I was wondering where everyone was going to avoid the heat and humidity this past weekend, but all the buzz on Monday morning about the new Batman film, The Dark Knight, cleared up that question for me. The movie generated more than $158.4 million between the time it opened at midnight last Thursday and Sunday night, the biggest opening ever recorded. No wonder Newtown seemed so empty; everyone was at the theater.

This Saturday is the big day for Jayson Karp when he joins up with 300 other paddlers to kayak across Long Island Sound. The 8th Annual Kayak for a Cause benefits several charities and Jayson tells me it is not too late to donate. This link should get you to the right site to do so: kfac.kintera.org/viii/jaysonkarp?faf=1&e=1804617310. Good luck, Jayson. Happy paddling.

Kendra Barrow is clearing out of town next week, too, but not to go to the movies. Kendra is going on a 13-day mission with Shoulder to Shoulder, a nonprofit started by her uncle, Jeff Heck, to provide medical attention to the poor in Honduras. She’ll be assisting in the medical field and working with teenagers while she is there. Kendra has promised me she’ll fill me in on all of the details when she gets back. Good luck, Kendra!

Samantha Diaz-Hennessey, JoAnn Szaley, Lindsay McCoy, Dorothy Diaz-Hennessey, and Emily McCoy, members of a Dance, Etc dance group, left July 19 for a ten-day tour of Germany, including a performance at The German American Friendship Festival in Berlin. It won’t be all dance and no play, though. The girls will be given a tour through the Palace Residenze in Wurzburg, a tour of Prague, and a lunch stop in the historic district of Dresden, plus other sightseeing opportunities. I bet that will make them feel light on their feet.

Bob Brown stopped by The Bee last week to tell us that 16 members of his Newtown High School Class of 1953 and their significant others are going to be gathering at Stony Hill Inn this Saturday evening at 7 pm. Bob says that his class, the last senior class to attend Hawley School (even though they graduated that spring from the new high school on Queen Street), tries to get together every five years for a reunion and to reminisce about the days when a graduating class consisted of just 32 students.

As usual, The Newtown Bee is on the cutting edge. According to a study by the Pew Research Group, says The New York Times, “Almost two-thirds of American newspapers publish less foreign news than they did just three years ago” and nearly as many are cutting back on national news, too. Guess what they are focusing on? “Hyper-local” news. Yep. Just like The Bee has always highlighted residents and area events, pretty much exclusively, more and more papers are finding it economical to look locally for news. But you know, at The Bee, it has never been about economy: we just have a lot of amazing people and happenings here in town that deserve recognition. I put my paw of approval on that.

Here’s a little something to give us all “paws.” Chris Gardner, bureau chief at The Republican American newspaper in Waterbury, and a Newtown resident, shared this tale with me: “I was coming home from work about dusk on Sunday, climbing the hill on Route 25 between the ambulance garage and the top of Mt Pleasant, when I saw what I thought was a fox on the right shoulder. I slowed down as I approached it, and as I got closer I realized it was a large cat of some sort.” Chris says that the cat was standing and just sauntered off into a wooded area, so he was able to get a good look at it. “It was about three times the size of an ordinary house cat, very sleek, tan in color with a head that resembled a cougar or mountain lion, and a long tail that curved toward the tip. It definitely was too big to be a bobcat, which has been seen off and on in the Mt Pleasant area for years. I know the DEP refuses to acknowledge there are mountain lions in Connecticut, and I was skeptical a couple years ago when I did a story for the [Republican American] about reported mountain lion sightings in the Washington, Litchfield, and Roxbury area, but now I’m betting what I saw was a mountain lion, or some other similar-sized wild cat. Scary on one hand, but very cool on the other!” Very cool, indeed, but good reason to be appropriately cautious when out in the woods, perhaps. Too bad DEP requires a clear photograph in order to verify the many reports of mountain cats in the state that they receive every year. Us cats, after all, are notoriously camera shy.

To continue with our weekly wildlife report, John Klopfenstein sent me this somewhat blurry action shot of the coyote pups that routinely play in his yard on Old Castle Drive. Clearly their mom is watching over them from a less obvious spot. John says that curiously, his landscaping and gardens haven’t had their usual deer and rabbit problems this year.

One of my favorite hangout places in the summer is C.H. Booth Library. I know. You thought libraries were stuffy and boring. But the Booth always has something new and exciting going on. Just recently I’ve heard about the link on their website (CHBoothLibrary.org) called WOWbrary that lets you see the newest additions to the library collections, review them, borrow them, or buy them. And if you buy an item at this site, a percentage of the sale goes to our library. How cool is that?

Playaway is the other new offering at the library. The compact, prerecorded audio books are small enough that even a cool cat like me can carry one around from chair to chair while I listen to some of my favorite authors read aloud to me. Check it out — literally and figuratively, I mean.

Just don’t get so absorbed in the Playaway that you forget next week to… Read me again.