Here's a look at what has kept us busy for the past week: those green things suspended from sticks inside the big paint bucket? Those are going to be butterflies. If all goes well, at least. Last Sunday morning I was out in the back yard taking care of what little greenery hasn't turned brown. As I watered my parsley I noticed I big yellowish caterpillar with stripes and yellow dots. I plucked the parsley sprig and called the boys out to look.

"Check out who's been eating my parsley," I told them. And they gawked at the goofy little bug. Then I got to thinking. "Hey guys, I hope no one else is eating my parsley."

I went to check -- and sure enough, found an even fatter caterpillar. This one wasn't yellowish but was more lime green with otherwise identical markings.

"C'mon, let's look up what kind of moth or butterfly this is supposed to become."

Well, turns out it'll be a black swallowtail butterfly -- no pesky moth here. A beautiful specimen. A keeper, in other words. The downside? The fuckers eat only parsley. And I only have one pot of the stuff growing this year.

I bounced around a few websites to read up on their lifecycle, set them up in a plastic tub and fed them parsley throughout the week. Half my pot is gone by now.

In the meantime, the boys gave the critters names: Gus and Ted.

By Wednesday, Gus had emptied his guts and attached himself to one of the sticks I had arranged. Then he dropped his outer stripes. On Friday, Ted barfed and did likewise (apparently part of the process -- leaves a big splotch of bright green after which they stop eating and then find a place to go all Kafka).

Anyway, we've got them safely housed in a big bucket now, covered with mesh to keep away hungry-ass birds. When they emerge and unfold their wings I'll post an update. Should probably start to see something right after next weekend.

Just wanted to mention last night I had a bizarre dream, in which my brother Joe and I were working on a crew of housepainters inside a mansion being renovated. It reminded me a bit of the movie "Money Pit". Anyway, we were working in separate sections of the house, and my work partner was Henry Winkler. Not the young Fonzie Winkler, but the older, gentler Arrested Development era Henry Winkler. Anyway we are painting the walls when he starts to feel a little light headed, so I tell him "Henry, sit down a take a breather, you're looking really pale". So I climb down the ladder and walk him over to nearby chair. He sits for a moment, and then suddenly leaps up...his eyes bulging in horror. So I nervously ask "Henry! Henry, whats the matter?", when I look down and I comprehend what has happened. Henry has accidentally shit himself clear through his painters pants, not to mention covering the bottom of my pants and shoes. So I try not to make him feel bad and walk him over to the closest bathroom. But as soon as the door shuts, I unload an endless stream of expletives, loud enough that Bazzuka Joe hears me and runs over, only to stop short and collapse into a fit of hysterical laughter. Hes able to spit out "Winkler took a shit on you?". I answer: "Yeah, hes sick, dude. Now, what the fuck am I gonna do?" So Winkler comes out of the bathroom wearing only a tshirt, and his head in his hands. Joey gets even more hysterical now. Unamused, I walk over to a garbage can I go to take off my shit covered shoes.....and I wake up. Any analysis, anyone?

Okay, that early start I described in my last post was our early flight to the Left Coast to visit that sprawling shrine to interlocking plastic building blocks: Legoland. We left the house at 6:30 a.m. and spent most of last Saturday in airplanes and airports -- notably Salt Lake City, where everything about our connection went smoothly and efficiently. Until we were all boarded and buckled in... then they discovered that the plane was broken.

So we got thrown off. We filed haplessly to the terminal to find ways to kill four hours. Screw you, Delta.

Eventually they found us another plane and off we went to San Diego. I'd never been there before. I've heard others say it's a beautiful area and now I see what they mean.

The hotel, naturally, stiffed us out of the second bed we had reserved for our room -- so they wheeled in roll-away beds to clutter the floor and make it hard to reach our gear. Screw you, Hilton.

The next morning we hit the theme park. Da Chimpz were very excited. Even though the place had many rides, they were mainly interested in the Lego displays. And gosh did they have many of them. Everything from giraffes to automobiles to Grand Central Terminal -- all built of Lego blocks. There were busts of Lincoln and Churchill, Pavarotti and Elvis. Mount Rushmore and Thomas the tank engine. A horse's ass and Barak Obama (photo nearby; see if you can tell which).

On it went until the park closed.

We ate pretty well that night, hitting the Armenian Cafe in Carlsbad. Great stuff. We ate soujuk, lahmajun, lamb kebab, and potlejan. I explained to the guy that it was hard to get any of this stuff in Cleveland. In fact, I can't even find anyone around here who knows what lahmajun is, let alone where to find the stuff.

Even the boys tried the food and found things they liked. I sent a text message to Andre to tell him we'd found a good place and he replied that he'd been busy all day and only had a bag of pretzels for his drive home. Which of course prompted me to send additional messages describing my meal in even greater detail. Followed by e-mails with photo attachments. Just to make it really hurt.

The next day I skipped the park and took my aching spine to the hotel's hot tub. For about ten minutes there my back felt pretty good. (But when I got back to my room, dripping wet, I discovered my key-card no longer worked -- so I schlepped all the way back to the front desk where a glum attendant fixed my card and annoyed me... screw you again, Hilton.)

Tuesday we had left wide open so we hit the beach for a while and then back to the pool (where I met Vito, a local restaurateur, originally from 79th St and 18th Ave in Brooklyn!). We flew back on Wednesday and I've spent the last few days trying to catch up on household stuff -- yard work, basement clean-up. I even changed the oil in my Jeep on Friday, something I used to do regularly but for the last ten years or more have done at service stations. (Been using the local quick-change place on Bagel-ey, until Alane came back from them with a $90 bill for a bunch of useless flushes and treatments... meaning, that's the last time we use that place: screw you, Lube Stop!)

Today the plan is to just relax. So far, that's going well. My eyes opened at 5:59 this morning, which was as good a time as any to get the meatballs rolling. They've been simmering for a couple hours now. Just had some pancakes. Joe and Jean will be over later. We'll eat, then head out for Mojo's baseball game. The sun is out. It'll be a good Father's Day.

(And speaking of Andre, who knew we'd run into his likeness at Legoland!)

ESPN Classic just replayed game 5 of the 1999 NLCS. Braves at Mets. I noticed it as I was flipping through channels and naturally I couldn't turn it off. Even though it took until midnight (and we have an early start in the morning!) I had to watch it until the rain-soaked end: Robin Ventura's bottom-of-extra-innings grand-slam single.

I remember going totally berserk in my living room as I watched it live. That was the most exciting season I ever followed, played by my favorite line-up of Mets players. Even the following year when they actually made it into the World Series was not the gritty and fun baseball that made 1999 stand out. And even though we didn't have cable TV at the time, there were still enough games on regular broadcast for us to follow the team pretty closely. What a ball-club.

Pro ball has seemed kind of boring since that season -- and the girly-men who now dominate the sport don't seem nearly as spirited as the Agbayanis, Cedenos, Alfonzos and Ordonezs (the Reys, not those other ones) of back then.

Hey Mets, bring back Bobby Valentine. And get some players with heart -- like that John Franco. Or even Todd Pratt! Then if your games were ever on TV I'd watch. In the meantime, I'm going to sleep.

Saw something interesting last week when I was in NYC. After checking in at the hotel Thursday night I went over to the elevator bank. There was a large crowd of people with luggage standing there waiting for elevators.

"Great, I'll be here forever," I thought as I pushed through to the screen to enter my floor. Yes, a screen. Not too long ago this hotel did away with the age-old choice of "up" and "down." That binary array of buttons was replaced with a screen that asks you to select your floor. This allows a supercomputer housed in the hotel's sub-basement to process all the pending requests for floors, run them through an algorithm that determines the most efficient elevator car assignment, and then direct the passenger to a specific elevator (I think there were four or five elevators altogether).

I entered 24th floor; a moment later the screen directed me to use the elevator to my immediate right -- which, surprisingly enough was just arriving. Someone got out and I got in. And so did another woman. But no one else. They'd all been assigned to different elevators.

As the doors closed on that teeming mass of humanity I did feel a bit awkward. Not so much about the fact that The Screen had selected me and one other to jump the line. It was more about how none in the crowd tried to pile inI mean, you can still get in an elevator and select a floor, regardless of any directive issued by The Screen.

But not one of those non-NYers did.

I turned to the only other passenger in our elevator car and said, "Wow, people sure do take directions well."

As our elevator rocketed its way to the 24th floor, she half-turned her head to acknowledge my comment, giving me that grunt of non-committal agreement that only ever signifies, "I don't speak English and the fact that you're talking to me has filled me with fear."