Generally, in magazines concerned with the design of homes, fruit bowls abound. High-priced photo stylists spend hours arranging them. You see them in photographs of kitchens and living rooms. Often there's a bowl of unblemished green apples on the bathroom vanity or a bowl of pomegranates in the bedroom. The fruit bowl is sometimes accompanied by a vase of tulips, glistening with spray-on dew, and precious little else. No quart of milk. No crumpled bag of Pepperidge Farm cookies with only half of one cookie left at the bottom. No dish of Meow Mix on the floor. In short, no signs of life.