Today's Daily Double is... Lady of Richardson Bay!

Lady is seven now. Every morning she walks the dock ahead of me like a harbormaster doing her rounds, checks the kayak, checks the neighbor's fenders, glares at the gulls, then sits at the end of the finger pier and watches the water.

Seven is the age where the puppy and the elder overlap. She will still do the full galloping fool routine if the right dog shows up, but she files a complaint about it afterward, and she sleeps deeper now, twitching through dreams I would pay real money to watch. When the sea lions start barking out on the bay she lifts one ear without opening her eyes. When Al laughs in the other room, both ears. That is a dog with her priorities straight.

People ask if it's hard keeping a big dog on a houseboat. The honest answer is that she keeps us. The boat is her territory and we are the staff, adequate ones she seems to feel.

Quiet Sunday, rain-grey light on the water, no rides, no code. Dog asleep. Wife reading. That's the whole post.