ALL THE COOL STUFF HAPPENS WHEN WE'RE OUT OF TOWN

Bigfoot's here!

TOM Biscardi, founder and chief executive officer of Searching for Bigfoot Inc., said he assembled an eight-member team to investigate reports from a local resident who said she and her family saw creatures believed to be bigfoots on their Tool House Road property.

And now you know what the plural of "bigfoot" is. Don't say you never learned nothin' from me.

But this I don't get. Tool House Road runs just about parallel to the Thruway...


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And yet nobody on the Thruway saw it? I know people are pretty much on autopilot zooming up the Thruway, but lots of people are traveling with kids this week and you'd think one of them would pipe up with a DADDEE DADDEE DADDEEDADDEEDADDEE BIGFOOOT or something.

STAGGERING TO 200 (POSTS, THAT IS)

Staggering to the end of the school year as well - and that's only with Noodle and the Ravenous Maw in nursery school. Once the K-12 years begin, oy. On top of it, coming up we've got an overnight weekend trip to Woonsocket (from the ancient Wampanoag term for "place to plug in your woon") for the great-grandfather's 90th birthday celebration. Noodle is named after his late wife, which is what we like to think has helped keep him chugging along. The guy's got more hair on top of his head than I do, and can still pull off the white sport coat / yellow shirt / plaid pants look. Chicks dig him.

So we drag out the air mattress for our son, and amazingly the cheap Chinese electric pump, she no work. He's still a little small for sleeping on the big bed with me, so it's either lots of laboring over the foot pump on a hot summer's evening after a six-hour drive or a trip to the sporting-goods purveyors today for another pump.

Yeah, that's what I thought too.

GRADUATION SEASON CONTINUES

Noodle has a ceremony at her nursery school later today - which means that by this afternoon she'll have more academic credentials than I do.

SERVICE ADVISORY: We are considering changing Beast's name to the more specifically accurate Ravenous Maw, or possibly The Sarlacc for added nerd value. The boy can eat. Dante or Star Wars...decisions, decisions.

THANKS A BUNCH, JOHNNY DAMON

Cashed in my Father's Day treat a week late and went to the Reds-Yankees game at the Stadium this afternoon with my sister's family, and no sooner had I settled into my seat than...

...say, that foul ball could be headed this way. Right this way, in fact. Maybe I'd better try to OW OW OW OW OW MY LEG MY LEG MY LEG SON OF A better calm down my seven-year-old niece is right behind me and cursing shan't be done.

I may be the only person in the 85-year history of the Stadium to take a foul ball off the shin while sitting in the front row. Nice shot, Johnny. Bet you a week's pay you can't do it again.

And there I was hoping for a moment that I'd have a souvenir for the kids and a story to tell. If that welt gets any bigger I'll at least have the story part. My sister springs for the 12-dollar beer and I'm using it as a cold pack, and meanwhile the fat schlub next to me is showing off the ball like he was Mattingly scooping it backhanded out of the dirt. Oh, give it a rest.

Reds 6, Yanks 0 by the way. The Yanks sure are lucky Cincinnati only comes to town every 30 years or so.

THIS OUGHTA BE GOOD

Last summer Noodle lost her favorite ladybug backpack and stuffed chihuahua at the New England Aquarium in Boston.

Or so we thought.

Turns out it was stashed away in the garage for almost a year, and only now did we find it. Her Awesomeness has just put them in the bed where Noodle now sleeps.

It ought to be a fun morning.

PIGEONS ARE AS SMART AS 3-YEAR-OLDS

This much I suspected...

Japanese scientists from Keio University have found that pigeons have self-cognitive abilities higher than 3-year-old humans. They have 'trained pigeons to discriminate real-time self-image using mirrors as well as videotaped self-image, and proved that pigeons can recognize video images that reflect their movements as self-image.' Until recently, it was widely admitted that only humans and primates such as chimpanzees could recognize images of themselves. Now, researchers have found that dolphins or elephants also could do it. But these Japanese scientists have proven that pigeons also were able to do it -- and even discriminate paintings of Van Gogh from Chagall.

Well, heck - they fly around enough art museums, you'd think they'd pick it up sooner or later.

At least my kids don't leave fifty tons of sh*t on the Foreign Office roof.

HYPERMILING UPDATES

21.8 - pretty good considering there was lots of random driving around with sleeping kids in the car, plus that hellacious heat wave which meant lots of cranked A/C.

Gassed up again today and got a 21.2.

PLUMB WORN OUT

Give it up, first of all, for the good people at the Mohonk Preserve for the Father's Day hike they organized. They do all sorts of guided hikes and such for all skill/endurance levels, and this one was perfect for a two-year-old, a four-year-old, and their fat dad. (As for Her Awesomeness, when we were finished with the hike she was ready for a rock scramble while I was shvitzing like Patrick Ewing.)

Ach! Look at the time. And me, not done with my show-prep for Monday. Recaps and catching-up and such...later.

THE NOODLE MOVES ON UP

Congratulations, my little love.

IN WHICH BEAST MARKS HIS TERRITORY

The little guy peed standing up in the potty for the first time today!

He also peed standing up in the kitchen, in the living room (twice), and in aisle C47 at Target.

HYPERMILING UPDATE

22.6 - a new high! Took the Boogermobile in this week for some regular service and a touch of wheel alignment; maybe that's what did the trick.

ON THE KIDS' PLAYLIST

Beast:

I Got You - Split Enz
Black Coffee In Bed - Squeeze

Noodle:

Ants on a Log - Randy Travis

BEDTIME WIG-OUT II: LI'L KRAKATOA

Oy, Noodle was at it again this evening. Wonderful 'til bedtime and then came the eruption, this time with twitching and bucking and say, do you think Father T would mind doing an exorcism before he retires? Is Max von Sydow still alive? (At press time, yes.)

THE OTHER SHOE

The kids came home and were wonderfully sweet at dinner. Even washed their hands without needing to be asked. Didn't get picky about their food and Beast didn't use his cup of chocolate milk as a fingerbowl...much. Got through bath time without a hitch even though I had to zoom out for an hour for a radio station event that coincided with their baths. Got them in their jammies without fighting, cuddled and read them their stories, got them to the potty, and then...from out of nowhere...

An hour of squalling from Beast and 90 minutes of it from Noodle. What. The. Heck?

HYPERMILING UPDATE

Down to 20.4, mainly because Her Awesomeness had to deal with the Route 9 stop-n-go grind for a couple days. Note to the DOT: the timing of the lights on Route 9 through Poughkeepsie and Wappingers is dreadful. Snap out of it already. (/tilting at windmills)

Also, there was considerable idling at The Nana's place as we waited for her to get ready for a trip.

INTRODUCING EARL THE BABY MONSTER

Earl is Noodle's imaginary friend, whose family left him behind in the bathroom while on vacation. I will attempt to get Noodle to expound more on her relationship with Earl (gray, furry, two eyes, no antennae, funnel-shaped ears, little tiny tail) in the not too distant future.

ON THE KIDS' PLAYLIST

Noodle: Mama Roux - Dr. John (yes, still)

Beast: Ship of Fools - Robert Plant