The jazzy music is soothing, pulling me away from the pain inside. Louis Armstrong is seeing bright blessed days and dark sacred nights and we’re thinking to ourselves. Behind me, a barista is frothing milk and the espresso machine seems to tune into the song. All the way at the back, an adorable little blonde is laughing quietly through her few missing teeth. To my right in a corner, a poor guy is facing two female supervisors in a job interview and sinking himself deeper and deeper each time he opens his mouth. The coffee is slightly vanilla-flavored and tastes heavenly, flowing down my veins and warming me up from the core.

It’s a rather cold winter night for BC and the temperature has hovered all day just below freezing. With the chilly outside air that was biting my fingers and icing the tripod’s legs, a hand-written sign posted above the counter sounds a bit surreal:

“All our ice cream melted during the power failure caused by the recent wind storm. We do not expect to get restocked until the New Year.”

The tide cycle is finally favoring my needs and sunsets have caught up with tidal pools. Here’s what White Rock’s beaches were like tonight, on this final stretch of the 2006 challenge. Let’s hang on, in three days, a new beginning.