Never Rains but It Pours…

😀 Literally! Along about 2:15 this morning, the dogs and I were lifted off the bed by the C-R-A-A-A-A-C-K kerBLAAAAAM of a lightning strike that sounded like it hit right outside the window.

The puppy was totally terrorized. I had to restrain her from leaping off the bed, which is one of those extra-deep things that you practically need a ladder to climb into. Cassie didn’t like it either.

The storm continued to grow, the thunder rolling in, most of the time, about four to six seconds after the flash — suggesting most of the storm was up around North Mountain. But three more blasts were very close, indeed.

Cassie decided dogscretion was the better part of valor and moved from her normal position at the foot of the bed up to the pillows, bringing her dog hair with her. Thank you very much. This was after Ruby concluded that the appropriate response to the commotion was to growl. Extensively. No amount of assuring her that everything was allll riiighhttt persuaded her to quit growling.

Oh well. Eventually the storm blew away and sleep (after a fashion) returned.

Meanwhile, the amount of work that has poured in would, on its own, submerge Louisiana. Yesterday I sent off the last of a 100-page dissertation written in Chinglish, most of which entailed variance analysis. That was a challenge.

But mercifully, it was an interesting challenge. The author’s project actually had some meaning — unlike about 90% of Ph.D. theses and dissertations — and although the standard dissertation format instills a great deal of redundancy, as it developed she’d come up with something that may have some practical use.

Now it’s back to the other project, an amateur novel. Although the content is a great deal more comprehensible, it’s probably harder to edit, because it entails having to…well…what can one say? To tutor the author in the basic skills of writing fiction. And that, my friends, ain’t easy.

A-n-n-d this morning what should come in but an inquiry for an indexing project!

Hallelujah, brothers and sisters. At this rate, The Copyeditor’s Desk will stay afloat long enough to see the New Year. Get out the oars and row!