Rareified Air

I've never in my life used the term "rareified air" and I don't even know what it means. But all I could think as I rode my bike along Lake Washington this evening is that the air was rareified. Not only are all the houses on this route gorgeous, and have beautiful, overflowing cottage gardens, but the air itself actually smelled like honeysuckle and ocean. I got the lovely nostalgic feeling of being at my grandparents' house on the sound in Florida, the same feeling I get every time I smell Yardley of London Lavender soap (the only kind my grandmother uses, and what was always sitting on the stump next to the faucet where we soaped up and hosed off after playing in the sound all day, before we were allowed to come into the house). I also get this feeling whenever I see one of the extra-gigantic (2 gallon?) plastic buckets of ice cream at the grocery store. I always resist the urge to buy them because, hey, I don't need to eat 2 gallons of ice cream. But I long to see that big plastic bucket in my own freezer, and later to use it for compost. My garndparents always had the big bucket of ice cream (makes sense with 7 grand kids and their parents always at your house), and when it was empty, it became the compost bucket, which my grandfather would take out after cleaning the kitchen with a grandchild after dinner. When I was a teenager and still lived at home, but could drive, my grandparents no longer lived at that house, having been flooded out of it by every hurricane for the past 25 years or so. But I would still drive over to that house and park across the street from it, looking at it, when I was really upset or had a bad day.