21.   And yet just across the street, houses seemed almost untouched.

22.   At the end of each month, their house may seem more like a money pit than an appreciating asset.

23.   Beach houses seem to be the second home of choice, rather than ski condos or cabins in the woods.

24.   Both houses of Congress seem likely to vote against MFN, even though business wants it badly.

25.   A few miles away, near a fort that served as a Taliban military base, five houses seem to have been mistakenly bombed.

26.   But coffee houses seem singularly unafraid of one another.

27.   But on the way down the hill, one house seemed in notably better shape than the others.

28.   But there is running water and sewers, and every house seems to have a television.

29.   From the air, the huge new houses here seem ludicrously out of place in a city where every other building seems ready to fall down.

30.   I know because my house always seems to be full of them.