“Honeygirl” has long been a term of endearment in Hawaii.

So when Liana Belli –  a Marin native with an affinity and deep ties to Hawaii – was brainstorming a name for her new waxing salon – she gravitated to it immediately.

“Hawaii is very near and dear to my heart,” says Belli. “But instead of moving there, I stayed in Marin and I’ve tried to bring some of the aloha spirit here.”

Fast forward nearly four years, and the former HoneyGirl Wax Salon on East Blithedale is now HoneyGirl Beauty, a waxing salon-meets-retail destination on Sunnyside Ave. in the space formerly occupied by Palette Boutique.

“It was never a plan of mine to open my own salon,” Belli says. “But after working at and managing a variety of places over the years, I realized that I had just built up this really loyal following and I decided to give it a go. And it just took off from there.”

Belli first had HoneyGirl in a single room above Le Salon on East Blithedale Ave., and later moved it further down the block. With this latest incarnation, Belli has a slightly larger space that gives her the ability to offer "full gamut of wax services" from a “team of experienced and friendly aestheticians” and offer retail products ranging from Cosabella lingerie to all-natural makeup products, including Glo Minerals Cosmetics, True Botanicals skin care, and Coola suncare.

“My whole goal now with this new space has been to develop our brand,” Belli says. “I don’t want everyone to just come in to see me – we have a wide range of great services and products in a casual, relaxed boutique in a ‘non-spa’ where people can receive the same high quality service in an informal yet vibrant setting.”

The 411: HoneyGirl Beauty is at 34 Sunnyside Avenue. MORE INFO AND BOOK APPOINTMENTS.

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Bel Marin Keys artist Ellen Levine Dodd grew up in a small New England beach town near Boston, Massachusetts, attending Clark University on an art scholarship, and studying painting at the Worcester Museum School, and photography at the Worcester Craft Center. During her junior year she took a sabbatical and traveled to Europe, Israel, and the Middle East, doing photography and studying cultural differences. 

Those extensive travel experienced inspired and fueled Dodd's art then, and continued to do so to this day. "Art is the magic of creating something tangible from thoughts, passions, and emotions, using color, line and forms to shape abstractions into an inspiration of visual expression," she says. "My art explores my travel experiences, adventures, observation and emotions with the goal of communicating a passion for the beauty and richness of the world and a desire to live a positive expression of life."

With an exhibit dubbed “From There to Here: Recycled and Recirculated," Dodd showcases some of her most recent work at the Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center (85 Throckmorton Ave.), throughout February, with a wine reception set for the Mill Valley Arts Commission's First Tuesday Artwalk on February 6, 5:30-7:30pm. 

Dodd's work is mixed media on wood panels. "The under layers of the paintings are acrylic and gesso, with graphite, colored pencil, Prismacolor, and wax art crayons," she says. "They are overpainted with oil and cold wax, oil glazes, oilsticks, oil pastels, graphite, charcoal and wax art crayons. The frames are handmade of basswood finished with handmade shellac."

​The 411: Ellen Levine Dodd showcases “From There to Here: Recycled and Recirculated" mixed media work at the Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center (85 Throckmorton Ave.), throughout February, with a wine reception set for the Mill Valley Arts Commission's First Tuesday Artwalk on February 6, 5:30-7:30pm. 

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From Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge over Troubled Water" and The Jackson 5's "ABC" to Elton John's "Bennie and the Jets" to Maria Muldaur's "Midnight at the Oasis" and hundreds of songs in between, the years of 1970-1974 included a startling amount of incredible music. 

Building on the huge success of the "Summer of Love" Record Listening Night on the music of 1967, the Mill Valley Library is hosting another one, this time focusing on those first five years of the 70s between the breakup of the Beatles and the resignation of Nixon. The event is set for Tuesday, Jan. 30 from 7-9pm in the Creekside Room downstairs.

Record Listening Night returns to the , and attendees are encouraged to bring their vinyl records, play their favorite song from those eventful years, and tell everyone what it meant to them. Mill Valley Music owner Gary Scheuenstuhl will bring his formidable record collection and Jim Welte will deejay. Refreshments provided. Free. 
 
Registration recommended. Click here to register.
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There are bubbles, and then there's The Bubble Lady's bubbles.

Rebecca Nile,  the Bay Area entertainer who has been bringing bubble thrills to audiences for 20 years, takes the stage at the Mill Valley Community Center on Sunday, Jan. 28, kicking off Mill Valley Recreation's annual 'Mill Valley Live' series.

Organizers promise a show that's "crazy, zany, super silly and tons of fun," as parents and children alike "follow The Bubble Lady to Bubble Land and participate in incredible musically enhanced bubble adventures," according to Mill Valley Live organizers. 

The Bubble Lady mixes spectacular bubble artistry with comedy, creating everything from dancing bubbles, trick bubbles, spaceship bubbles, love bubbles, bubble haircuts, bubble brains, dragon and whale bubbles, universe bubbles and people in bubbles, to name a few.

A trained Shakespearian actress and professional clown, Nile brings years of experience and theatrical skills to each and every performance.  She delights in playing with her audience, bringing genuine enthusiasm and joy.  Rebecca has a special knack for helping shy, and children with exceptional needs, participate!

The 411: The Bubble Lady performs as part of Mill Valley Recreation's 'Mill Valley Live' series on Sunday, Jan. 28 at 11am. Tix $8. Children 3 and under are free. Mill Valley Community Center, 180 Camino Alto. MORE INFO & TIX.

The Mill Valley Live series continues on the following dates:

February 25 - Timothy James - Magician
March 25 - Fred Anderson - Prop Comic and Juggler
April 22 - Circus Arts and Comedy with Bri Crabtree

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For more than 23 years, hair stylist Eyerusalem Gettiye has been making beautiful people look their best for blockbuster events like New York Fashion Week. And for many of those years, Gettiye was producing her own fashion show to benefit an array of local charities.

So when Gettiye moved from Minneapolis, Minn., to the Bay Area, she decided to keep that tradition going. On Saturday, Feb. 24 (4-7pm) at the IDESST Sausalito Portuguese Cultural Center, Gettiye is hosting the Breast Cancer Awareness Rendezvous Fashion show, a gathering of that will showcase the latest wares found in Mill Valley boutiques like Branded, Carolina and even kid-centric Sprout San Francisco – all to benefit the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Gettiye, who attended the Aveda Institute in Minneapolis and runs her own Mobile Salon E, says that while breast cancer hasn't directly impacted her or her family, "I'm so lucky to be 100 percent healthy, and it's sad to see so many people who don't have that opportunity – I want to help any way I can. It's a lot of work for me to organize a fashion show event like this, but at the end, its worth it!"

The 411: Hair stylist Eyerusalem Gettiye is hosting the Breast Cancer Awareness Rendezvous Fashion show on Saturday, Feb. 24 (4-7pm) at the IDESST Sausalito Portuguese Cultural Center. Tix $30-35. MORE INFO. Interested in being a sponsor of the event or a vendor at it? Email Gettiye here. 

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Asking Robert and Jill Romano to name their favorite destination is like asking a legendary music producer to name their favorite song: there are so many to choose from that the answer varies depending on the day, and there simply can’t be just one – particularly because there’s always the next one.

“There are absolutely wonderful things about everywhere we’ve been,” Jill Romano says, diplomatically. “But there are places that touch you beyond just the destination, beyond the beautiful setting, and those are where you are able to have authentic interactions with the people that live there. Like Bali, with the nicest, kindest, gentlest people that you could ever find, where kids walk down the streets on their own safely because the whole community watches out for them. Or places where you can be out in nature, in the silence and completely focused on what’s around you – like some of the safaris that we’ve done.”

“The most recent trips tend to be the most top of mind,” she continues. “And because we have cultivated these wonderful relationships, there are one-of-a-kind experiences of getting into the Cairo Museum or seeing King Tut’s tomb when they’re closed to the public.”

Romano seems to stop herself long before she’s reached the bottom of the list in her head. While the Mill Valley couple are certainly serious travel connoisseurs, they’re much more than that: Jill Romano co-owns the agency Dimensions in Travel, which is a preferred travel agency for Backroads, the Berkeley-based active vacation company, and books travel for organizations like Guide Dogs for the Blind and Hospice By The Bay.

Robert Romano, meanwhile, sits on the travel agent advisory boards of Abercrombie & Kent and Starwood Hotels and Resorts and is a partner at Fugazi Travel. He designs luxury, adventure and resort travel for clients of the agency, which has been around since 1869, when most of its bookings were for domestic train trips and transatlantic trips on steam ships.

The pair are leaders in an industry that some thought might actually go the way of the steam ship. The travel business has been disrupted over the past 15-plus years by the Internet, putting information and tools at customers’ fingertips – and putting many travel agencies out of business. But that tide is turning a bit, Robert Romano says.

“There’s definitely a lot that people can do for themselves, transactional things,” he adds. “But you can’t do anything super special on the web – it needs contacts and relationships and a human touch. And it’s actually come full circle in many ways, in that a lot of people who were booking travel and experiences on their own have been taken advantage of by the internet and they're coming back to us. They realize we can enhance and add a lot value to what they want and we’re happy to work with them again.”

The flip side of the tech-driven disruption of the travel business is a level of freedom in which travel doesn’t disrupt the work. “With so many technological tools available nowadays, you can operate a travel business from anywhere you wish,” Jill Romano says. “We work from all over the world when we need to.”

​Jill Romano grew up in West Marin, not far from the Marin French Cheese factory, and traveled to places like the United Kingdom with her family as a child. She studied art history at the University of East Anglia in England and returned to the Bay Area to attend travel agency school. She later got a job at Dimensions in Travel, the Bay Area agency started in 1978 by a trio of Marin friends. That was in 1987, and Romano has been there ever since, buying the agency in 2007 with her fellow long-time manager, Diana Saint James.

Robert Romano grew up in Kent Woodlands in a family that ran a wine marketing & importing business, and got to travel to Europe on his parents’ business trips, as well with his “wonderful grandparents who loved to go on trips and take my brother and I with them,” he says.

He worked in the family business for a while after college, but when his father decided to retire, he needed a job, so he turned to the agency that had been booking his family’s trips for years: Fugazi. “I was lucky,” he says. “Fugazi’s like the federal government – no one ever leaves. But someone was leaving and another was out for a hip operation, so they brought me on.”

The couple met at a travel industry conference in San Antonio, Texas 18 years ago – “Jill stood out because she spoke intelligently and was close to my age,” Robert Romano says. He “purchased my engagement ring, a Tahitian black pearl, on a Paul Gauguin cruise a few years later,” Jill says.

The Romanos’ respective agencies have some overlap between them and some distinctions.

“There are a lot of similarities in terms of the customer base, and Bob’s is a bit more luxury than we are,” says Jill Romano, who notes that Dimensions in Travel has long specialized in creating trips for solo travelers, as well as ladies-only trips. “We all do everything, though. And each travel advisor brings with them a different knowledge base and expertise.”

“On the luxury side of things, we are good at knocking it out of the ballpark,” Robert Romano adds. “The value proposition compared to those that book their own hotels, for instance, is huge. Our clients can expect the kind of complimentary breakfasts and room upgrades that come with an agency that has great, long-standing relationships.”

The couple also co-hosts trips occasionally, including an ocean sailing trip and a river trip this fall.

As with any service-based industry, they both have plenty of stories to share, from the family that wanted the bungalows with the best views of a nearby mountain and needed the plunge pools drained and covered so their young children wouldn’t fall in – despite their being other bungalows without the pools – to the client who started booking a trip with Jill, who then realized that the client was also booking the trip with Bob. “We decided to invite him over to figure it out over a glass of wine,” Jill says with a laugh.

When the conversation shifts to the one place that they haven’t been yet and are dying to visit, the replies are brief.

“Antarctica,” Robert says.

“That’s exactly what I was going to say,” Jill adds.

The 411: MORE INFO ON FUGAZI TRAVEL’S ROBERT ROMANO HERE. And MORE INFO ON DIMENSIONS IN TRAVEL’S JILL ROMANO HERE.

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Having tackled “Annie,” “Sound of Music” and “Charlie & the Chocolate Factory” over the past three years, the Mill Valley Middle School’s Cabaret is ready to head down the Yellow Brick Road, diving into the world of Dorothy, Toto, Cowardly Lion, Tin Man and Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz – with some creative twists and turns. 

The MVMS Cabaret has a 70-person, multi-grade cast and 30-member crew that promises to surprise you with their interpretation of the classic show.

The 411: The Mill Valley Middle School’s Cabaret's production of The Wizard of Oz is set for March 2 @ 7:30pm, March 3 @ 1pm and March 4 @ 1pm. MVMS Gym, 425 Sycamore Ave. Tix $10-$35. MORE INFO.

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Equator Coffees co-founder Helen Russell is fond of saying that the people who grow coffee all over the world "link us right to the cup and how we tell that story."

The Bay Area coffee juggernaut is set to showcase another one of those stories at its 2 Miller Ave. shop with a coffee tasting featuring Mokhtar Alkhanshali, a Bay Area based, Yemeni-American coffee entrepreneur. Alkhanshali is the subject of The Monk of Mokha, best-selling author Dave Eggers' latest book, which comes out on Jan. 30.

The event, set for Friday, January 19, 9-11am, features Alkhanshali, the founder and CEO of Port of Mokha coffee, brewing and serving his coffee while customers ask him about his story, the book and his coffee. Equator will be selling a few bags of the coffee and will be releasing it in February. A camera crew from ABC7 will also be on handing filming a segment about Equator and Alkhanshali.

The book charts Alkhanshali's journey to reawaken his ancestral homeland to its coffee legacy. Eggers uses that story to dive into a "history of coffee and its origins, growth, and development as a mass commodity and then as a niche product," as well as "an adventure story of civil war in a foreign country; and a most improbable and uplifting success story," according to a recent review of the book by Kirkus. 

Watch the CBS Sunday Morning segment below to learn more about Alkhanshali.

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Redwood Credit Union, which opened a full-service branch in the Alto Plaza Shopping Center in late 2016, garnered the Corporate Community Service award at the 25th annual Heart of Marin awards on January 11 at the Marin Center. The event, hosted by the Center for Volunteer and Nonprofit Leadership (CVNL), recognized the credit union as a local company that has fostered and encouraged volunteerism and philanthropy among its employees.

Event organizers pointed to Redwood Credit Union's staff providing more than "2,000 hours of volunteer support at 115 events supporting local nonprofits and community organizations in Marin, including the Marin/San Francisco Food Bank, Novato Human Needs Center, Marin YMCA, Conservation Corps of the North Bay, and many others. RCU regularly hosts “Bite of Reality” financial events at local high schools to help teens learn important real-world money management skills—more than 3,000 Marin students benefited from these programs. In addition, RCU supports SchoolsRule—a coalition that provides literacy, technology, arts and health education to all Marin public school students—through a unique program that generates a donation for every RCU credit or debit card transaction made by a Marin County Member, providing more than $30,000 to support SchoolsRule programs annually."

Redwood Credit Union drew plaudits from throughout the Bay Area in the latter part of 2017 when it partnered with The Press Democrat and Senator Mike McGuire to create the North Bay Fire Relief Fund via its RCU Community Fund to support victims of the tragic fires in Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino and Lake counties. To date, more than $20 million of the funds raised have been distributed directly to victims and via nonprofit partners. MORE INFO.

“RCU is extremely honored and humbled to receive this award,” said Matt Martin, Vice President of Community and Government Relations for RCU, who accepted the award at the event. “Giving back and supporting the well-being of our local communities is an integral part of who we are as an organization, and we are continually inspired by the amazing spirit this community has for giving and helping people in need.”

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Spend a few minutes downtown with lifelong Mill Valley resident Cliff Waldeck and you'll be reminded that there are very few people here who don't already know him and want to catch up with him.

That's because Waldeck has been a nearly ubiquitous presence in Mill Valley, from his two terms on the City Council and a stint as Mayor to his role as a go-to office supplies and business products salesperson for an array of companies over the years. For the latter, while the business name has changed, Waldeck's jovial, personal touch hasn't.

Waldeck recently left Blaisdell's Business Products and for business products Indoff, a "one-stop shop" that has been in business for nearly 50 years. Waldeck, who recalls that he got his start in the business at age 11 when joined his father during the summer and school breaks at the family business, Waldeck Office Supplies, in downtown San Francisco, recently spoke to Indoff about the transition.

​MORE INFO on Cliff Waldeck and Indoff.

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