"Personally, I'm against political jokes. They too often get elected to public office." - Henny Youngman

It's 5 a.m. and I've just had word.
Dad fell late last night and broke his hip. He'll have surgery this evening to repair the break and then do the typical post-op and rehab bit. At 95 years old that presents special challenges.

I try to write like I try to preach: have something to say, say it, and then quit. Too many good sermons have been neutralized by a preacher that was either trying to reach a target on the clock or grew enamored of his own voice. And when writing each chapter I tried to write succinctly, efficiently, and then stop when I felt the point had been made.
That meant I had no idea when I finished if I had a tome or a long pamphlet on my hands. So this morning I counted the words on a page in the first book and multiplied by the total number of pages. That's a rough estimate because I picked a full page and many of them aren't filled with text because they're the last in a chapter, include a diagram, or some other anomaly.
Book 1 - ~45,000 words.
Book 2 - 45, 895 words (an exact count done by the software).
Whew!

Late word: dad should be going into surgery in a few minutes (~ 3:30).

We don't have the storm to the degree Seattle is getting hit, but it is very windy, lots of rain, and occasional hail. In between waves of weather I got the kids' shed mucked out, but will wait until tomorrow to do the main barn. We're supposed to get a few hours of decent weather during which I'll try to get tasks done and a longer run fit in.

Later word: Dad's out of surgery, will be in recovery for about 90 minutes, and then back to his room.
We're keeping option the option of a quick trip to Seattle (just me), but we'll wait to see how recovery goes and where they send him for rehab.
Tough slog for someone 95 years old.