A Window in the World

It was a steamy summer night in Suburbia, USA. The hot sun was finally giving us a rest, painting the sky pink on its way below the horizon. A gentle breeze stirred the air – oh ,wait, that’s not a gentle breeze. That’s the helicopter hovering over our house.

We’ve grown somewhat accustomed to living in the land of make-believe where CBS is filming a new reality TV show. They’ve apparently changed the name. It was “Block Party” but we recently got a note saying it will be called “There Goes the Neighborhood”. The massive faux-concrete walls have held up through a couple of thunderstorms, which is good. There is a flag perched atop one of the houses, but we haven’t seen anyone near it yet. We caught a glimpse of one of our walled-in neighbors, but on a news feed, not through any crack in the wall. There are no gaps in these walls! And yes, we do have helicopters hovering over our house from time to time, recording those news feeds. Last night Rebekah shot out to the deck to show the helicopter her teddy bear. Not sure if that’s newsworthy, but she was mighty cute. Here’s a link to some of the helicopter shots:

http://www.wsbtv.com/slideshow/news/19803486/detail.html

Our street is closed every now and then by a faux-concrete curtain, but it’s usually very brief. Rental vans and shuttles and ambulances turning around in our driveway have become commonplace. Most days there is an ambulance on set, which makes me wonder what all is going on inside those walls. We see very few signs of life, even. Not much sound, not even many lights on in the windows at night.

The new title of the show is ironic, because there are lots of neighbors who have taken to bitterly complaining to the various news media who show up every day. For my part, I quite enjoy the whole scene. It’s quite exciting, decidedly unusual, and a surprisingly minor inconvenience given the scale of the operation. It gives us plenty to talk about, and we’re gratified in knowing it’s temporary.