Kiefer, Eva and Me

Sighting a star on Pennsylvania Avenue can make your whole day

We are stopped here on Pennsylvania Avenue, craning our necks, because this isn't something you see every day. Hollywood is here, making a movie.

"Kiefer is a doll baby, a doll baby!" an old woman is saying about Kiefer Sutherland, star of the hit TV show "24." We are all calling him "Kiefer."

"I like his dad better," a man says. "Kiefer's kind of a lightweight, but I like his show."

"Why did he dump Julia Roberts, anyway?" one asks.

"No, she dumped him," says another. "But that was like a million years ago, anyway."

We don't know one another, but we know so much about these people, our friends. We are business people going from here to there, and tourists with cameras, and nannies with kids in strollers, and teenagers looking for action. We are a miscellaneous mix of humanity, gathered on a stinking-hot afternoon with one common goal: We want to see the movie stars.

"Look! Look! He's somebody, isn't he?" a woman next to me says, motioning toward a handsome young man just hopping off a golf cart.

"Um," I say, squinting to get a better look. "No, I don't think he's anybody."

It's hard to say because the cops are keeping us behind a yellow tape, so far from the action that all we can really see are tiny heads.

The only other famous head besides Kiefer's we've been able to identify so far is that of Eva Longoria, star of the hit show "Desperate Housewives," whom no one is calling "Eva."

"Oh, my God, Mom!" says a young woman just walking up. "It's Gabrielle!"

"Gabrielle?" the mother says. "You mean the blond one with the puffy lips?"