May 2010 Archives

Waffle Shop -- A Good Breakfast Makes the Difference

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Waffle Shop -- A Good Breakfast Makes the Difference
Sierra Lodestar 03/31/10
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Franks Cafe: Where it's All In The Family

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Are The Stars Out Tonight? Ask Minerva

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Minerva column: at SF chronicle website

     When Stan Arnold, the San Francisco Chronicle's late great feature editor, asked me to do a Sunday bewitching.jpgastrology column, I was nonplussed.      What did I know about astrology?   Just my sign, (Scorpio), that was it.   Still I wanted a Chron affiliation, had pitched them a number of ideas that went nowhere.   Maybe this was a foot in the door opportunity.    "Shall we use your name?" Stan asked, realizing that he had me.     "No!"   I'd overheard conversations at parties, things like "four planets in the first house" or "Mars ascendant."   It was an exotic, unknown world. What if someone asked me a question?   

 

To avoid making a fool of myself, I'd keep my identity a secret while studying the stars.  Witty Minerva, a no-nonsense goddess, would be my standard bearer.    Minerva's a deity who calls the shots as she sees them.  An astrologer has to do that too, I soon learned.   There's nothing airy-fairy about this science.  

 

     Hiding behind Minerva's shield, I learned astrology as I wrote it and was often surprised to see people pouring over the Sunday pink.   "Minerva says this."   Minerva says that."   That was me they were talking about!

 

     It was several years before I gained the confidence to reveal myself, but here I am!

 

     Do I believe in it?

     You bet.   Astrology is merely finger pointing at reality.   Get with the program.   Stargazers have been doing it for thousands of years.

Welcome to Antoinette May's Weblog

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Antoinetantoinette_may.jpgte May reads Tarot cards, chases ghosts, and collects myths. Her fascination with the unknown led her to write the bestselling Adventures of a Psychic, a biography of clairvoyant Sylvia Browne, which spent 42 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

Antoinette's love of legend inspired her debut novel, Pilate's Wife, which has been translated into 19 languages, and Sacred Well (voted best novel of 2009 at the San Francisco Book Festival)

  

         Antoinette's website 

 

Thumbnail image for sacred_well_300_452.jpgThe Sacred Well -- a novel   

Read chapter one now        

Buy on Amazon 

 

 Pilates Wife_paperback_cover.jpg     Pilate's Wife -- a novel

Published in 19 languages

Buy on Amazon

INFLUENCES

  • Rudyard Kipling
  • Han Christian Andersen
  • Somerset Maugham
  • Daphne DuMauier
  • Mary Renault
  • Edna Ferber
  • John Fowles
  • Isabelle Allende
ALL TIME FAVORITE BOOKS

  • The Mists of Avalon
  • The Jungle Book
  • The Little Mermaid
  • The Razor's Edge
  • Rebecca
  • The King Must Die
  • The Persian Boy
  • Showboat
  • The Magus
  • House of Spirits
  • Passage to India
NEW FRIENDS

  • Old School
  • Loving Frank
  • Shanghai Girls

Contact Antoinette May

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Contact Antoinette May

                        Antoinette's website 

       Thumbnail image for Antoinette__reporter_small.jpg

 

 

Thumbnail image for sacred_well_300_452.jpgThe Sacred Well -- a novel   

Read chapter one now

           

 

Buy on Amazon 

 

 Pilates Wife_paperback_cover.jpg     Pilate's Wife -- a novel

Published in 19 languages

Buy on Amazon


Why I live where I live

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Why I Live Where I Live

                                                      

garden_1.jpg        house_2.jpg

 

Mokelumne Hill--He was a mountain man with a cougar for a neighbor.  I was a city lady from Palo Alto.  We fell in love at the Leger Hotel and found our dream house the next morning just around the corner. 

 

            From then on all I heard was, "You're moving WHERE!"  Well, yes, the name is challenging.  Mo kah la mee.  Sounds like a Camp Fire Girls chant.   Small wonder most residents call it Mok or, more euphemistically, "The Hill."

 

            Whatever you choose to call it, Mokelumne Hill is the town that time forgot.  A village of 500 just off highway 49 in the Sierra Foothills, it's a place of meandering, storybook lanes, Victorian houses and flower gardens.  There are no traffic lights, stop signs or meters--because there's no traffic.     

 

            Mok wasn't always this quiet.  The slumbering village used to be the biggest, baddest, most important town in the gold country (records claim 17 people killed in 17 weeks, then five more shot the following weekend.)  The hotel has a dungeon where miscreants were housed and a tree out back where some were hung.  Small wonder they say the place is haunted. 

 

Mokelumne Hill itself is a kind of ghost town, a piece of the American frontier  frozen in time.  Why would someone up and move here, as opposed say, coming for a weekend?  More specifically, how could I leave the sophistication, the convenience, the civility of the Bay Area, most particularly Palo Alto, for a wide spot with a name no one can pronounce?

 

Well, to begin with, things are pretty up to date in Mokelumne Hill.  They've gone about as fer as they care to go.  Does it strike you as some kind of wonderful that a town of 500 would have historic bar and a boutique winery?  On second thought, folks 'round here have been bellying up to the bar for more than 150 years.  What's really wonderful is that no one has one for the road guilt.  Home is within walking distance.

 

 Additionally, the town has two good restaurants, a two saloons  library, five parks, an antique shop and a post office where you never have to stand in line.  There's also a coffee shop where people go to read out-of-town papers  and talk about the Meaning of Life.   At night they attend book signings and poetry readings. On nice days, spill out onto sidewalk tables to read or gossip.    

 

OK, that's the good stuff.  What do I miss?  A nearby grocery store.   It's seven miles to Jackson, "the big town."   My husband invariably says:  "It takes just as long to get to your yuppie store in Palo Alto, when you count all the stop lights and signs and then you have to find a place to park."

 

He's almost right.  And, truly, once I'm in the car threading my way through forests, historic ruins and steep mountains, I forget the distance.  After eight years, the scenery still stuns me with its beauty.

 

Of course, once I get to the supermarket, I must confront two things that I miss dearly.   Cheese and a decent deli.  Sure, they have cheese, but its awfully Velveeta.  And the deli is about as hohum as it gets.  But what can I say?  You can practically drive up to the door, the aisles are wide and well stocked.  The employees are nice.  They never got the word about attitude.  Maybe they don't know what it is.  Nice if they never found out.

 

I miss movies, too.  Jackson has a uniplex but it caters to teenage boys and families with young children.  Phantom of the Opera never got there, much less Being Julia.

 

That's what I miss.  But whenever I start to complain, something fantastic  happens that reminds me what a lucky choice I've made.  Like the other day I had a question about my property tax bill.  When I called the number on the letterhead, a real voice answered.

 

  "May I speak with Donna Monahan?" I asked and was assured, "This is Donna." 

 

 "You're Donna Monahan!" I gasped, overcome.  Like, am I really talking to God?  So, OK, when's the last time that you called a city office and spoke to a human-- much less the human you needed?

 

The accessibility of people here never ceases to amaze me.  Sooner or later anybody and everybody turns up at the hotel.  The Leger bar is the town living room.  You needn't be a mover or shaker to argue with a planning commissioner over martinis.  (But maybe you feel like one.)

 

 Which brings me to just who lives in Mokelumne Hill.  Are you thinking rednecks?  Think again.  My new friends are witty, funny and thoughtful, not unlike those I left behind.  (Some are even Democrats.)   Out of this tiny population, a surprising number are artists, three world famous.  Songwriter Randy Sparks founded the New Christy Minstrels.  Pamela Hill and James Aarons have work displayed in the Smithsonian. 

 

Many residents are expatriates and repatriates.  Some are newcomers fleeing the City.  But others,  grew up in Mokelumne Hill, moved to the Bay Area and then came home. 

 

By design not accident, the "modern" highway 49 bypasses Mokelumne Hill, a hidden treasure, off the beaten track and far from any freeway.  We like it just that way.

 

 

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