Dream • Suburban Family

I am house sitting for the Meadows (green building) and am finished(?) but must check in with them before they leave. I meet them at a restaurant where Kirsten  is chattering about their destination and excitement for the trip details. There are several friends in their booth listening and wishing her a Bon voyage. Her plans are determined as she has not been out of the house and away for sometime. She is also pregnant with a daughter that is a bit of a surprise but welcomed, even though almost 10 years after her last. Scott is paying the check and getting the car/minivan for their departure. I owe her 12 dollars in repayment of some dream forgotten thing. I lay a ten dollar bill down, and before I can fish out the other 2 dollars she has gathered up her boys and the family is in the van speedily backing down a long driveway that borders the restaurant to zoom across the street to their house in view from the restaurant. The boys are happily shouting and singing out the windows. The house is newly automated and the front lights up as they approach and slides apart to reveal the welcoming warm interior along with some Rube Goldberg enhancements like a clothesline that swishes to dry the clothes. As the Meadows van reaches the end of the driveway, the house quiets down and darkens. I follow to deliver a message of some importance. Inside, there is a blonde doofus guy in attendance in their kitchen. The phone message requires  a pencil and he grabs a carpenter's flat pencil found on the descent down the stairs. The family is already downstairs in their bedroom behind closed glass doors. They may be arguing, because even the doofus guy knocking on the door goes unheeded. He takes another tact and produces a 'looping' machine box, heavy and black. I am right behind to witness his attempt.