A day of window washing

An opportunity recently came up for me to wash some windows for cash. One of Shawn's clients who takes care of a huge vacation rental at the end of the hospital road. They've got to have one of the best views in Tofino - totally open to a view of a tiny private bay carved into rock, with open ocean and Felice island (I heart Felice) off to the side. When the sun comes out, it shines full force on the back deck, which has TWO hot tubs. One per side. you can sit in a hot tub and watch the sun go down over the bay, which is beautiful because from up above where the house is, you can see the shallow rim around the bay which is light turquoise, contrasted with the dark, deep blue of the deeper water. Sigh. So beautiful. Anyway, I thought to myself that window washing isn't so bad, and extra money would be nice, so I agreed to take on the job. After eating some breakfast and tying my hair back yesterday, I made the two minute walk down the road to the job site. Shawn was already there, working on pruning some invading trees back from the fence. It was soft and mild out, with a milky cloud cover obscuring the sun, but as I started to work on the first deck (I was to wash all the bottom floor windows as well as the upper deck, and the glass fence also that surrounds the three back decks, which are separate) sunlight suddenly brushed over the scene, and stayed most of the day. I was there from 10 - 5, working. Every time I soaped up a batch of windows, I had to run down to the hose to turn it on, and then back to turn it off. Much running up and down stairs and up and around boulders occurred. By the time I was finishing up at 5, the light was the warm yet brilliant tone of late afternoon. The bay was breathtakingly gorgeous. The windows I'd done were sparkling, and I felt soaked, dirty, exhausted, starving, and very euphoric (the last few runs to and from the hose tap had been getting noticeably less bouncy). The lady who'd sub-contracted me was thrilled and promptly wrote out my check for $125. $125 for a day's work! I was stoked. She'd insisted on lending me a hoodie of hers and a snowboarding jacket in an attempt to keep me dry during the day (when my own hoodie became soaked after rinsing the first window, which had a large ledge from which water cascaded in torrents right onto my face). No matter, I promptly got her offerings soaked as well, there was nothing for it. Every time I raised the hose to rinse a high window, for example, water would stream in rivers down my arms. She gave me a ride home, and wouldn't take no for an answer.

At home I found myself shaking with cold, and so exhausted I could hardly move. My muscles were already beginning to feel stiff - everywhere. I am not used to manual labour, I guess that much is abundantly clear. I ran myself a hot bath and read harry potter and crashed until about 10pm. When I woke up, my muscles were complaining more than ever. Worst were my ribs and my whole back, but my hamstrings were putting up a good fit too. And today...I feel as though I just ran a marathon with no training. It's brilliantly sunny outside, but I don't feel like moving much. I hope the weather stays like this for when Stott comes in a few days!

I've been attracting Anne of green gables books. Yes, seriously, over the winter I really missed them. They're like warm beef stew. Comfort books. Also, they inspire me. I've really been kind of keeping an eye out for them for years, but they never showed up, it was very frustrating. So this winter I decided to deliberately try and attract them. The first one showed up the next weekend, at S.O.S. in parksville. We were looking for a different book though, so I didn't get it - and now I wish I had because it was the FIRST one, and just today I ran into the second at the bank, and picked it up. neet! and...uh, yeah - that's all...