There's nothing like the Northwest...

I spend over eight hours a day, six days a week inside a grocery store working the seafood counter.

I love my job. It's a great mix of interesting seafood, great display opportunities, delightful customers, and an exceptional work environment. I love going to work each morning. I look forward to each day. Not many folks can say that! I'm blessed.

I get a couple of breaks and half an hour for lunch each day. I usually try to get out of the store with it's flourescent lighting and seafood-on-ice chill. This afternoon when I ventured out the sun was it's pale, glorious self, peeking through a hazy cloud cover that typifies the Northwest this time of year. It had rained earlier, as is it's daily habit here also, and a soft breeze was bringing in the combined scent of fresh evergreens and salt water from the bay.

It brought to mind all the years of living in far-off places--both growing up as a military child and later, as a military wife--and never failing to be struck by the sweetness of fresh air when we returned home to Washington.

It's like the perfume of someone you've always loved-- memories rush in as the scent fills your nose. Walking to first grade after a morning rain... the worms on the sidewalk lying bloated and pink. You really wanted to help them, but ick! They were WORMS! Rain is a part of every memory here. It's trick or treating in soggy costumes. It's hoping for a white Christmas, but getting a gray one instead. It's finding all the Easter eggs on the lawn too easily because the rain washed all the dye off of them. It's hoping the sun will make an appearance on your wedding day. It's not washing your car for months at a time--what would be the point? But really, its so much more. It's fresh air every morning and a fresh outlook to go with it. Yesterdays get washed clean with the constant, soft showers. And sunshine burns if you get too much... so up here we get it in little bits so it's that much more precious.

I like it here very much. It's an old friend, this place. One who looks for your upturned face to smile into the rain.