That oleander can be quite shady...

Talking about True Lies the other day got me thinking about that movie Children of Men again (which, the more I think about, the less I like). And why, you ask, would a movie full of gratuitous violence and random explosions and lots of special effects remind me of the much-lauded Children of Men? Because, if you’ll recall, my main grievance with that movie was its lack of conflict – the fact that beyond the initial layer, there was very little substance. And as I watched Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his pre-governor days, wielding automatic weapons and throwing punches and riding a horse into an elevator, I realized that even THIS rather senseless action movie had conflict. There was an obvious beginning/middle/end to the struggles within the characters – to put it simply, at the beginning of the movie, all the family relationships were a mess, and at the end, they were one big happy family. Simple and obvious. That’s not to say that conflict within a story has to be simple and obvious – but it does have to BE. And I’ve been heartened by some of the more recent reviews I’ve read concerning Children of Men. Now that the knee-jerk, “best movie of 2006!!” reaction has died down a bit, people are starting to actually WATCH the film and see it for what it is – which is pretty much a shallow, one-dimensional, pointless film. It’s sad, too, because that movie so easily could’ve been an emotional, multi-layered story. (And maybe the book IS that way… like I said last time, I need to get the book and see if it’s better than the movie…probably… most books are…)

So it’s a very depressing Monday here in Austin. After a nice weekend where the sun finally graced us with its presence for two whole days in a row, the weather is back to cloudy and gloomy and rather cold. Although not as cold as Chicago, which, I’ve noticed, has been below freezing the last few days, with wind chills in the negatives. And, according to Eric, who sent me a text message earlier just to make me jealous, it’s snowing. Sigh… I remember snow… REAL snow – not that dusting-of-powdered-sugar stuff we get here every now and then.

But if it was snowing, then there wouldn’t be half a dozen men out in my backyard revamping the landscaping. We were having lots of weed problems with the original landscaping, which was apparently causing Rick a multitude of emotional pain. At least that’s what he said. Personally, I’ve never been all that emotionally vested in the plants around my house. They’re just THERE, and that’s that. I mean, sure, I was a little scared of the oleander outside the kitchen window, ever since reading about how oleander is one of the most poisonous plants you can find. But it’s not like I would cower in fear next to the dishwasher every time the wind blew the branches against the window… scratch… scratch… I’m coming to get YOU, Lisa… scratch… Um, yeah, it wasn’t like that at all. (I’m SO glad they chopped that thing down this morning… but not because I was afraid of it or anything… I wasn’t… it was just a tree…)

I think all of the men working outside are Mexican… and it’s times like this that I wish I was fluent in another language. In this case, of course, Spanish. Because earlier today, as they were digging in the yard to bury a drain pipe, I heard one of them start yelling to someone else. And his voice was what I would describe as “panicky.” I had no idea what he was saying, but if I had to guess, I’d think it was something like, “stop digging there! You’ll hit the gas line! We’ll all explode!” And nothing has exploded yet, so I guess he got his point across. But seriously, I do wonder what all the yelling was about. It sort of made me nervous for a few seconds… but when I ventured a look outside, everyone was smiling and laughing, so it couldn’t have been TOO serious. Maybe it was a joke…

But I guess I will trust that everything is under control out there, and the dangerous oleander has been wrestled to the ground, and the gas line is still intact, because it’s 4 o’clock and I need to jump on the treadmill to increase my step count for today (currently at 8,315…). Not to mention that exercise is one of the few things that seems able to boost my mood on cloudy, gloomy days. SOME day the sun will be back… I hope… :)