Just as I was starting to have fun, two family members told me they were feeling concerned about the spelling of a large word on top of the page.  Expotition, if you’re curious.   Some folks forget important things, and I told them it wasn’t misspelled by me — but by Pooh Bear in “Winnie-the-Pooh.”  And I looked it up in a special dictionary.  (A.R. Melrose, The Pooh Dictionary:  The Complete Guide to the Words of Pooh and All the Animals in the Forest, 1995)   Expotition refers to “voyages of discovery in which, it is hoped by all concerned, nothing Fierce is...

With 2012 almost here, it’s a good time to share Katharine Hepburn’s brownie recipe.  It first went public in an ’03 NYT story about how one famous Mawrtyr helped another Mawrtyr make it to the next step.  www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/nyregion/l-straight-talk-from-miss-hepburn-plus-the-actress-s-own-brownie-recipe-400831.html No time to read now?  Here are Ms. Hepburn’s three rules to live by: 1) Never quit. 2) Be yourself. 3) Don’t put too much flour in your brownies. Kate returned for a rare visit to Bryn Mawr, when I was a junior,  and gave a very down-to-earth...

Please come in.  I know — everything’s changed around here. Is this still www.gilbert-bugbee.com?  Did new tenants move in? Nope — no new occupant.  Just some new furniture, new ways of getting around, new words. It’s been six years since I first moved in and set up a place for my stories. Time to re-organize! Plus, I wanted to be looking my best for the Year of the Water Dragon — just once every 60 years!  And if you too were born in 1952 (after January 23), then you know something’s up for us. So we packed up the stories from the old place and added a new one...