Getting Ready for the Rites, Sights of Summertime : Leisure: Memorial Day signals the local, unofficial start of summer. It’s a time when vacationers crowd the beach, lifestyles are modified and the living is easy.

At the Frog House in Newport Beach, it means loading up on hundreds of bars of Mr. Zogs’ Sex Wax for surfboards. At Disneyland, it means changing a million bulbs to light up the floats of the Main Street Electrical Parade. And, at Furs-A-Flying dog groomers in La Habra, it means sharpening the shears.

Summer. The word conjures up images of sun, fun and relaxation. But the season doesn’t just start with a turn of the calendar. It’s ushered in by a little sweat and a lot planning.

Whether it’s buying a new back-yard barbecue or instructing the help on how to keep Fred the pot-bellied pig watered down during the hot summer months at the Santa Ana Zoo, the transition into summer is not a ritual to be taken lightly in Orange County.

In the weeks just before and after Memorial Day--the unofficial start of summer--businesses stock up, people tone up and cities spruce up for the new season.

“There’s always a mass migration to our city that starts up just around Memorial Day and goes on through the summer,” Newport Beach City Manager Robert L. Wynn said. “It’s a hectic time, and it takes a lot of preparation.”

Newport is spending $671,000 to hire eight new parking lot attendants, 17 lifeguards and 10 litter sweepers to meet the anticipated hordes of sun-and-surf worshipers. Laguna Beach has hired 20 bus and tram drivers to shuttle art lovers to the Pageant of the Masters and the Sawdust Festival. Seal Beach has re-striped the public parking lot near the pier. Anaheim has been scrambling to train an additional 80 people to operate the swimming pools, parks and playgrounds.

And while Bob Williams, a maintenance worker with the county’s Department of Environmental Management, was inspecting the restrooms at Sunset Beach recently for broken commodes and leaky faucets, Santa Ana Zoo Curator Connie Sweet was draping shade cloth over animal enclosures and making sure watering pools were ready for hot and thirsty beasts.

Fred the pig is “pretty antisocial,” Sweet said, “but he loves to get squirted with the hose during summer.”

For entrepreneurs everywhere, the summer solstice means a lot more than warmer weather, longer days, vacations and suntans. It means money.

“This is our main season. In the winter you get by and pay your bills, but in the summer is when you can really make it,” said Eddie DiRuscio, manager of Davey’s Locker charter fishing in Newport Beach.

To accommodate the seafarers, DiRuscio has been repairing fishing equipment and gathering the supplies that seem to evaporate with the rush of customers. DiRuscio expects to rent nearly 120 fishing rods, sell 100 licenses and unload 50 pounds of frozen anchovies for bait each day.

“The fishing is really good. It’s near bathtub conditions in the water, and they’re biting,” DiRuscio said.

Many people without sea legs are turning to their gardens just before summer. They are ripping up the pansies and primroses and replacing them with petunias, marigolds and other flowers that can take the heat.

“A lot of the spring flowers poop out about this time,” said Jack Montooth, nursery manager at Crown Hardware in Irvine.

The list of those who prepare and profit from summer is endless: ice distributors, carwashes, pool cleaners, fitness centers, even your family dog groomers.

“This is the time when the fleas come out and the dogs scratch themselves and tangle their coats,” said Susan Zarzana, owner of Fur’s-a-Flying dog groomers. It may be a bad time for dogs, she said, but “a good time for us.”

But the biggest action will come at the county’s theaters and amusement parks.

The annual parade of big-budget blockbusters began this weekend with the release of “Back to the Future III,” soon to be followed by “RoboCop 2,” “Dick Tracy,” “Another 48 Hours” and “Die Hard II.”

To theater owners, that means popcorn, popcorn and more popcorn. For weeks, theater operators have been ordering the tons of popcorn it will take to get them through the season, not to mention candy and other snacks. At a typical Edwards Cinema, as many as 50 50-pound cases of popcorn will be popped a week, compared to only 10 per week the rest of the year.

At Disneyland, the county’s premiere tourist attraction, the staff has been busy tearing up the gardens to plant bright yellow and orange “summer flowers,” and training 2,500 seasonal employees in the ways of the Magic Kingdom, spokeswoman Barbara Warren said.

But most of us, like Christina Glasgow, a 35-year-old teacher from Huntington Harbour, have simpler tasks at hand.

Glasgow has been walking four miles every day in an effort to lose 10 pounds--”five from each thigh.”

“I have this great bikini I bought at Nordstrom I have to get into,” she said. “And June is around the corner.”

Times correspondent Danica Kirka contributed to this story.