Wednesday, July 31, 2002

I was in Tahoe last weekend with the music team from my chorus.. what a wonderful time. We learned songs, got taught about how to be better teachers, sang with a karaoke machine, saw a fabulous Kenny Loggins concert, bonded as a group, danced, enjoyed the beautiful warm mountain air, smelled the pine trees, watched the hot air balloons gently bouncing over the deep deep blue of the lake.

On the ride home we took a forest fire-caused detour and found a most wonderful highway, 88. Crossing Kit Carson Pass at 8500 feet, we saw miles of unspoiled granite and pine, with crystaline lakes here and there.






Leah Brooks at 8:38 AM

Tuesday, July 30, 2002

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R.G. Brooks at 8:54 AM

Monday, July 22, 2002

While I was getting my hair cut this weekend, I picked up a home & garden magazine that had an article about Patrick Dougherty, an artist who works with sticks. He picks up debris and winds them into incredibly large sculptures. This one is called "From the Castle's Kitchen":




His website is http://www.stickwork.net/ - - I recommend that you take a turn around it. The article I read had photos of his incredibly beautiful log cabin that he built by hand, which unfortunately I don't see here at this site. What an inspiration!


Leah Brooks at 4:27 PM

Meredith Brooks at 7:35 AM

The egg as a symbol of new life goes back to primitive times and is found in all cultures and civilisations. Polynesian, Chinese, Japanese, Indians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, and Europeans of the Middle Ages, all considered the egg in the nature of the primordial beginning of life. In Greek mythology, the 'black-winged night' gave birth to an egg from which sprang eros, the source of life. The Romans considered red eggs symbols of prosperity and happiness. Roman historians relate traditions by which the birthdays of notable Romans were marked by fowls laying red eggs. A Phoenician myth has Aphrodite being born from an egg, and a similar Greek myth has Helen being born from an egg that fell from the moon.


Meredith Brooks at 7:32 AM

Thursday, July 18, 2002

Buttermilk Falls brings back dim scary childhood thoughts about the train tracks. Toby's death. The woods.

Last night I dreamt that I was trying to solve some kind of mystery that was like a treasure hunt, where you had to search for obscure clues in your surroundings. There was a display case that had easter eggs in strange places, so I thought that might be a clue, and people I didn't know kept coming up to me and saying, "I like your red coat," so I thought that red must be a clue. I kept thinking, "red. easter eggs. red. easter eggs." But nothing else in the dream seemed like a clue.

I am beginning to believe less and less in dreams as subconscious revelations, and more and more in dreams as brain cleansing. Dump out all images and start the next day afresh. But dreams like that do not allow me to begin fresh! they hang around and make me wonder about it all.
Leah Brooks at 3:50 PM

Monday, July 15, 2002

Here's a travel destination quiz for all you brooksies.
If you know where this is, or if you give up, hit this link::

http://www.geocities.com/jannyrae/bmf2/bmf2.html

R.G. Brooks at 7:35 PM

Here is another interesting website, with an incredible collection of Travel Brochures from the 20s and 30s. I love looking at the design of this era, and since it's about travelling, my favorite hobby, that makes it even more fabulous.

Travel Brochure Graphics
Leah Brooks at 5:28 PM

SEARCH ENGINE FUN


Now that we get Michael's employer, TechTV, on our television dial, I have enjoyed several shows. This weekend, I caught a moment of a show that had as its Site o' the Day, the excellent El Goog.

Please enjoy it yourself. Type all requests in backwards, of course.

elgoog

Leah Brooks at 11:39 AM

Sunday, July 14, 2002

Here's a photo to show a bit of the fun Ray and I had yesterday playing at a
show Saturday afternoon. Ray was asked to play in a "young peoples" band at
this bluegrass show, but they couldn't find enough players to put a band
together. So he and this awesome young fiddler swapped tunes and did a few
songs together.

After a brief stop at home for dinner after the show, Ray and I went to our
regular Saturday night jam we've been part of for a year or so. We played
until the early morning hours and returned home exhausted, but finally full
of enough music. Some really great pickers there last night. We finished a
gospel song and one of the new guys, a dobro player, said "If this isn't
what heaven sounds like, I don't want to go there." Cracked me up.

Cheers, Scott

R.G. Brooks at 5:04 PM

Wednesday, July 10, 2002

Highlights of our mini-vacation in Santa Barbara:

- Seeing "The Killers" with John & Fran - Burt Lancaster's first film. I still say: he's no babe. But the film was good: very noir, dramatic flashback format.

- Eating Mexican food at Super-Rica on Milpas Street in Santa Barbara! Julia Child's favorite Mexican restaurant. Order number 16 and you won't be sorry. Watch out for the red sauce.

- Cottage #4 at the Four Seasons Biltmore (where we stayed). And the meal at the Patio there! The food and service can not be beat. The manager even let us leash Bailey nearby so she could whimper at us while we ate. I had fresh scallops and Barb had the salmon roulade.

- Walking through the fog at night along the coast.

- Reading by the pool.



All in all, a very relaxing and fun getaway.


Leah Brooks at 9:56 AM

Wednesday, July 03, 2002

You would think I would have more childhood memories of the fourth of July. I really don't have that many. I have general memory of sitting in a field, watching fireworks. I know we went sailing a lot on that weekend. I was always afraid of the firecrackers and loud explosions on the sidewalks. I remember ads on TV warning children about blasting caps (not fireworks) that could be found near constructions sites: DON'T TOUSSSH THEM, the man said in a funny accent. They showed children who were missing fingers. I think I equated those devices with fireworks.



One fourth of July I'll never forget is when Teresa and I took the bus up to Toronto when we were 17. Well, maybe it wasn't the fourth, but explosions were involved. We told our moms that we were going to go camping. The campground we had looked up turned out to be way far away from town, so we decided we could camp in a park downtown. We set up a little pup tent at dusk and lay down and went right to sleep, not a care in the world. Until a policeman with a flashlight woke us up, asking us if we were CRAZY to sleep in a public park in that dangerous neighborhood. He seemed surprised that we weren't already slaughtered in our sleeping bags. We wandered the streets for a long while, looking for shelter. Of course we had barely any money. We finally ended up down by the waterfront, not far from the expo grounds. There were some other people camping down there, and we were so exhausted we couldn't go any farther. We were both very scared by this time. I convinced Teresa that this was a safe, great place (all the time not believing it). We set up the tent and buried our heads under the pillows. She fell asleep, and I lay awake, terrified that at any minute someone would come up and shoot us. Sure enough, about a hour later, I heard gunshots. Teresa snored. The gunshots got louder and closer! Teresa lay silent. Had an errant bullet killed her dead?? I was in agony. Finally the blasts subsided, and she turned over and said, "I thought those fireworks would never end."


Leah Brooks at 10:03 AM

Monday, July 01, 2002

OK, OK, OK! I have heard from the Burt Lancaster fans, and they INSIST that the festival continue! John, especially, is quite adamant that we have picked the wrong films to start with, so when we visit him this weekend, I believe we will be viewing the Crimson Pirate or the Rainmaker.

As for the Who Then is Who Now game, I do not agree with with the James Dean/Tom Cruise match... I think Johnny Depp is more of a match-up than Cruise. Last night we were discussing whether Tom Hanks is the new Cary Grant.


Leah Brooks at 9:00 AM