Just your average, ordinary neighborhood, where lovely palatial homes with perfectly manicured lawns stretch out to a perfectly maintained sidewalk. If you’ve ever seen the film “Cheaper By the Dozen” with Bonnie Hunt and Steve Martin, this is the house where it was filmed. It’s a few blocks from where I live, and it seems to house a family that is just as boisterous and charismatic as the family in the movie. The kids are between thirteen and seven – all freckle faced and gregarious. Their driveway is parked up with all-terrain vehicles with back hatch bike racks and shiny BMW’s. Nice folks, too. And yes – apparently there is really a pig somewhere on the property. While walking by the white picket fence toward the back part of the house, you’ll hear the low guttural grunts of a porcine piggy. Or – so they say. I usually hear a dog, barking angrily at my hound who just whines and trots away in fear.

And another thought… I was watching this clip from The Fisher King. It suddenly occurred to me that the progress in digital technology has rendered the old video store obsolete. Yes, I’m sure there are some video shops hanging onto the old school love of a video (that is – if anyone still has an operating VHS machine, and I’m sure there are folks who do). So, with the Blockbusters and Mom & Pop shops now turned into dry cleaners or a Whole Foods, what happens to the life-long card carrying members of that dusty old Video Shack? Is a life long membership applicable to the life of the member, or the life of the shop. Details. I bet it’s in the small print on the back of the card.

Lovely scene. Beautiful movie. You didn’t think I could go a week without a Robin Williams moment, did you?