That's All Folks

I'm calling it: my summer job is officially over. The end is bitter-sweet in many ways. My body is feeling pretty wrecked (no pun intended!), I'm tired of stressing about cloudy days, and I have two weeks before I start school again. On the other hand, I won't have the same motivation to get myself to the beach, I'll miss all my new friends, and I can say goodbye to any chances of making any more money this summer. And what made the final decision that yesterday was my last day, was that I used up the end of my lemon juice, which means I'd have to buy another case of lemons if I wanted to keep working. And honestly, I don't think there will be that many nice days between now and when I move on the 15th.
Luckily, my last two days were hot ones. Not that that brought sales up a bunch, in fact, sales were lower than I would have thought for such hot days. The beach was really busy and the cops and GVRD guys were almost non-existent. I brought quite a lot of lemonade down on Wednesday, but came home with almost two pitchers full. So on Thursday, I just brought what was left, about 7 cups. I wasn't even going to go on Thursday because my body was so tired, but a friend called and invited me down with him and another friend, so it felt like I ought to go. I took the bus, though. I didn't have that much, just my small cooler and my backpack, so I took the easy way. Funnily enough, it takes just as long to take the bus out there as it does to ride. That made me feel good.
After I sold my last cup, I bought a beer to celebrate! The first I've purchased (on the beach) all summer. It was soooo gooooood. Really, the only bummer of the day was that one of the beer vendors got arrested by an undercover cop. I heard that they marched him up the stairs, naked, just to put him in a white jumpsuit, that made him look like he was going into a bio-hazard zone, and marched him back down, handcuffed, to take them to his stash. It seemed kinda over-the-top for what he was being arrested for.
I remember writing that my goals for the summer were to get strong, tan and make some money. The first two I was able to pull off pretty well. Although my body is tired, I did notice that I've gotten a lot stronger and faster on my bike. I have a lovely, all-over tan, and didn't get burned once. The money thing is a little less clear. I did make money, but only enough to live on, certainly not enough to save any. I spent about $82 on gear and about $45 on bike maintenance. The lemons and sugar I always bought with the previous days profits, so I'm even for those. Although I don't really want to go back and figure out how much I made, I think it was about $400 total, maybe a little more. Not the cash flow that I was hoping for, but hey, I didn't go into debt to do this.
Now it is time to focus on school. And really, this cloudy Friday afternoon couldn't be a better day to start. I have a whole schwack of work to finish before the term starts on September 17th, and I've only scraped the surface of it.
Thanks to those of you who kept up with this blog over the summer...I appreciate your interest in my shenanigans.

How to avoid awkward moments

Selling lemonade to a former teacher, while in the nude, offers a certain degree of discomfort, especially when the teacher and I had our fair share of clashes. How did I handle the situation? By pretending I didn't know who he was, of course! I couldn't do it: I couldn't bring myself to acknowledge our association. Afterwards, I realized that if he had been naked, too, I might have had an easier time with it...but he wasn't, and I think he knew who I was, too. He sort of hid under his hat and didn't say anything and then asked if I knew where to find any "smoke." He left the beach before I could collect my cup from him, but that was fine by me. The last thing I wanted to do was go back and see him again. I guess there is the chance that he didn't know who I was, but I doubt it, we had too many "face-to-face" conversations while I was in his class.
Otherwise, the day was a good one. Surprisingly, it wasn't as busy as Thursday, and the cops where there for most of the day. I went swimming with a friend and a guy with goggles on came up right near us and then went under again, so we swam away pretty quick. I had a nice conversation with a guy who is carving a life-size mermaid on the beach. She is quite lovely. I met Bill and Ashley from Austin, Texas (he told me their names about four times). And I invited a couple of young bucks from Saskatchewan to the block party this afternoon. I doubt they'll show.
I made $66, in about four hours of work...but I was really working most of that time. I didn't spend a lot of time hanging out. I spent $20 on a Wreck Beach "wife-beater" tank top, that looks like a Corona label. I suggested to the vendor that next time he should change the label to say "La Playa Mas Fina" instead of "La Cervesa Mas Fina." Still, it's pretty hot, and I have a souvenir from my summer there.
After I had finished selling and was just waiting to collect cups, I chatted with Craig, a guy from Jamaica. He and his son, Marco, sell organic soft drinks. Mostly Craig told us about Marco, who remembers everything from month five in the womb. He has cerebral paulsy, and had seizures as a child, but apparently used the resulting comas to visit his grandma in heaven. And from the time he was three, he's been telling people at the beach when they've had enough to drink. Craig is the only person I've talked to who doesn't mind the cops being at the beach. He says that if people want to be able to drink at the beach then they should go to Victoria and change the laws.
It's pouring rain today...it's the 25th of August. But the forecast for next week is good, at least for now.

Cops are not my friends

They don't hassle me, but they put everyone on the beach in a bad mood. They were the topic of conversation yesterday, and let me tell you, no one was saying how great it was that our tax dollars are going to pay cops where they are not needed. It seems there is a bit of momentum in the growing dislike of having them around. I know some people have lodged complaints against them, saying that they stand around, in their reflective sunglasses, and stare at women. I guess they are doing their "job." At one point, near where I was sitting, a guy started up a conversation with one of them, asking what their "mission" was on the beach. They were talking for awhile and the guy brought up the recent police shooting (the cop did the shooting) on Granville St., and was apparently giving the cop tips on how to do his job. Soon, another cop came over and the guy went away. But one of the cops took out his cell phone and took a picture of the guy. That must be illegal! Not only was the guy naked, but he certainly didn't know that he was having his picture taken. I told the guy's girlfriend, the French crepe vendor, but I don't know if they were going to try to do anything about it. I think it is my turn to lodge a complaint.
Besides the cops, it was a pretty nice day. It was hot and people were pretty thirsty. I brought quite a lot of lemonade down, and only had about 2 cups left at the end of the evening. But strangely, I didn't make that much money, only $56. I think that I am putting less ice and more lemonade in the cups in hopes that I'll sell out.
It seems to be another beautiful day today, a few more clouds, but they will probably burn off.

The second best part

I forgot to write about the second best part of last Wednesday. The first was that I sold out so quickly, the second was that a hovercraft (yes, they really do exist!) came onto the beach. Unfortunately, it was because a guy was passed out for some unknown reason, so the Coast Guard was coming to check him out. Everyone on the beach was entranced by the sight of this massive vehicle approaching the beach and then coming up onto it. It didn't come in very far, maybe just to the waterline. When it "landed" it deflated and you could see the tiny guys in the cockpit lowering down. I'm not sure what happened to the guy they came for. Someone said they saw a defibrillator, but I didn't even see if they took him off the beach on a stretcher. It added some excitement, though everyone was much to enthralled to buy lemonade for awhile.
I realized today that this weekend is the last of August, and then it is Labor Day long weekend! Crazy. I'm never really ready for summer to be over, especially when we never really had summer.

A welcome rest

I think it's funny that I yearn so much for the chance to go to the beach, and after three days I'm ready for a break. It's the physical work that gets me. My legs felt like jelly after three days of back-and-forth from the beach. Yesterday and today have been quite cloudy, so I'm trying to get other stuff done.
Tuesday was almost as slow as Monday. I didn't count my float beforehand so I'm not sure how much I made, but it was probably $20 or so. At least between the two days I made back the cost of the lemons I bought on Tuesday. Time seemed to disappear before my eyes on Tuesday. I had my normal two hours of work with a friend in the morning, and then I raced home, ate some lunch and drove out to Burnaby with Dave and my roommate Emily to see my sister-in-law-once-removed ice dancing. Emily took me to the drive to buy some lemons and then we raced home again, and I went to the beach. I kept thinking that it was silly for me to be going because I had to be back on this side of town by 7pm for a friend's unicorn themed bicycle ride birthday party. I figured I'd have two hours at the beach, and an equal amount of time commuting. I didn't even sell out of what I had...but it was chill and hell, I was at the beach! By the time I got home Tuesday night from the birthday party, I had been riding my bike for over four hours. Needless to say, I had a sore bum!
Wednesday was great though; Dave had helped me squeeze my new batch of lemons on Tuesday night, so I made fresh-fresh lemonade and went to the beach expecting another slow day. I sold out in about an hour and a half! I didn't bring all that much, maybe 7L, but it was great to see it go s quickly. Two of the vendors (watermelon girl and one of the beer girls) bought some and raved about it. That made me happy. Oh, and I brought a bunch of blueberries I had picked and charged $1 to put a scoopful in the lemonade. People seemed to like that. I felt silly that I had brought so little, but I was still glad not to be hauling any home.
Margarita boy made a comment on Tuesday evening that made me feel good: after telling a guy to put his camera away, he came up to me and said that since I am well respected on the beach I should be on camera patrol. Even if the comment came purely from him, it made me happy. After selling out, it was nice to just hang out on the beach and only get up every once in awhile to go get cups back.
I've really been enjoying getting to know some of my regular customers...there are a lot of "characters" on the beach, and I realized that I spend a lot of my time smiling.
I'm not sure what the forecast is for the next while, but I'm hoping to get a few more days in. Why must summer go so quickly?!

Better than $$

After two weeks of no work I was contemplating what else I could do this summer to make some money. I was kinda giving up, realizing there was no point in hoping that the weather would get better. I made plans to go visit my brother and his family while they were staying in Seattle. This made me very happy...but then I looked at the weather report and it seemed pretty confident that it was going to be nice the days I'd be away; and I realized I had some paid work that I really shouldn't skip out on on Wednesday and Thursday. Cursing the universe for making me choose between work and play, I chose to work.
Monday dawned beautiful, the first really sunny day in awhile. I got down to the beach and started making the rounds. It wasn't all that busy, but I was feeling pretty happy just to be down there. A friend had told me that she would probably be there, so I was keeping an eye out for her and enjoying the sun again. On my second go-around, I had stopped to talk to someone about sandwiches, when someone else from behind me said, "I'd like some lemonade." I turned and low and behold, my friend from AUSTRIA was standing there! Completely unexpected, but wonderful! He'd been in town a few days but Monday was his first beach day. So I didn't make much money - maybe $15 - but the haul down there was well worth it. It was nice just to be sitting on the beach, drinking some BEER, and catching up.
Today is shaping up to be hectic and I might only get a few hours in at the beach, but that's alright, as long as I get there.