Small Moments, Lots of Joy

Seattle is Special

Last weekend, I went to Seattle to visit a former roommate. For a city that gets a bad rap about its weather, it was absolutely gorgeous. There was no rain, and the temperature was in the low 80s. I really couldn’t have asked for better.

I had only been to Seattle once before, so I still had plenty of new things to see and experience. My friend decided on Sunday to take me to Alki Beach. It was adorable — like someone decided, “Hey, let’s have a little beach town but still be in a major metropolitan area!”

After dipping my feet in the Pacific (a real treat for an East Coaster like me), we went to sit up on a piece of driftwood. Okay, my friend walked quicker and could have taken a nap by the time I got there. My untrained bare feet are not used to beach rocks. And yes, beach rocks is the technical term, in case you were wondering.

As we sat on the driftwood, staring out into the water, my friend exclaimed that she saw something. I peered out but nope, saw nothing. My friend exclaimed that she saw something again, I stared out again trying to find something like the water was a game of Where’s Waldo and I was trying to find Waldo. Hell, Waldo would have been easier to spot. That red and white striped shirt would have been a dead giveaway.

Finally, I saw it — dorsal fins popping in and out of the ocean. After a cursory Google search, my friend decided that it was a porpoise. I had not known that seeing a porpoise in the wild would be one of my…