I don’t expect the little corner of Connecticut where I spent my childhood to remain the same as when I left. But there are some traditions that I consider immutable and one of them is Sunday brunch at Silvermine Tavern. Their sticky pecan-cinnamon honeybuns are legendary. Swans in the mill pond glide along to live jazz. But the 80 year old Norwalk institution closed in February. The 3+ acre property is for sale, including the restaurant, inn, and other historic buildings. Locals are of course concerned that the land will be developed. Local community groups have lost a meeting and event location. The N.Y. Times took note of the closing in an article covering the rough going of these quaint Connecticut taverns, many housed in the stagecoach stops and mills from bygone days. These historical places, because of their origins, may be near former major roads, but are out of sight and out of mind for most local and out of town diners. Three Bears Restaurant, a Westport institution for 100 years, closed in January, replaced by a new restaurant. Cobb’s Mill Inn in Weston, where my best friend held her wedding reception, has new owners who have evolved the business to survive. I suspect olde-tyme New England character will one day be found only in tourist locations dedicated to its preservation.

The new Broadway revival of West Side Story uses Spanish dialogue for the Puerto Rican characters. Arthur Laurents, one of the original creaters of the musical, was inspired by a production in Columbia where the Sharks were the heroes of the story.

You can now have your wedding on the Verona balcony designated as the “real” setting for Romeo & Juliet. No climbing, and no tragic endings please.

The Seattle sports scene may be focused on March Madness with the Huskies basketball team, but soccer fever starts on Thursday with the debut of Major League Soccer in Seattle with the Sounders FC expansion team. The Space Needle was lit up with the team colors and traffic is expected to be messy in the afternoon. Over 20,000 season tickets have been sold (better than the Mariners).

A friend of mine got her husband to understand the appeal of owning a KitchenAid stand mixer by telling him “it’s like a tractor for your kitchen!” I have to imagine someone must have also used this analogy in the 1920s and 1930s when housewives justified the extravagant purchase of this new invention. And once you’ve paid for the mixer, the attachments, which make it so tractor-like, add to the cost as well. Most of them, not surprisingly, are made by KitchenAid; there aren’t many third party attachments out there. Three companies have taken on the “scraping down the bowl” problem and sell mixer blades with soft ‘wings’ that scrape the sides of the bowl as they turn. The SideSwipe was recommended by Cooks Illustrated. There’s also the Beater Blade and the POURfect Scrape-A-Bowl. A less practical but enchanting attachment is the confectionary coating pan that lets home and small-scale candy makers evenly coat nuts, chocolates, and fruit just like the pros. The accessory I ran across that I actually want isn’t an attachment. It’s the MixerMaid which holds the beater, dough hook, and paddle that come with the mixer. Ours are always getting banged around in a drawer, collecting gunk on the counter, or stuck in the mixer bowl. I need to check this great idea out.

The Hawaii Superferry went into regular service in December 2007 after delays from legal action over potential environmental impact. On Monday the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that the law allowing the ferry to operate without a full environmental impact statement was unconstitutional as it was written specifically for that company. The Superferry has now suspended operations. Farmers and other small producers who were able to ferry produce to the larger market of Oahu are disappointed.

The organ at Boston’s Old South Church has been “offline” for three months after MBTA work damaged a sanctuary wall. The Globe shot video of the tuning process to get the Skinner organ ready to play again with Jonathan Ambrosino adjusting the pipes and cleaning the reeds with cotton paper, specifically a nice dollar bill.

Isaac Mizrahi designed a handbag for the New York Times. A New York Times signature medallion swings from the bright red twill and leather. 600 are available through the N.Y. Times online store.

Today the final print edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer hit area driveways and newsboxes. The P-I will continue online with a greatly reduced staff and the iconic globe will keep spinning. Subscribers will now receive The Seattle Times, which will inherit some of the P-I content including comics Dilbert, 9 Chickweed Lane, and Pearls Before Swine. The P-I’s memories section includes a photo gallery from each decade starting with 1920, a journey through the history of Seattle (construction of the 520 bridge and the Space Needle appear in the 1960s). Lewis Kamb gives a play-by-play of the final day as “documents and sacred records that took years to accumulate were pulled from filing cabinets and discarded into dumpsters, gone in a matter of minutes.” The Seattle Times has posted shots of the final press run.

Odd things can happen in this Internet age while watching the space shuttle launch. Within minutes of mentioning on Twitter that I was concerned about the bat that was comfortably resting on Discovery’s external fuel tank, I received notification that “DiscoveryBat” was following me on Twitter. Said “bat” then proceeded to post tweets through to launch time and even after its subsequent characterization by NASA at the post-launch news conference as “unexpected debris.” Status updates from the ghost of a fruit bat… it’s a great age we’re living in.