Lorenz Hart and Whiskey and me.

By this morning, after a steady 24 hours of downpour, the rain had finally stopped. The air was cold. The ground was wet. The sky was thick with clouds.

Nonetheless, we piled Whiskey into the Simca and headed to one of earth's small slices of heaven, at least if you're a golden retriever, a marshy inlet in Orleans, MA, called Kent's Point.

We get there up a windy, rocky road and down a pine-needled path. Down a small hill and to the high-grass and wildflowers that ring the sea. Whiskey galumphs to the water and I toss far her duck and she rushes out to get it, leaping into the surf and leaping just as gracefully out.

Occasionally another dog makes an appearance and galumphs with Whiskey in the sea, or chases her through the sea grass, or like this morning, they left her alone entirely--like my colleagues at work leave me alone when they see I am deep inside a piece of copy. People, and dogs, learn signals like that. It brings a modicum of peace to a crazy world.

This morning, I thought of a lyric, as I walked the mile or two around the sea with Whiskey, a lyric by Lorenz Hart with music by Richard Rogers.

"I'd feel so rich in a hut for two;
Two rooms and a kitchen I'm sure would do.
Give me just a plot of, 
Not a lot of land,
And thou swell, thou witty, thou grand."

That seems just about right for me. 

A plot of not a lot of land.

Judging by the wagging of her tail, I'm sure Whiskey agrees with me.