Babies, Kittens, Younglings

Okay.... there’s a lot of poop going on right now. More horror in the Middle East, this fuggin’ ridiculous waste of time in Congress and what are people talking about? Shiloh Jolie Pitt, or, as Miss Tanya pointed out, Pile o’ Shit Jolie .... WHY the Ef do people care what celebrities’ babies look like? Why, for that matter, do they care what ANYONE’s baby looks like? Unless it’s yours, babies all look alike and they smell and are just gonna grow up to be jerks like you and me anyway, so who cares?

Speaking of babies, I got a kitten yesterday. Lysa with a Y and I went to the Bergen County Animal Shelter and each got a new cat. Lysa was cool enough to get an adult cat while I went cute and got a kitten. On the way home, my kitten shat kittie diarrhea in its box and promptly got it all over himself (ooh, the Liberty smells good).

So, the first thing I had to do when I got this poor little black and white cat home was dunk him in the sink and get him soaking wet (hardly the best welcome to his new home). The weirdest thing is, he didn’t meow once. I got him clean, dried him off as best I could and let him explore. And then, he promptly vanished. I searched for over an hour and couldn’t find him.

Today, he’s much better. He’s playing behind my steamer trunk and Monkey is staring at him with a mixture (presumably) of confusion and jealousy. I’m not sure the kitten knows how to use the litter box yet (I guess I’ll find out, won’t I?) and he still hasn’t meowed. And I... still have no idea of a name. Geisel was the main contender, but it sounds a bit too.... Tolkeinish.       It’ll come to me.

One thing I WON’T be naming him is Darth Vader. I finally saw Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith on HBO last weekend and as much as I presumed it would be pooey, I had NO IDEA how much it blooooo. This late in the game, I won’t get into my many, many complaints except for one.

The whole point of this convoluted, overblown trilogy was to set up one of the most beloved (although not by me) films of all time. So, the last ten minutes of the film, which tie up all the loose ends and set the stage for the beginning of Episode IV should’ve been the geek money shots, yes? Senator Organa adopts Leia. Yoda takes off for Dagoba. Obi-Wan takes Luke to Tatooine and gives him to Owen & Beru. The droids are given to that guy whose name escapes me (oh, and Threepio’s memory is wiped... so that it makes sense that he has no idea who any of the characters in the next film are). And James Earl Jones gets his old job back.

So, of all these elements, which is the most dramatic? It’s a no-brainer. Anakin has now fully and completely gone to the dark side and the Empire has a firm grip on the galaxy. Nobody disputes that Darth Vader is the star of the show. So how come the movie ends with a shot of Luke’s new family holding the baby Hamill and looking at the sunset on Tatooine? With no dialogue whatsoever?!??!

Why the fuck didn’t the movie end with Vader and the Emperor watching the Death Star being constructed, making some ominous comments about the newly formed Empire’s reign over the universe and gloating over the defeat of the Jedi? Mwah ha ha ha ha!!! We’d all know better, and there’s yer fanboy payoff.

As it was, I sat there alone in my living room shouting “Are you fucking kidding me?!?!” at nobody in particular. But I tend to do that a lot.

Oh, and “younglings.” I cracked up every time someone said the word, “younglings.”

Postscript: As I was writing this, new kitten used the litter box. Phew.