"Turn at the Sneaky Pete's there, across the street, and it's across from nothing but woods."

This pretty much describes most of Mountain Brook, which is a slightly uppity, yuppie-genteel suburb liberally marked with small pockets of woodland. Like, just big enough, here and there, to be ornamental, and a little like saying "Turn left at the Starbucks. No, the other Starbucks" in a bigger city. We were halfway to the zoo before we turned around and went looking on the other side of the neighborhood, and finally we found Petticoat Lane, a little one-way street (which we nearly entered from the wrong end) within walking distance of Smith's, with four or five shops counterproductively hidden from the world. The first three weren't the Doll House. And then I saw a cotton-candy pink house with a turret room.