I asked him what kinds of issues people bring to him. He can answer questions about all kinds of city related problems, anything from zoning, to affordable housing, to relocating a business to Mountain View. If he doesn’t know the answer, he can steer you in the right direct. That’s what these meeting are all about—helping residents and businesses cut through the red tape that they might be facing in our city. Mike doesn’t have any individual power as far as getting things done, (that’s what he claims anyway, but I think he probably has more than he realizes) but he does know who we need to talk to “unclog” things. Sometimes residents just want to ask him why the city made certain decisions around town or why he voted for or against something. He’s happy to explain himself.

Just to be totally clear, any of our council members can do the same thing for residents, but the mayor usually offers these official meeting hours. Any of them would be willing to answer questions and they can all be reached through the city website. The position of mayor rotates every year. This is Mike’s second term as our mayor.

When you arrive at the meeting, take a number from the table that Mike is sitting at and fill out the little form so he has your contact information. He will most likely already be having a conversation with someone, but he’ll let you know as soon as it is your turn. Sometimes he speaks with as many as 15 people while he’s sitting at the coffee shop. I really like that our city officials are so friendly and easy to make contact with and I love living in Mountain View.

She’s been a vet for almost 20 years and became a Certified Veterinary Acupuncturist in 2005. Dr. McCain does house calls. She told me that she noticed lots of her patients (or their owners) were interested in a more holistic treatment as opposed to taking pills for chronic conditions, so she started offering animal acupuncture.  Some of the conditions that are treated with acupuncture are pain, paralysis, asthmatic problems, inflammatory bowel disease and sinus problems. She also offers Chinese herbal medications that are formulated especially for animals.

She offers acupuncture treatment on the peninsula (at the patient’s home) and at her office in Mountain View. Sometimes large animals are difficult to get into a vehicle and especially if they have some kind of back pain or issues that require veterinary help. It’s very helpful to the owner for Dr. McCain to drive to their home when animals are in pain or difficult to move; it’s also much less stressful on the animal if they can stay in their usual environment.

Romeo was at his 2^nd acupuncture treatment the day that I went to see him. He’s been having difficulty jumping up onto furniture and going up and down the stairs in his home. He didn’t seem to mind having 16 needles poked in him at all. He just looked out the window and watched birds while his tail swished back and forth a bit. The treatment lasted 20 minutes. The needles seemed to having a calming effect on him. Dr. McCain told my friend that Romeo would probably be very mellow when they got home and that he would be sleepy as a result of the acupuncture.

I asked Dr. McCain what kinds of other animals she has performed acupuncture on and she said that she has treated mostly cats and dogs, but that she has also done rabbits and chinchillas. I really love that our community has someone offering this service to our pets. Please visit Dr. McCain’s website or email her for more details. Thanks Sharlene for inviting me to join Romeo at his appointment. I love Mountain View.

That’s when Sandrine Cornet, a waitress/bartender at Zucca, decided to gather investors and become the new owner. She has worked at Zucca for the past 7 years. It’s still in escrow, so the ownership hasn’t officially been signed over yet, but it looks like Sandrine, “a small woman with a big heart” according to her staff, will be the new owner.

I think it would be so nice if the community showed support to this restaurant that has been part of our community for the past 10 years, and also to Sandrine for saving herself and 15 of her co-workers from unemployment.

Remzi, the manager that I spoke with, told me that they’ll still serve their famous ravioli, salmon wraps and burgers for lunch. And they’ll still have the lamb shank and striped bass at dinner. They’ll still have the same quality service that we’ve come to expect; the only difference will be the name change. It will transition to “B’ Zu Café” very soon. Right now the building has both names, but watch for changes as “Zucca” comes down. And the website is still in transition too. Let’s all raise a toast to Sandrine for having the courage to save everyone’s job and take on the responsibility of being a business owner in downtown Mountain View! I’ll see you at Happy Hour (4-7) at B’ Zu Cafe, 186 Castro Street. I love Mountain View.

The Mountain View Chamber of Commerce is well connected to companies in Silicon Valley and they’re bringing in Google, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook,  and Yelp to speak. Can you imagine seeing all of those companies together on stage at one event? There will also be presentations on blogging, using mobile coupons and creating email campaigns.

The event is designed to help business owners and employees improve their social media skills so they can more effectively market themselves and their products or services. If you’ve been busy running your business for years and aren’t quite caught up to speed on how to make an eye-catching business page on Facebook or how to create a business profile for your company on LinkedIn, this just might be a good event for you to attend. If you don’t have much social networking experience, this event will catch you up to everyone else and if you already have a great deal of experience, this event will be a good chance to fine-tune your skills. Be sure to think up a few hard questions to bring for the Q&A portion of the program, or to spring on the presenters during the networking session afterwards.

YouTube has over 500 million unique users each month, people on Facebook install over 20 million apps everyday, there are over 190 million tweets posted daily on Twitter, and over 135 million people are proudly posting their professional accomplishments on LinkedIn for the world to see. I want to hear all about the latest tips and tricks and I want to hear them directly from the people who created them.

Google+ was the fastest social media website to reach 10 million users. It happened in just 16 days. Twitter took 780 days and Facebook 852 days. One in every nine people on Earth is on Facebook. I think it’s so exciting that those companies are right here in our neighborhood and that they’ve changed the world. I feel honored to live right in the middle of the Silicon Valley and I hope to see you on May 1^st.

I went last week with a few friends. It’s a hands-on class, as opposed to the demonstration kind. She demonstrates a technique and then asks someone to take over and finish the dicing, stirring, or flipping. We made Karai Murgi Torkari (Bengali Chicken Curry) and Aloo Poshto (Potatoes in a poppy seed gravy) and rice. There were 4 students in Fharzana’s kitchen and everyone participated in the tasks as she directed us and watched what we were doing. She complimented me on my slick knife skills.

Two of us brought wine for everyone to enjoy while we were cooking and we all chatted and laughed quite a bit while we were supposed to be paying attention, but we didn’t get in trouble. I’ve been to the kind of class where you aren’t allowed to drink wine and giggle and it wasn’t nearly as much fun as this one.

Fharzana is charming and really good at explaining the history or significance of a dish. She is from Bangladesh and her husband is from South Indian, so she knows how to cook food from both regions. If you have something specific in mind that you want to learn, she would probably be able to show you. We just let her pick the menu for us and all of us were happy with her selection.

She spent a great deal of time talking about the spices involved in the dishes we made. She passed around little spice bottles for each of us to examine up close. There was no talk of measuring anything. I liked that part. Just dump in some of this and even more of that one and it’ll turn out fine. I noticed that since I went to her class, I’ve been more brave at home and willing to try new combinations of spices. And I haven’t measured anything either. My measuring spoons must be getting lonely. And I like that she gave us copies of the recipes that we made. The copies that she gave us do have measurements written down, so don’t worry about whether or not you’ll be able to recreate the dish once you go home.

Fharzana can be reached through her blog, http://foodvestigation.posterous.com/ Her cooking classes seem like a wonderful way to get together with friends and do something new and different. I love Mountain View.

I don’t remember exactly when I used her services for the first time, but I do remember having her come over to the house to meet our dogs. She walked in the door and immediately sat on the floor and started talking ‘dog-talk’ to the girls. They instantly loved her and jumped all over her. Shawn seems to have some kind of strange connection to animals—you know, like Cesar Millan or Dr. Doolittle. And she always has a pocket full of treats. Dogs are suckers for treats.

We have a web cam set up in the front room so we can look at the dogs when we’re out of town. One time when we were in China for 10 days we open our laptop to check on the dogs and it just happened to be the exact second that Shawn was walking in our front door. She sat on the floor and the dogs leaped all over her and licked her face. They were thrilled to see her. It felt so good to be on vacation and know that they dogs were in loving hands.

Shawn recently told me that she feels a tremendous connection to all the animals that she cares for. She doesn’t have children and the animals that she cares for feel like her children. I think it’s so much better to hire her and know that my pets are being cared for by a professional than taking advantage of friends who say they can baby sit and then hoping that they don’t do something stupid with my dogs. Not that I have stupid friends, but you know what I mean. Shawn is licensed, bonded and insured. Sometimes I see her in random neighborhoods around Mountain View walking random dogs. I always think that those dogs are lucky to have her as their sitter while their parents are gone.

In the past, I’ve used those kennels where they lock your animal in a small prison cell and I always felt overwhelmed with guilt. Here I am going off to some tropical paradise and my poor doggies were in San Quentin. And those little prison cells are always made out of cold, wet cement and a chain link fence. My pampered little doggies are used to fluffy down blankets and a big leather couch. I’ll never take them to a kennel again now that I know Shawn White. As much as I love Mountain View, occasionally, I do go out of town, and when I need someone to watch over my two little dogs—I call Shawn White, Pet Care Specialist of Sittin’ Pretty in Mountain View.

The owner, Randi, has lived in Mountain View for over 20 years. She opened her store back in June. She took me on a tour of the store and told me about the different kinds of merchandise that she offers—every imaginable kind of t-shirt and sweatshirt in all different sizes and colors. And if you don’t see exactly what you have in mind, you can order something out of a catalog. And, yes, it’s even possible to bring in something that you already own. She has a super incredible “printer on steroids” that does the ‘direct to garment printing’ method. Everything single item is custom. Local schools purchase shirts for teams and get each student’s name on their shirt for no extra charge.

One detail that I thought was pretty cool is that they can resize the artwork for each size t-shirt. For example if you put a logo for your family reunion on an XL shirt and put the same logo on a small shirt for a toddler, it would look pretty funny. She showed me a big order that included toddler sizes as well as big adult sizes. The miniaturized logo was so cute on the tiny shirts. And it doesn’t matter if your artwork has only one color in it or 20 colors, it’s all the same price and they don’t charge extra for millions of different colors.

These new custom t-shirts are nothing like the kind they had in the old days. I remember the old ones cracking and peeling off if you stretched them too hard. The ink on these shirts doesn’t sit on top of the fabric; it sinks down into the shirt and is embedded, then it gets heat set. And it’s soft and flexible.

You’re certainly welcome to go to Big Frog and order a t-shirt or shopping bag with the ILoveMV logo on it, but you might also want to design your own artwork. I saw lots of examples of photographs on shirts, favorite family quotes, drawings, school names, dates-to-remember, and logos. Anything is possible. The staff at Big Frog is a really creative group, so even if you think you have a decent idea, let them work their magic if they offer. You won’t be disappointed, I promise. So, technically, I don’t have t-shirts with the ILoveMV logo on it, but I know where you can get one.

Alicia told me that her specialty is really going into people’s homes and creating and the perfect environment for them and their family. That could mean helping them select new flooring, wall coverings and furniture, but sometimes it just means “refreshing” what you already own. Alicia can come in, rearrange your existing furniture, make recommendations about changes that might take it to the next level and give you tips and ideas to make your home exactly what you always wanted it. She also does Holiday decorating. Her prices seemed really reasonable—I’ll let her talk to you about that. Wouldn’t it be nice to have an expert decorate your tree, hang garland and lights in the front room and put the perfect finishing touch on the room before your next party?

I love that we have this new store downtown and I really hope that the community keeps in mind how important it is to shop local and support cool independent stores like Villa Rouge. I’m a big fan of the 3/50 Project. Check out their website for the details, but the point of the movement is to inform people that for every $100 dollars that they spend locally, $68 of it stays in the community. If that same $100 was spent is a nationwide chain, $43 of it would stay in the community and if the $100 was spent online, none of it would stay in the community. Let’s all go shopping, not just anywhere, but in Mountain View!

Harriet is originally from Munich and moved to the Bay Area about 14 years ago. She’s been a painter her entire life and her artwork is in collections all over the world, from Germany, to Japan, Australia and the United States. Her newest series is called “Yellowstone.”

The Visual Arts Committee decided last year that the artists featured in the lobby may also sell their artwork if they would like to do so. There are prices on the artwork if it is for sale. A small percentage of the price goes to the Center. It’s really nice for the community to get to look at beautiful one-of-a-kind artwork and to know that they can purchase the items as well. The exhibit changes every 8 weeks. Artists from all over the United States submit their work for this show. The Visual Arts Committee spends a great deal of time studying the images and deciding who will be selected. We’re lucky to live in a community that cares this much about art.

The lobby is open Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 12 pm to 1 pm and one hour prior to every public performance. The artwork that is for sale may be purchased at the ticket box office Wednesday through Saturday, from noon to 6 pm. For information about upcoming theater productions, please visit the Events Calendar for the Center for the Performing Arts.

The Siegel family has lived in Mountain View since 1967. Jac and his wife raised their 2 sons here and he’s seen our city change a great deal over the years. He remembers going to the Monte Vista Drive-In at the corner of Grant and El Camino. He has fond memories of Linda’s Parisian burgers. He mentioned the tater-tots that Linda’s had and I thought it was funny that no one else ever told me about the tater-tots. They always talk about the hamburgers, but apparently, Linda’s also had tater-tots that were amazing. And he told me about Shaw’s Ice Cream & Candy in the location that used to be Togo’s on El Camino. The Togo’s was recently torn down and now a Walgreens is being built.

Jac recently rented a sailboat and took his granddaughter sailing at Shoreline. He watched the entire Shoreline area change from a dump to a beautiful recreation area, he was involved in the committees that made the changes happen, and now he takes his grandchildren there.

It’s so nice to live in a city where our Mayor is our neighbor and not just a politician. Jac is at Peet’s Coffee on Thursdays for “Yack with Jac” from 10:30am -11:30am. If Thursday doesn’t work for you, he’s available by appointment. I just love Mountain View.