Yet another weekend full of unproductivity (in my opinion, the best kinds of weekends.) And actually, that's not entirely true: I did get about six loads of laundry done.

I love skulking around my parents' house while they're out of town. Of course, I ran into their neighbor, Steve.

Honestly. If I didn't know better, I would swear the man somehow divines which day I'll be coming over and then stands watch (you can see the road coming up the hill to our part of the development from our back porches) and walks his dog just as I'm starting to pull into the driveway.

Which is exactly what happened on Saturday. As soon as I get out of the car... "Hon?" [grrrr...] "You know your taillight's out... if you need the bulb on the side of the house replaced, let me know, I have extras... do your parents know the housing association fees went up? I didn't see them at the last meeting... can't believe the board members did that right before they left office... by the way, I have some papers for your parents, but you don't have to mail them, it can wait until they get back... if you need anything, just call or come over..."

Meanwhile, I'm standing in the garage freezing and somehow trying to figure out how to let him know that I don't care whether or not the association fees went up because, you know, I don't LIVE THERE. And I don't need anything, because I'm 28 YEARS OLD and if I haven't figured out how to get whatever I need on my own by now, it's rather hopeless.

Like I said before, I know in my heart of hearts that he's just being neighborly, but the frequency with which I happen to run into him is downright eerie. I went inside and called my parents about it, and my father laughed and laughed, and when my mother got on the phone she said she knew exactly what he was laughing about...

So Lynne called me at around 6 on Saturday evening. She was coming into the city to see her boyfriend-type-person Ed, and wanted to know if I wanted to go to the movies with them. We settled on Galaxy Quest, which I had heard was quite funny, and went to the 9:15 show.

Okay. Maybe it was the theater, maybe it was my mood (which was fine, for the record), maybe it was any number of things, but I didn't get it. When I first saw the trailers for it, I thought it looked stupid, but then so many people had said no, it's actually pretty funny.

The exploding inside-out pig lizard was funny. The rest of it was mildly amusing. Maybe you have to be a Trekkie to really get the humor. There were probably a lot of inside jokes that I missed. Now, it was no In Dreams; it wasn't bad. But I didn't find it great, either.

So to make up for it, I went home and watched the greatest movie ever made and one that I cannot believe that I, a overall movie buff and classic movie buff in particular, had never seen before: Citizen Kane.

What an amazing picture, particularly considering that Orson Welles was 25 when he made it. He was fantastic both as an actor and a director, and I recognized so many cinematic elements that are rather commonplace now, but were ground-breaking when he did them. The camera angles, the plot devices, the lighting... there simply is nothing lacking about this movie.

I did wonder, however, how much more I might have enjoyed this movie had I been able to live this long without knowing the answer to one of the all-time great movie secrets, which is what Kane meant when he said "Rosebud" right before he died.

Are there any great movie secrets anymore? Does everyone know what "Rosebud" means now? Does everyone know who Ingrid Bergman ends up with at the end of Casablanca, even if they haven't seen the movie? Do we all know who did it in Murder on the Orient Express?

If so, that's sad. I remember that there was some hullaballoo about how When Harry Met Sally... gave away the end of Casablanca, and reviewers out-and-out told you to see the latter before you see the former, just in case. In fact, I think, at 17, I did just that. But are people still like that? Do we have any respect for those moments anymore?

Here's my big political statement for the day (month, whatever): Elian Gonzalez should absolutely, positively go back to Cuba.

The only way he shouldn't is if we bring his father over here and ask him if he's being pressured to demand the boy's return, and if so, we should give them both asylum and flip Castro the bird.

Otherwise, he should go home.

End of statement.