I dreamt that Rob and I were in New York. We didn't go near the World Trade Center site, we were in midtown. As part of my helping the country, it's my patriotic duty to shop so when we passed a store, I pulled him into it.

There were different little rooms opening off the main enclosed plaza, each with its own theme. One carried Christmas ornaments, another Halloween decor. Rob and I were fascinated by a demonstration in the Christmas section of an automatic cookie press that created several intricate and 3-D cookies, then baked them on trays beneath the press. I wanted to explore more of the shop but Rob wanted to watch them make cookies, so I wandered away.

The other rooms of the store were less brightly lit as they were away from the windows and the plaza. I walked through the furniture section, wondering why so many of the sofas were draped in sheets. I passed into another room that was filled with bunk beds, each heaped in towels and sheets.

As I turned around to leave the area, someone grabbed me from one of the bunks and another hand reached for me from a top bunk across the row. I looked around and realized all the bunks were occupied by people, covered by the sheets and towels. There were no other shoppers or sales clerks and I couldn't scream. Suddenly, another woman came up to me and pulled me away, telling me that this area was used at night by the homeless men after the attack and I needed to leave before they locked the doors. We raced through an airlock before it shut, and then another one a bit further down. It wasn't a store any longer but a hospital. As we ran through the women's ward, where an apparent food fight had left lettuce all over the floor, I lost contact with the woman who'd been leading me. I hoped I was heading the right way to return to Rob.

All this between the time the alarm went off at 5:20 for Rob and when mine sounded at 6. You could say I've had a busy morning.