Happy Halloween!

The crawl of a thousand miles begins with a single roll

James rolled over for the first time today.

Today, rolling. Tomorrow, crawling. The day after that, “Dad, can I borrow the car keys?”

The Coyote project, day 2

So, we took the stray kitten to the vet yesterday. She is not, in fact, two months old, she’s seven months old, according to Dr. Ahmed, based on her teeth. And that means she hasn’t been hungry for a week; it’s been a good long time since she’s had good access to food. The two young work kittens at Ellis Truss, Lucy and Ethel, are about her age, but probably weigh half again as much as Coyote.

She got an antibiotic shot for her battle wound and we get the fun of giving her kitty penicillin for a week — we’re old hands at this, after having an elderly cat for years — which she fortunately doesn’t object to strenuously.

I’m placing a Found Pet ad in the Daily Press/Hesperia Star. We’ll see if anyone’s looking for her. Given how long she’s been hungry, I’m skeptical.

In the wake of last week’s fires, the adoption channels are currently filled with animals that either escaped or were outright abandoned by Lake Arrowhead residents. It’ll take months at least before things return to normal.

In the interim, I think we’ll just hold onto Coyote and find her a home, if we need to, later on.

She’s still staying in the nursery — and is doing fine — until we get her vaccinated next week. I also want to get a chance to see if she’s got any health issues.

This week in the Hesperia Star

Board approves performing arts high school, Water, sewer rate hikes are likely in 2008, Hesperia man charged with two counts of arson, Fire causes setback for recall effort, Schools closed Friday due to smoke, Man arrested for attempted kidnapping of 11-year-old girl, Shelly’s Place changes hands and other stories.

The Sound of Young America: Another reason NPR isn’t quite dead yet

In the past, my brother Joel has said he really wasn’t high on KCRW playing so much music. NPR stations weren’t supposed to be like that, was his reasoning.

So Joel’s probably not the audience for the shockingly young and lively Bryant Park Project morning news show from NYC. But at least they don’t play much music.

In contrast, The Sound of Young America plays a fair bit of music, as well as interviewing subjects not typically heard on NPR and spending a lot of time on edgier entertainment subjects than is NPR’s wont.

To me, it represents a sign that when the golden-throated old guard at NPR has retired to their porches at last, NPR itself won’t need to be put out to pasture, to absolutely puree a metaphor or two. (I’d include the midday Day to Day new magazine on that list of good shows, but their movie critic is way too pleased with himself and what he believes to be his sense of humor.)

In any case, in the era of podcasting, Joel and I can both create our own ideal NPR stations, especially since NPR has jumped into podcasting in a way no other media entity has. So he can have lots of talk and news, and I can weave together music and opinion from KCRW, interesting news shows from New York and dope-smoking pop culture shows from Santa Cruz. Win-win.