The Buzz

Topiaries like this one are being created on Lombardi Avenue. Zoom Photo

Shrubbery sculptor: Petaluma360.com blogger Frank Simpson recently took a respite from the graffiti-and-vandalism beat to report on some much more positive news from the street — the topiary created in the median of Lombardi Avenue near South McDowell Boulevard. Topiary, you ask? It’s the art of shaping shrubbery — animals, faces, etc. — using pruning methods. Seems someone has been creating jackrabbits, dogs and even a snail out of the otherwise unremarkable bushes. Frank gave kudos to the anonymous “Silent Samaritan” who has kept up the work in recent years but wondered how it got started. Well, within three days his blog readers had filled in the missing piece of the puzzle — Manuel Machado, a now-retired city employee, began the sculpted garden. You can read the whole story and see photos at frank-simpson.petaluma360.com.

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It’s chai-riffic. While filling up at Royal Petroleum’s new biodiesel pump near the Highway 101 onramp at Petaluma Boulevard South, you might also want to refuel with a cup of “power chai” at the new Royal Cup of Java coffee stand just a few yards away.

“The power chai is not for the weak of heart,” said manager Mark Supachana. “It will get you going all day long. It doesn’t bring you down like the regular caffeine crash — it will last for a good six or seven hours.”

Royal Cup of Java offers David Rio Chai, a San Francisco brand, as well as Graffeo Coffee, which has been rated highly by Zagat’s, Supachana said.

Royal Cup of Java is owned by Lisa Cook of Fairfax.

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Dinner and a movie. Sugo Modern Trattoria has been open in the downtown Theatre District for three years, but a recent makeover includes a new twist: movies with dinner. Upon entering Sugo, diners are greeted by classic and foreign films projected high on a wall. Films that have been shown include “Casablanca,” “The Bicycle Thief” and “Roman Holiday.” “We thought it would be appropriate seeing that we are in the Theatre District,” said co-owner Peter White.

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Little locomotive: If the shiny yellow addition to the burgeoning train yard outside the old yellow barn at East Washington and Baylis streets has caught your attention but puzzled you for an explanation, here it is. The vehicle that looks like a piece of earthmoving equipment is actually a GE diesel electric locomotive, built in 1948 in New York and now painted up in the traditional colors of the long-ago Petaluma & Santa Rosa Railroad (which used identical locomotives during the same time period). The P&SR once ran right down the adjacent Copeland Street and locomotive owner Lauren Williams says the fully restored vehicle will soon be running a very short distance on the spur track it now rests upon. It’s all part of the Petaluma Trolley project, which is working to restore part of the P&SR line (including the Water Street trestle) so its collection of “rolling stock” will once again have a place to roll and be visited by the public.

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Got an item for The Buzz? E-mail it to argus@arguscourier.com. Put “To Buzz” in the subject line.

Lake Wobegon and Petaluma: Listeners who tuned in to KQED-FM early Sunday afternoon, Nov. 11, heard writer-storyteller Garrison Keillor spinning one of his tales about the denizens of the fictitional town of Lake Wobegon. It wasn’t his weekly radio program “A Prairie Home Copmpanion,” though. Keillor was speaking at San Francisco’s City Arts and Lectures series and reading an excerpt from his new book, “Pontoon,” when he described one of the characters, Debbie Detmer, as “a veterinary aromatherapist who opened the All Creatures Great and Small pet store in Petaluma, California.” Keillor is familiar with our fair city because Petaluma resident Margaret Moos Pick was founding producer of “A Prairie Home Companion.”

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Got an item for The Buzz? E-mail it to argus@arguscourier.com. Put “To Buzz” in the subject line.