I go to work at McDonald's but it is a mess. They're remodeling and painting, and there are ladders and buckets everywhere.

I go back to the break room and ask for an apron, but they give me a white painting apron, whereas I need a brown cooking apron. They seem to be convinced that I'm a painter, but I'm a cook.

I find the right apron and start cooking a single hamburger patty in a frying pan. It doesn't work; it sticks and tears, and doesn't look at all appetizing. Anyway I have to walk too far between the cooking stations, so it's just impossible to cook anything.

So I get another job, in some sort of machine shop or something. Though I don't know anything about this line of work, the boss hires me for my enthusiasm and energy. There's isn't much to do. I move and restack some poles, and help a customer load something into his truck. I start energetically cleaning and tidying just to keep myself busy.

The shop is in an area like the previous home of Audio Precision on Western Avenue, at the end of a long parking lot. The entrance to the parking lot is locked with a gate.

My brother Dave comes in and points out a guy at the gate, who has been watching him for a long time. He has spy equipment that allows him to see a long way, and he's been following him. Now he's waiting for him to come out, and we're not sure what he's going to do.

Then mom comes in with some babies, three that might be triplets, but one seems to be bigger than the others. I take one baby, and mom sets a large glass of red wine on the bed (apparently there's a bed in the shop), and immediately spills it, then cleans it up.

I suggest that we let the babies play on the bed, so we set two of them down, and Petra seems to be holding the third. They play there for a minute, but then mom sets her glass of wine on the bed again, and then turns around, again knocking it over. She moves quickly to catch the glass, while one of the babies rolls over into the corner of the bed, nearly falling off, except that I jump over and catch it.

Ok, I say to mom, maybe it was a bad idea to put the babies on the bed. But you can't put a glass of wine on the bed, like some high-tech mattress commercial - in reality, it'll get knocked over.

Somehow in the process I got a large shard of glass in my foot, and it bothers me for a while before I take a close look. It's like an inch deep, and I pull the glass out, but there's still a glob of some sort of white goo globbed around the wound. Petra pokes at it to get it to come off, and I say half-jokingly "Hey, quit rubbing my goo!"