BETTY SHIMABUKURO / BSHIMABUKURO@STARBULLETIN.COM Berry-picking season is nearly over, but at a few of the u-pick farms, you can still scare up a pound or so (for about a buck a pound). This sprig of ripening berries was found at Overlake Blueberry Farm.

Seattle ... in the sunshine

An ex-Seattlelite once told me that when he finally moved away from home, he realized he'd been depressed all his life. Something about persistent rain and gray skies fosters a gloomy outlook, I guess.

A current Seattlelite told me that it really doesn't rain all that much -- it's mostly haze, wind and a bone-chilling cold.

Well, that's better.

So my visits to Seattle (all three of them) must have been aberrations. Each time I've been there, it's been sunny and clear, leaving me with very pleasant -- and dry -- memories.

My last visit was just a week ago. They tell me there was a cold snap the week before, and cold winds moved in the day after I left. This leads to the obvious conclusion that it all revolves around me -- Seattle sunshine, that is. I bring it, I take it away.

If all you've ever seen is a gloomy Seattle, I offer these images of the city at its shiniest, when the water's sparkling in one direction and you can see all the way to a rim of snow-capped mountains in the other.

BETTY SHIMABUKURO / BSHIMABUKURO@STARBULLETIN.COM At day's end the sun drops to the water line, viewed from the back of Seattle's famed Pike Place Market.

BETTY SHIMABUKURO / BSHIMABUKURO@STARBULLETIN.COM Totem poles in Pioneer Square reflect Seattle's ties to Alaska. In the 1890s, Seattle was the last U.S. outpost before adventurers headed north to try their luck hunting gold in the Yukon Territory.

BETTY SHIMABUKURO / BSHIMABUKURO@STARBULLETIN.COM Mukilteo Lighthouse Park is an icon for the city of Mukilteo, population just under 20,000, just north of Seattle. The 38-foot-tall lighthouse has been operating since 1906.

BETTY SHIMABUKURO / BSHIMABUKURO@STARBULLETIN.COM A seagull finds a sunny perch aboard the Washington State Ferry.