Carpool, Visiting the Middle East

              I dreamed I was driving on a long trip with MS a choir director friend. We were apparently attending the same conference so decided to carpool to save some expenses. In the dream the car kept getting smaller and smaller, until the steering wheel was jammed in my tummy and I had to open the windows and sun roof to have room. Eventually we were riding is a tiny version of Little Red. Then, to make matters more interesting, we stopped at a fish place for dinner, and discovered that there was no entrance back onto our freeway at that point. We had the option of going back several miles, or trying to follow the frontage roads for several miles up to the next town.
              I had a brilliant idea. I drove up to where the frontage road was closest to the freeway, then got out and levered the now tiny car over to the freeway. MS had to help lift the front of the car, as it was just a little bit too heavy to lift by myself, but I was able to pick the back end up and swing it around and over the barbed wire fence.

              In a later dream I was in the Middle East. In order to beat the sun I had donned the headdress worn by many of the locals, but without the expensive gold braid. Oddly, wearing the headdress not only made me cooler, but I was suddenly not being treated like a total stranger by the locals. Some of my friends poked fun at me, however I found that I seemed to get better deals at the food stalls and was able to convince several of the local men to allow me to photograph their market stalls without complaint.
              At one point there was a procession of folks wearing the same colors as I. They were passing a bottle of sacramental goat's milk when a tourist grabbed it and spit in it.
              “Why did you do that?” I asked, while pulling the tourist away from almost certain doom.
              “They killed my brother.”
              “Those people personally? Isn't that an issue for the police.”
              “No, people of their faith.”
              “Ah, so if people of your faith killed someone I was related to, I should spit in your cheap plastic water bottle?”
              “No, it's not like that.”
              “Isn't it?” I pulled them back into the crowd away from the procession.
              When I turned back the procession had moved on, having poured out the goat's milk and replaced it with a fresh bottle.
              “How can you defend these people?” The woman asked, more that a bit angry.
              “You misunderstand, I am defending you. They don't need to be defended.”