables but far more perishable, and while people will forgive a little pest damage on their produce, they won't on a bouquet.
During that same season, they won a Fulbright grant to study biodiversity on small farms in southern Mexico. What was planned as two years became nearly three, running a large research program in the Yucatán. Their field assistants, students from an agricultural middle school, also led a participatory photography project, and was able to take that team on a speaking tour that included Mexico City and California.
Back home, Devon consulted for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, working with researchers around the world to turn their data into broader insights on sustainable agriculture and food security, a job that mixed applied research and diplomacy in an ideal way. Additionally, he and Chelsea also launched Delicious Revolution, a radio show and podcast that ran for over 50 episodes on KWMR. The academic food world often felt disconnected from the people who were cooking, farming, and organizing, so they interviewed those people instead. When the pandemic canceled their research travel, Devon turned to the skill he figured would transfer best: statistics. He started consulting for software startups, learned data science on the job, and went on to build and run data science teams for a series of companies. "I was good at it," he said, "but I was a great researcher." He found that he was missing that side of his work.
Now he's found a way to bring the two together. His consulting business is shifting toward companies with sustainability commitments, as many of them currently pay a lot for black-box software that spits out a carbon footprint no one can verify or reproduce. Devon's approach uses the open, rigorous tools the software world already relies on to measure business performance and environmental impact side by side, for less money and with transparency.
He's also worked with hundreds of farmers, and nearly all of them balance commitments to family, community, and the environment while running a business. "There's that tension that's really creative," he said. "I never got tired of talking to farmers because of that."
As a Scout, Devon will profile people at local businesses about how they make sustainability work day to day. He may dig into what being "green certified" means, and he's eager to find out what sustainability managers do day to day.
Welcome, Devon! Keep your eyes out for his posts, and if your business has a sustainability story to tell, he'd love to hear it....
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Meet Porches Scout Megan McClelland
Megan McClelland will tell you she's "a rarity that actually really loves teenagers." Lucky for Petaluma, she's spent the last 13 years putting that love to work. She's the lead counselor at Petaluma High School the co-ASB activities director behind the school's biggest events, and on Monday mornings you'll find her leading strength yoga at The Yoga Post. Now she's joining Porches as one of our Fall Scouts.
Megan grew up in San Diego and figured she'd end up in PR, sales, or media. She spent her teens and early twenties working in hospitality, and even then, the teenagers she worked alongside in restaurants would end up telling her about their problems. "I was like an informal counselor," she said. Sometime in her early twenties she realized she wanted a job where she could help make a difference, and a school setting felt like the right fit.
She moved to Sonoma County in 2011 to earn her master's in counseling at Sonoma State, then moved from Santa Rosa to Petaluma in 2013. After semester-long stints at San Rafael High and Heritage High in Brentwood, she landed at Petaluma High in 2014. "I'm in the midst of my 13th year," she laughed, "which is wild because I still feel like a baby."
The best part of the job, she says, is watching the light bulbs click. Many of the students she works with are unmotivated or dealing with hard things at home, and getting to see them work through it and figure out what comes next is what keeps her going. She cries at graduation every single year. "We live in a world that's kind of dark at times," she said. "But getting to work with teenagers and feel like, here's kids that are going to help make this world a better place, is really great." This past summer she took a group of students to Costa Rica for ten days, and even in that short stretch she got to watch them grow.
Megan is currently deep in homecoming week, where as co-ASB director, she oversees the after-school float parade (with the city and police involved), the halftime show, and a Saturday dance that draws about 800 students. She's quick to credit her co-director Sarah Blaser. "I feel like I would crumble this week if I didn't have support."
Somehow in the midst of all the school activities, she still finds time to teach yoga. In 2024 she completed her teacher training at The Yoga Post, started out teaching park yoga in the summer, and last year picked up a Monday morning strength class that mixes yoga with cardio and weights. "I would have never thought I would become a yoga teacher," she said, but the studio's warm owners and its mix of ages, bodies, and backgrounds won her over. A few weeks ago, five of her former students showed up to her class.
That happens a lot. Megan can barely go anywhere in town without running into someone she knows. On a recent two-hour hike, her friends were amazed she hadn't bumped into anyone. When she needs to be anonymous, she heads home to San Diego. But most days she loves living in a small town where she knows so many people.
As a Scout, Megan will be writing about teen life in Petaluma and profiling some of the interesting teens she meets along the way. After 13 years of watching those light bulbs click, she's seen firsthand what this town's young people are capable of.
Welcome, Megan! If you spot her at the homecoming parade or in Monday morning class, say hi. Chances are she already knows someone you know....
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Houdini Séance Update: Porches Members Get First Access
As I mentioned last week, Petaluma’s decades-long tradition of trying to contact Harry Houdini is returning for the 100th anniversary of his death at the Petaluma Historical Library & Museum, and Porches members will have first access to tickets.
The Petaluma Museum Houdini Séance: The Centennial Gathering takes place October 30 from 7-9pm, and they are sharing two special exclusive opportunities for Porches members:
Early ticket access: Porches members are the first to access tickets starting today through Thursday, October 1. The museum expects this event to sell out, so take advantage of your first chance to reserve a place.
A keepsake for the night: Porches members who attend will receive a free special-edition memento of The Centennial Gathering, proof that you were there for a night 100 years in the making.
These tickets act as a small fundraiser for the non-profit Museum and help preserve and share the stories, personalities, and wonderfully unexpected traditions that make Petaluma distinctive.
To get tickets, visit the event page and enter the code PorchesBeyond...
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Modern Classics Barbershop!
When I walked into Modern Classics Barber Shop I felt like I was walking into a cool and cozy bar almost. The wood paneling and everyone’s calm and friendly demeanor made it comforting off the bat. I didn’t know anyone but had the feeling that I would get along with everyone there, whether that feeling came about after seeing the barbers interact with each other with such casual silliness or the playful nagging or how collected and confident the customers/clients would mosey through the door and be greeted by the barbers like old friends, either way I was shocked at how professional yet casual the place was. Manuel Arango was accommodating while not slowing down cutting his clients hair or participating in conversation what’s been new with the kids or talking about the game that took place the night before. Neither the barbers nor the customers seemed to be majorly thrown off by my large soft box looming in the corner, in fact people were kind and curious about what “the boys” were getting their photos taken for. I was glad to get everyone’s portraits in between their appointments while chatting and shooting the quieter moments in the meantime.
Huge shout out and thank you to the gentlemen Modern Classics Barber Shop for being generous with your shop and being a photogenic bunch and Lauren Smith for connecting us and making it happen!
Pictured here are Victor, Manuel Arango and Danny Arango...
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Meet Porches Scout Denise Tranfaglia
Denise Tranfaglia has been writing for about as long as she can remember. She was a young reporter at the Independent Coast Observer in Point Arena, once wrote for a reggae magazine, and handled every email and press release during her years as a union organizer. Then came a long career teaching high schoolers how to write. Now, a year into retirement, she's one of our Fall Scouts and excited to get back to her own practice.
Denise was born in Baltimore and grew up mostly in New Jersey. In high school, her family moved to North County San Diego, which was not her vibe, so she headed north to Sebastopol and then Petaluma, where she lived on her own in an old chicken house off Cleveland Lane. From there she went to Sonoma State, then Point Arena, and eventually landed in Tahoe as a snow bum working in food and beverage. That's where she met her husband, Tommy Tranfaglia. During their long-distance years they'd meet in Petaluma, always planning around a punk show at the Phoenix. Around 1994 they decided to make it home.
After a stint at Volpi's Ristorante & Bar, Denise went back to school for teaching and landed at Rancho Cotati High in Rohnert Park, where she worked largely with continuation high school students. Along the way she did youth advocacy and helped lead a teachers' strike that they won. She and Tom raised two kids here: Simone, a photographer now in grad school at Tufts, and Jack, who they just dropped off for his first year of college in Portland.
Even after decades here, Denise says she's always been a bit of an observer. She knows a lot of people and a lot about what's happening, and she likes that vantage point. As a Scout, she'll be spotlighting the people and places that hold this community together, and she's bringing a reporter's instincts to it. "I like telling all sides if possible," she says.
Look for her new posts every week. Welcome, Denise!...
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Live events for October
It’s October, which means a new month of Porches live programming, and we’re especially excited about this lineup. We have an autumnal happy hour, a weekend devoted to breakfast treats around town, and a very special band coming to play in our living room. Everything is free for Porches beta testers, though tickets for the concert are limited.
Happy Hour with Avinage
First up, Porches October Happy Hour is on October 15 from 5–7pm, with Damien Carney from Avinage - a wine shop pouring a selection of delicious wines for the season. We’ll have non-alcoholic options, too. These gatherings are a chance to spend a little time together in person, and we’d love to see you. Come catch up with someone you’ve met through Porches, introduce yourself to a neighbor you’ve only seen in the comments, or stop by for a drink and say hello.
On The House is back
Then, On the House: October Edition returns for the weekend of October 17 & 18. Last month, we sent you out for smoothies, boba, and coffee at BlendCraft, Poppy's, and Grand Central Petaluma. This month’s edition is devoted to breakfast treats. We’re teaming up with Stellina Pronto, The Bagel Mill, and Caffeine Inc., with a special free item for Porches members at each stop. The idea is the same: make a plan with a friend or neighbor, visit all three spots over the weekend, discover something you haven’t tried before, and bump into other beta testers along the way. It’s an invitation to enjoy the places and people that make Petaluma special, with the treats on us.
A special living room concert
And on Thursday, October 22, it’s @Vetiver: Live at Porches, as we welcome Andy Cabic of Vetiver to the Porches living room for a night of live music. As Lauren describes in her Q&A with him:
“Andy has been writing and recording as Vetiver for more than twenty years, and his songs have a way of holding sunshine and a little melancholy in the same breath.”
Doors open at 7pm for cocktail hour, where we'll be serving his favorite cocktail, the Paper Plane, along with a non-alcoholic version, and the performance starts at 8pm sharp.
We’ve updated our ticketing system this month, so you’ll need to claim a ticket (from the event page on Porches) for the show. Tickets open up tomorrow (Friday, October 2) at 10am. If you mark yourself as interested, we’ll send you a reminder when they go live. If you’re on the iPhone app and don’t see a green ticket there, update to the latest version.
If you have friends or neighbors you’d like to bring along, now is a good time to invite them to join the beta so they can reserve their own spots and take part, too.
We can’t wait to see you this October!...
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Fiber Artist Yuka Hoshino
I consider certain steps of the creative process to be universal, regardless of medium: the urge to actualize an idea into a thing, choosing materials that best describe a thought to an audience, the emotional investment, and commitment made to its delivery. For these reasons, I refuse to accept the categorical delineations made between “crafts” and “fine art”, namely those placed upon fiber artists, whose medium is rooted in the long US history of gender politics in art making.
In conversation with Yuka Hoshino, a visual artist working in West County, she bristles when asked what it means for her work to be labeled as “craft”. “Historically women simply did not have the time to go into a studio and paint”, she explains. The women in the household were responsible for hand sewing and maintaining all of the family’s clothing and bedding. “They had to insert their art into what was available to them.” Through this lens, we can reflect on generations worth of textiles that channeled the creative perspective of the maker, and reconsider the reasoning that continues to exclude them from the “canon of fine art”.
Yuka’s dazzling embroidery works are carefully considered dedications, whose mastery reflects a lifetime spent communicating through needle and thread. Handwork was Yuka’s companion through college in London where she studied environmental archaeology, and later during her field research in the Middle East as an archaeobotanist, where she examined the soil for clues about the relationship between plants and early human cultures.
The dynamics of person and place are also themes central to her creative works. The elements of embroidery easily lend themselves to metaphor, and Hoshino’s motifs are embedded with reflections on the women's suffrage movement, mass incarceration, and celestial interconnectivity. Her painstaking methods of planning and execution add layers of intentionality to these topics – a virtue that textiles can impart at a moment when cultural value systems are being calibrated by efficiency.
I’m eager to see Yuka and her new works alongside Dalila Acuña's mind melting cross stitch pieces at The Textile Show, a group exhibition curated by resident fiber icon jess brown. Opening reception 10/17, 7-9pm...
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Meet Porches Scout Beth Tisthammer
Beth Tisthammer knew she was an artist by the time she was six, and she never changed course. "I just never pivoted," she says. That early certainty has carried her through Chicago murals, a Wicker Park flower shop, more than a decade in studio programs for artists with disabilities, and now Cloudland, her art studio for kids in Petaluma.
Beth was born in Arizona, where her father, a physician, was finishing his medical internship on the Hopi and Navajo reservation. When she was a toddler, her family moved to Santa Rosa, where her parents still live. Her mom is an artist too, so making things was always part of home life.
In high school, Beth found her people at Art Quest in Santa Rosa, then a new pilot program built on the idea that visual students learn differently. There was block scheduling, a big, beautiful shared studio, and a cohort of young artists who were taken seriously. By 14 she was taking figure drawing next door at Santa Rosa Junior College. Many of those classmates are still her friends, and are still working in the arts.
At 17, she headed to the Art Institute of Chicago on a scholarship. She found that after years in Art Quest's collaborative studio environment, the competitive atmosphere there was a shock, so she left school and stayed in the city, painting murals. One commission, which involved painting a concrete column in an unheated Wicker Park shop in the winter, turned into a friendship with florist Elizabeth Cronin, who offered her a job. Beth spent a couple of years arranging flowers and learning their visual language, a love that still shows up in her fondness for ikebana.
Back in San Francisco at the age of 20, she walked past Creativity Explored one morning and felt the energy pouring out of the studio. She started volunteering there, working with artist Michael Bernard Loggins on a book. The work being made struck her as fearless and alive, made without worrying about an audience. That path led to a full-time role at Becoming Independent in Santa Rosa, where she facilitated adaptive art projects in a studio of around a hundred artists. She spent about 12 years in that field and learned how to keep a lot of plates spinning at once.
After buying a home in Petaluma and becoming a mom, Beth went back to SRJC to study textiles, redid the space at Alchemia Gallery, and later taught and ran admin at Artaluma. When that job ended, she opened Cloudland, which turns one next month.
At Cloudland, Beth teaches mixed-age classes for kids 7 to 14, with no fixed curriculum. She sees firsthand how hungry kids are for tactile, hands-on work, and she treats every class as a process where there are no real failures, only information to build on. She also mentors teen interns and wants local students to know that art school, and help with portfolios, is within reach. Her guiding idea is simple: "You be the person that you wanted to have in your life."
As a Fall Scout, Beth will be sharing stories about the local art scene here in Petaluma. She’ll guide us through the local visual arts scene, from shows worth seeing to artists and work we might otherwise miss....
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Lucia at the Green Music Center
Did you know that we have a ~120 million dollar state-of-the-art music center less than 10 miles from Petaluma? You may have thought that it was just a venue for classical music and SSU choir concerts, but it’s become something much more interesting than that. This Friday, Lucia takes the stage at the Green Music Center as a perfect example; a 24 year old jazz singing prodigy with Latin roots.
It started small: tech pioneer Don Green kicked things off in 1997 with a $5 million gift for what was originally just supposed to be a choral hall. The vision kept growing (as these things do), and by the time it was finished, the whole project had ballooned to $120 million. It wasn't exactly a smooth road, either — construction dragged on for the better part of a decade, and the whole thing nearly stalled out before Sonoma residents Joan and Sandy Weill stepped in with a final $12 million gift to get it across the finish line, which is why the main hall carries their name. It finally opened in 2012 with a sold-out show by pianist Lang Lang. The goal from the start was to build something that could rival the great halls of the world, and they didn't cut corners: Weill Hall was designed by the same caliber of architect and acoustician who've worked on places like Vienna's Musikverein, aiming for that same kind of warmth and intimacy. It’s a special place to hear music of any kind.
Lucia has already accomplished so much in her 24 years. She grew up in Veracruz, Mexico, steeped in son jarocho, the folk music of her home region, before chasing a jazz studies degree and becoming the first Mexican artist to ever win the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition. Her sets pull from everywhere at once: jazz standards, Spanish-language classics, her own original songs, even the occasional Taylor Swift or Olivia Rodrigo cover (which sounds like it shouldn't work, but it does). She takes the stage this Friday, October 2nd, at 7:30pm, in the Loft at Weill Hall, a rare setup where the audience sits right up on stage with her. Tickets run $36-$56. If you have a teen that loves Billie Eilish, Laufey, or Olivia Dean, this show could be a huge, unexpected win.
Sometimes I fear that classical music and opera are doomed to fade into obscurity as younger generations become less and less associated. Places like this make me think otherwise, but we have to create opportunities for ourselves to appreciate it. I have a tradition every year where I take my mom to a symphony or orchestral performance for a birthday or Christmas, like a special date for the two of us. When my girls are old enough, I want their first real orchestra experience to be right here, ten minutes from home, in a hall built to sound like the ones I only ever imagined visiting. We're lucky it's this close. Go see Lucia this Friday, and see for yourself why....
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Meet Porches Scout Kaz Khosrowmanesh
When I asked Kasraa Khosrowmanesh to explain his job as a sommelier to me, he responded "My job is to try to understand and help put into words what you already have in your mind," he says. You may already know what you like. Kaz helps you find the words for it, then points you toward something new that makes sense. That approach comes from nearly two decades on restaurant floors, in tasting rooms and behind wine shop counters. This fall, he's bringing it to Porches as one of our Scouts, covering food and drink around Petaluma.
Kaz has lived in the Bay Area since middle school. At 21 he moved to New York, where his partner Genevieve Elkin was studying illustration and animation at Parsons. He spent that time working in restaurants, the longest stretch at the Noho Star near the Bowery, but decided after two East Coast winters that they were ready to return to California.
Back home, he printed a stack of resumes, walked into Sushi Ran in Sausalito to drop one off and was hired on the spot. Owner Yoshi Tome became a mentor in both beverage and hospitality, and the restaurant's sake and wine programs, plus visits from importers and winemakers, got him hooked.
In 2016 he joined Scribe Winery, managing the tasting room and working harvest. When he mentioned that he wanted to explore a deeper career in wine, Scribe sponsored his path through the Court of Master Sommeliers, and he passed his first exam in Portland in 2018.
A few years later, Genevieve's work as an art producer at Lucasfilm took them to Los Angeles, where Kaz became wine director at Helen's Wines inside Jon & Vinny's in Brentwood. Helen Johannesen built her whole approach around making wine less intimidating, and that philosophy has stuck with him over the years. "There has been a lot of gatekeeping in the wine industry," he says. He'd much rather earn someone's trust than make a one-time sale.
For Kaz, wine is a form of art history, a love that traces back to his dad, who gave him a passion for history early on. He also keeps it in perspective. "At the end of the day, it's just wine," he says. "It's just an agricultural product."
He and Genevieve moved back north in 2022, and Kaz spent the next few years as beverage manager at Valley Bar & Bottle, working with Emma Lipp, the same person who first hired him at Scribe. This past April he rejoined the team at Scribe, and said they’re in the thick of the harvest now, when the farm crew picks at night under the lights.
He also runs a side business with a former colleague from Valley, importing wine from Japan. Their first producers are in the mountainous Chikuma River valley in Nagano, a small community where winemakers show up to help each other harvest. They're one of just three importers bringing Japanese wine into California.
Kaz and Genevieve chose Petaluma for its central location and because, as he puts it, the town punches above its weight when it comes to food. Street Social is their favorite spot for dinner. As a Scout, he wants to put faces to the places we love: asking a chef or bartender for the one dish or drink they'd hang their hat on, or possibly tying on an apron alongside his friend John at Canteen Meats, and trying the spots he hasn't gotten to yet.
♦️♦️♦️
📷 courtesy of Sonoma Magazine...
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Vetiver's Andy Cabic on Buddy Holly, Nick DeCaro, and baking a crumble
We're thrilled to welcome Andy Cabic of Vetiver to the Porches HQ living room on Thursday, October 22nd. Andy has been writing and recording as Vetiver for more than twenty years, and his songs have a way of holding sunshine and a little melancholy in the same breath. A few years ago, I got into the habit of listening to his song “Rolling Sea” as part of my morning ritual, and eventually found that I couldn’t start my day without it. When he's not in the studio, you might find Andy out DJ’ing bossa nova and house music, or helping curate a compilation of Japanese City Pop. His most recent album, Up On High, was written on acoustic guitar and recorded over a few spring days at a friend's house in the high desert, with a roomful of longtime collaborators playing together on the floor.
Doors open at 7pm for cocktail hour, where we'll be serving his favorite cocktail, the Paper Plane, along with a non-alcoholic version, and the performance starts at 8pm. Ahead of the @Vetiver: Live at Porches show, we traded a few questions over email.
What's your earliest music memory?
I have a memory of being a toddler, moving across a wooden floor, towards a step to climb over, and Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue" is playing in the background.
I've heard you DJ a few times over the years. Do you have a favorite record, or one you're still searching for to add to your collection?
So many favorite records. Too many. Most records I might want that I'm still searching for are too expensive for me to actually purchase. A copy of Mylène Farmer's "Maman a tort" 12", for instance. An album I never tire of is Italian Graffiti by Nick DeCaro.
What have you been looking at, reading, or listening to lately that inspires you?
I just discovered the author Norman Lewis. His book Naples '44 is fantastic. I'm in the middle of his book The Honoured Society now, and halfway through Flaubert's Madame Bovary as well. Ruth Parker's album Otherwise Occupied from last year is a special recording I find inspiring.
If you made a sequel to Thing of the Past (Vetiver’s 2008 album of cover songs) today, what's one song that would have to be on it?
"Water Makes Me Sing" by Jake & The Family Jewels.
What are you working on for the rest of the fall and into the new year?
Writing new tunes, pruning and weeding the garden, baking a crumble.
♦️♦️♦️
📷: Alissa Anderson
Follow Andy on Instagram at @vetiverse...
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A summer of Scouts
This summer, twelve Porches Scouts introduced us to artists, neighbors, food makers, local history, and found moments to bring more of us together in person. I genuinely looked forward to their stories every single week.
I thought a fun way to close out the season would be to share some of the bangers from the last three months. These happen to be some of my personal favorite memories and moments, but if you have others, add them below!
Ceramic artist Ash Austin saw a collage she loved at Blunk Space, learned its maker had a studio nearby, and turned the discovery into A Creative Field Trip in Point Reyes. She invited the rest of us to Point Reyes and hang out too. That’s the kind of unique opportunity and experience that I hoped the Scouts would be able to facilitate.
Photographer Nik Cotten took his camera into the places where Petalumans gather. For his series on local meetings and gatherings, he went backstage at the Phoenix Theater and made portraits of the pro wrestling performers where you can see the showmanship and the people behind it.
Speciality food expert Maia Hirschbein spent the summer hunting down the deals we might walk right past. Her Deals & Steals brought us to Petaluma Market and the $5.99 sandwiches made with good bread and deli ingredients that might otherwise go to waste.
Screenwriter Connor Pritchard went looking for neighbors with unexpected skills, passions, and stories for Find the Others. In his interview with Copperfield’s children’s book specialist Patty Norman, we learned about the live sheep she once put in the shop window. Then the comments filled with book recommendations, and helped Patty find a guitar teacher.
Co-owner of NooNoo, Laura Whalen took us along on family outings all summer, including a “very serious” interview with her kids about the Petaluma KOA that was so fun to read.
Chef Daniel Capra drove twenty miles to Dillon Beach (see Connor’s playlist!) and made the case for a great place to stop for lunch. His visit to Coastal Kitchen introduced us to Chef Zachary Agas and the dishes Daniel loved most. It’s still on my list.
Wellness guru Jabu Dayton was walking her dog, wondering where to begin scouting Petaluma’s beauty scene, when a mysterious pull-tab flyer caught her eye. It led to her visit to Soul Rituals, where the person who opened the door was someone she’d already met at the dog park. What an amazing story.
Real estate advisor Lucy Decker helped tell the story of Petaluma’s historic houses and bring them into the present with a few families who live there now. For 229–231 Bodega Avenue, she followed clues through old newspapers, directories, Museum research, and maps. Then she met Kyle and Pili, the neighbors making the house’s next chapter their own.
Writer and tarot card maker Kary Hess made room for a little magic in an ordinary morning. In A Simple Tarot Ritual to Remember the Magic, she suggested drawing one card each morning and leaving it somewhere you’ll see it throughout the day. I liked how easy she made it to get started with the ritual.
Musician Tyler Johnson covered the local music scene this summer, and created an awesome guide to Petaluma’s karaoke nights, open mics, and jams that gathered all the spots around town in one place.
Rangeland management professional Kelsey Nelson showed us how much of our food comes from people right around us. Her Petaluma Local Food Guide brings together farms, ranches, and farm stands, with places to find everything from beef shares and duck to sliding-scale produce. I’ll be coming back to it again and again.
Owner of Tacos don Pepe, Eduardo Rodriguez made a case for wandering Petaluma by foot. In his invitation to explore town without a car, he asked us to slow down, turn onto a street we’ve never noticed, and see what we find.
Thank you, Ash, Nik, Maia, Connor, Laura, Daniel, Jabu, Lucy, Kary, Tyler, Kelsey, and Eddie. I learned so much from the way each of you sees this place. I hope you’ll keep sharing and bringing us along with you....
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“Ninety-Six Years of Collecting Stuff”: Paul and Nicole Italia, Owners of Fuhgeddaboutit Junk Removal
A grandmother's house in New York, a flight home, and a junk removal business created with the priority of keeping things out of the landfill.
Paul and Nicole Italia came by the office with their dog Chanel. We quickly figured out that they have an office in the same building as Porches HQ, which made this a neighbors meeting neighbors afternoon.
Their business is Fuhgeddaboutit Junk Removal. About two and a half years ago, Paul's grandmother passed away in New York at 96. His mother called, overwhelmed, and asked him to come help clear out the house. He and Nicole were in Florida at the time and quickly got on a plane.
"It was about two weeks of just a nightmare every day, waking up, mom breaking down, dad just frustrated that mom doesn't want any help in all this."
He says his grandmother had believed all of it was worth a great deal and that the family would be set by what she left behind. It was not the case. His mother did not want to call a hauling company, because the stuff meant something, so they did it themselves. Relatives came through and took a trinket, a small piece of memorabilia.
"Ninety-eight percent of it ended up in a landfill. It destroyed us. Seeing my grandmother's stuff that she cared about."
Paul says he was already looking for his next business. He had been a fitness model in Miami, and after they moved west he got into arm wrestling and ended up as a promoter, running tournaments as far as Dubai and Turkey. On the flight back to California he started researching alternative ways to thoughtfully and respectfully clean out homes full of collected belongings. "I went down YouTube University the whole flight," he says. He found junk removal, and then found that a junk removal expo was happening in Santa Rosa two months later.
He was eager to learn everything about the business, so he contacted the organizers of the expo. After a long conversation, he offered to sponsor the event in exchange for what they could teach him. "I will pay for everything. I just want to learn everything about this."
Paul and Nicole's mission for doing this work
Before anything goes to the dump, they try to find it a home. Salvation Army, St. Vincent de Paul, churches, whoever has floor space that week. Paul says they are at the donation centers two and three times a day, so he started a group text with people from all of them. He photographs an item, sends it out, and sees who wants it.
"It adds a lot of extra time and money. It costs us to do it. But it just feels so right."
Grammy Terry
Nicole shares this story, and it is clear that she feels tremendous compassion for the elderly woman at the center of it. Paul says he cannot believe she raised it, because Grammy Terry had texted him that same morning, the first he had heard from her in about a year. Terry had contacted them to say her electric, adjustable bed frame was broken, a king size as Nicole remembers it, and that she had been sleeping on her couch for two years because she could not afford to replace it. If they ever came across one, she said, think of me.
Then they cleared out a room at a senior home where a woman had passed away, and the son told them to find someone for her bed. It was two weeks old.
"It was the exact same electric bed, exact brand," Paul says. They brought it over and put it together for her.
"She just started crying and just gave us this big hug."
She had never been a client of Paul and Nicole, just a woman in the community who reached out and asked them to keep an eye out.
Stinson Beach
Last week they cleared a house at Stinson Beach where a man in his eighties had just lost his wife after fifty years in that house. A neighbor called Fuhgeddaboutit Junk Removal, and the man's friends came to help clear the house while he sat and watched.
"When it all hit me, realizing, this is the last time he's gonna see all his wife's stuff."
Paul says he pulled his crew aside before they started.
"We need to bring a great energy, guys. You need to show real compassion with every piece you remove from this house."
The man called two days later to thank them.
"I just remember what I had to go through at my grandmother's place. If I can make this a little easier on them in this nightmare of a situation, not so bad. That's what means the most to me."
Paul's shorthand for who calls him is the three Ds. Death, divorce, downsizing. He also has a tagline for himself.
"Everybody's got an Uncle Paulie in Petaluma now"
The crew starts each day at Paul's house on his cardio machines, running an hour long meeting that covers the day before, the jobs ahead, training and a role play. They end it back at his home gym, working out together, which he calls part of the Fuhgeddaboutit culture.
They live in Quarry Heights, and they are not going anywhere. "We're lifers," Paul Italia says. Porchmail Paul with any question. Thank you both (and Chanel) for coming by!...
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Meet the Fall ‘26 Porches Scouts
Today we’re excited to announce the Fall ’26 season of Porches Scouts.
We put out the call two weeks ago and received twice as many applications as we did for the summer season. There were so many interesting ideas and facets of Petaluma to explore that whittling the list down to 12 spots was quite a challenge. Thank you to everyone who applied.
A little aside, but I figure this may be a good moment to share that any Porches member can publish, and we hope that you do! You don’t need to be a Scout to share your insights or to take on a feature-length project. We hope you'll keep sharing your wonderful ideas, projects, and insights here whenever it strikes you.
Lately, we’ve seen more neighbors share events they’re putting on, ask one another questions, organize meet-ups, and publish interviews and profiles. A post can be a few lines or a longer piece, and more considered works appear on the “Features” page, which is the front page of the app.
The Fall Scouts have signed up to publish something every week through the end of the year. They will cover a corner of Petaluma life, sharing insights, reflections, recommendations, and stories. We hope their work gets people out and about to try, taste, and discover different aspects of life here and ultimately leads to more connections, whether that’s to people who live here or to feeling more connected and rooted where we live.
This season, the Scouts will take us into the interiors of houses, onto the field of recreational adult and youth sports games, and to under-the-radar art galleries and studios, and much more.
Without further ado, I am excited to introduce you to the Fall ‘26 Porches Scouts:
Annie O'Neill is an artist and photographer born and raised in Petaluma. Their work in photography, printmaking, and drawing explores grief, identity, family, and the human need for connection. This season, they’ll photograph women cultivating community across town.
Beth Tisthammer is a multimedia artist and founder of Cloudland, a Petaluma youth art studio and gallery. She’ll guide us through the local visual arts scene, from shows worth seeing to artists and work we might otherwise miss.
Brandon Serrano is a musician, recording studio owner, zine publisher, and longtime radio DJ. His weekly reviews will start with music and range into books, films, and performances, inviting neighbors into conversations about work found or made locally.
Chris Jennings is a marketing professional and father of two who loves exploring Petaluma with his kids. He’ll write about parenting and family life here, including outings worth trying and places families might discover together.
Devon Sampson Wills is a biodiversity researcher and is now consulting for companies with a serious commitment to sustainability. He’s fascinated by the creative tension between making a living and protecting our communities and ecosystems. This fall he’ll be interviewing people involved in the messy and hopeful work of running those businesses.
Denise Tranfaglia is a retired public school English teacher and youth advocate who has called Petaluma home for 40 years. She’ll seek out the people and places that make the town tick, including stories that often go untold.
Dominic Del Bene runs the Petaluma-based comedy label Blonde Medicine, plays pickup soccer, and spends plenty of time at his kids’ games as a coach or spectator. He’ll cover the leagues and games that bring neighbors together, from adult recreation to youth sports.
Genevieve Field is a journalist, editor, and book collaborator. She’ll write a weekly neighborly advice column. Once the Porches "question box" is live, readers can write in anonymously or with their names.
Julia Cramer has performed and taught music in Petaluma since 2016 and is part of the music collective Willow + Hound. She’ll cover local shows and musicians, along with the teachers, programs, and spaces helping Petaluma’s music scene grow.
Kasraa Khosrowmanesh is a certified sommelier and longtime hospitality professional who now manages the hospitality program at Scribe Winery. He’ll explore Petaluma’s food and drink scene firsthand, sharing the dishes, drinks, and places he thinks neighbors should try.
Megan McClelland is a counselor and activities director at Petaluma High School, as well as a yoga teacher. Drawing on her work with young people, she’ll tell stories about teenage life in Petaluma.
Olivia Rogers, a freelance interior designer, and Rachel Colla, a photographer and former art director whose work has appeared on Porches, are teaming up to take us inside neighbors’ homes. They’ll show us interior spaces that are works in progress and the stories behind the design choices that make each home its own....
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