Needless to say, I was thrilled to learn about this particular tourist activity. Being away from home is unsettling enough, but being away on a Sunday and missing out on open-house tours is downright colon-blocking. What good is a weekend, after all, that does not include at least one voyeuristic jaunt into the home of a stranger? Why go to a stuffy museum or the bug-infested park when you can fondle people's countertops with impunity?

The first house we visited was a sprawling, boxy, contemporary estate about 15 miles outside of town. It was owned by a ceramic artist and relationship-book author from the Bay Area. and was notable for, among other things, a master suite with an indoor/outdoor shower and a bathtub shaped exactly to the relationship-book author's proportions. There was a separate art studio, an infinity pool and a dog-washing bathroom.

The second house, a new colonial-style manse with papyrus waving in the garden, was in town on a street so narrow that we had to walk four blocks from the bus to reach it. As we marched through a park, children played nearby, a couple of actual Mexicans talked animatedly on their cellphones and a 1980s Wham! song played in the background — the one with George Michael singing the line "guilty feet have got no rhythm," only the melody was played by a pan flute to give it a kind of south-of-the-border flavor.

It was at this point that I realized that if I really wanted a taste of Mexico, I might as well go home to Echo Park. The tour wasn't so much a backstage pass to aspirational cultural immersion as it was an English-only how-to guide for getting away from it all without giving anything up. Each dwelling was mostly notable for just how thoroughly the householders had managed to bring the comforts of the north into the wilds of the south.

I also realized that there was a certain irrelevance, even tedium, to touring a house that wasn't for sale (as fun as it was to spy on someone's dog-washing bathroom). That's because no matter how unaffordable, impractical or downright awful a house may be, if it's for sale, it carries an unmistakable aura of possibility. It also makes us think about our values and tastes, our financial stability, our courage and our fears. We're forced, if even on an abstract level, to consider the bigger picture — property taxes, the school system, commute times to work. Or even potable water.

Getting inside a house that's for sale is kind of like dating someone who's single and available, whereas walking into a house just to admire its superior design (and the cash it took it implement it) is like mooning over a celebrity. It's a nice distraction for a while, but then you feel kind of stupid.

Maybe that's why I've been feeling a little dull since I returned home (or maybe it's that I still have the Wham! song in my head). Thank God tomorrow's Sunday. There are a couple houses with "for sale" signs on them that I can't wait to check out. I've also got this great idea for a new bathroom.