of fish and Frankenstorms and Smurfs

I'm delighted to report that I've just sent off the index for the book, so I am officially celebrating.  I have one more round of looking at proofs, but just of the index itself.  The end is in sight.  Cheers!

In other news, there's a Frankestorm coming.  Lucy's very excited and asked me:"Mom, are you ready for the Frankenstorm?"  Yes, yes I am.

School closed for today; it's unclear whether they will open tomorrow.  This is just fine with me.

In other news, we have a new fish to replace Lulu.  The new fish is Fozzie, and he's a beta.  He's doing well.  Lucy and Jake got him last Friday and it was all very exciting.  Fingers crossed on this one, folks.  If you have beta-care recommendations, do let us know.

That's all for now.  Update as storm events warrant and/or allow.  Stay safe out there!
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[Later]

So it's closing in on midnight (no doubt it's Tuesday by the time this will be posted) and things are OK here.  It's raining and windy, but we still have power.  Not so bad for us.  We're not sure yet if my school will be closed tomorrow (there are power issues all over town), or if Lucy will have school tomorrow.  If her school is closed, it's going to be a major disaster, because it's the day of the "Pumpkin Party" that she has been talking about for weeks and weeks.  We're bringing donuts.  She's very excited.  And she's going to be very upset if it's cancelled.  Also, she told me that we had to bring enough donuts for her whole school (6 classrooms of kids).  I asked the teacher about it *in front of Lucy* and the teacher explained, oh no, you just need to bring them for our class; the other classes are having their own party.  Afterwards, Lucy told me we should bring enough for the whole school anyway.  She's committed to her school community.  And to donuts.

Today Lucy spent a good bit of time up at Matt & Mary's, and she and Woody and Ruth watched a bit of TV.  More specifically, they watched an old Smurfs movie that's available on Netflix called The Smurfs and the Magic Flute.  Lucy had never seen or heard of Smurfs before, and she was pretty excited.  Here is our conversation when she came home:

Lucy: We watched the Smurrghs!
Me: huh?
Lucy: We watched the SmuRRRRgggghhs!
Me: Do you mean Smurfs?
Lucy: NO! It's SmuRRRRgggghhtttttttsssss!
Me: uh, are they little blue guys?  Because I'm pretty sure they're Smurfs.
Lucy: Yeah, they're blue, but Mommy, they're SmuRRRRgggghhtttttttsssss!
Me: uh, no.  They're blue.  They have white pants.  They're Smurfs.  I'm pretty sure.
Lucy [sigh/eye roll]: How do you know?
Me [singing Smurf song]: Laa la la la la la laaa la la la la.
Lucy [in disbelief]: HOW DO YOU KNOW THE SONG?
Me: They're Smurfs.

She's still having trouble saying the word "Smurf," though.  She has some funny accent/speech things, and she also has a cold right now and no doubt isn't hearing things quite right.  So later in the evening, she was talking to Jake:

Lucy:  I like the Smurrrgggghhs.
Jake: Oh, yeah, the Smurfs.
Lucy: They say Smurrrrgggghhs a lot in all their sentences.
Jake: Just a Smurfy bit.

This went over Smurfily.

OK, off to bed.  Goodnight, Frankenstorm.  Hope you don't smurf us all.