The sun must come

All photos originally uploaded by yaznotjaz; collage created last summer by Hashim_A, rockstar (and tea-lover. gross!) extraordinaire. Photos may be individually viewed in the Muir Beach photoset.

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Tomorrow is the sister's birthday, and in ten days it's mine - and I'm so horrible at this birthday business, mine or anyone else's. Last year, all I wanted for my birthday was sunshine. This is a predictable wish, and it worked out quite well in 2006. I already know how I'm going to spend the last day of my birthday month, this year. It's the first day that I've got to figure out.

Today, I spent the morning at the dealership, learning that a 30,000 mile service and new brake pads and rotors on my car would cost a whopping grand total of $810+tax. Tomorrow morning, I should make them give me a spiffy rental car to make up for it. Spiffy cars can make up for a lot of things. That's why people buy red sports cars when they go through mid-life crises. Me, I'm going to go through a quarter-life crisis. Perhaps, I might as well have an identity crisis, too, while I'm at it. It'll be like this morning, when the lovely gentleman who was driving me back home from the dealership asked, "So, where are you from?" And I raised an eyebrow and responded coolly, "Oh, the Bay Area, mainly. But I also grew up living in Sacramento and a few other places."

"Oh," he said, and I smiled at him. There was silence for another minute, until he ventured again, politely, "I meant, where are you from originally?" I mentally threw up my hands in defeat, and replied, "Pakistan."

"Oh, that's nice!" he said, delighted.
"Yes, it is."

After this morning's car-related dramas, I've spent the rest of the day at work, because, unlike the rest of America, I'm not off for President's Day. That sound you hear? That's the sound of Yasmine unsheathing her stabbing paraphernalia - because, as Hamza asks, "What fun is life without stabbing paraphernalia?" But, seriously, what is this drama about working on a national holiday? It's disgusting. Almost enough to make a kid contemplate unemployment. I should be sitting outside in the sunshine, looking at the fourteen plastic grocery bags filled with tangerines that we picked this weekend, eating breakfast in the courtyard - all the things my parents were doing this morning when I called home to ask the daddy-o about advice related to my car.

Instead, I've spent the day indoors, ostensibly project-planning, but also day-dreaming about sunshine and beaches and warm water and the day my hands will turn brown again, because, as the sister exclaimed over dinner last week, "You're so white!"

That's it. When spring is here for sure and the weather stays consistently warm, I'm heading down to Santa Cruz for some sunshine and sand.