I'm sorry, Raven. Truly I am.

After a long hiatus (it probably should have continued, but what else am I going to do while I'm sick), I return to Wordzzle. Life has been running me ragged but when the germies slow me down I have to keep my brain busy (or I'll turn into a zombie and that ain't pretty). Now, don't sound the trumpets yet. When it's all over you may want to grab that Gong Show hook and drag me away.

If you click on the graphic up there (that square thingy that says Raven's Saturday Wordzzle Challenge), you'll find the Wordzzle headquarters. From there, you're just a clickity click away from leaving a comment and being able to visit other Wordzzlers (I think that's a word...).

So...

The words for this week's ten word challenge were: palace, hypocrite, canned air, telephone, biscuit, pinball, acorn, customary, fruit juice, waterfall

Valiant Knight Toby sat on the small chair, afraid to breathe. It creaked every time he shifted and it was as comfortable as sitting on a bowl of acorns. He was in Princess Ruby’s elfin palace for a very special celebration in his honour.
A plate of fresh biscuits was placed on a lovely doily in the center of the round table. As Princess Ruby started to pour the fruit juice into delicate flowery china cups, his mobile telephone rang. Her shoulders slumped a bit, but she didn’t look up and kept pouring the amber liquid. He rose gingerly and walked to the corner of the room, bent at the waist.

“My fair princess, I’m afraid I have to leave. The wizard summoned me, there’s a situation I have to attend to.”
“That’s all right.” she sighed. “I understand, you have some very important work to do.”
“I shall return as soon as I’ve dealt with the problem, I promise.”, he bowed as is customary when leaving a princess’s company.

He felt like a hypocrite and a cad, but the pinball factory paid him a great deal of money to keep things running smoothly.
He turned and noticed the banner that wished him a Happy Father’s Day and the waterfall of tears coming down his little princess’s cheeks. At that moment, you could have knocked him down with one small burst of canned air.

another wordzzle!

I'm stuck with a headache and the feeling that my arms weigh a ton. And I'm exhausted. The kind of tired you feel when you're emotionally drained.

Didn't much feel like writing... but playing with the words helped take my mind off my worries. Since I can't concentrate much today, I only did the ten word wordzzle.

The words we were given to attempt a coherent paragraph with were: exacerbate, leotard, path, tomato, Jungle Book, vagabond, parade, limber, storage, Maharajah.

Here goes:

Louis Prima

Antoine walked briskly down the path not wanting to miss the Mardi Gras parade. He deserved a break. He had just spent hours organizing the storage locker his vagabond mother rented just off the French Quarter. She kept such an odd collection of items. He found her old, dog-eared copy of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, signed by Louis Prima. She’d met him when she ran off to become a singer only to be told she was tone-deaf. There was her leotard from the “ballet” phase. She wanted to be in movies and dance with Gene Kelly. She gave that one up when she realized she wasn’t limber enough... let’s just say catching a tomato upside the head during a recital might have precipitated her decision. And there were the boxes of love letters from all her suitors, all as odd and varied as her collection of tchochkes. All the lifting he’d done exacerbated his bad back but it was worth it. Rolling Mother up in the Persian rug the Maharajah had given her after their torrid affair would allow him to discreetly dispose of her after nightfall.



Thanks Raven for hosting us... and thanks MommyWizdom for the words!

Don't forget the visit Raven and the other participants
via Mr Linky.

I'm going to go back to bed, snuggle with Sharkdog and watch a movie or something...

It's WORDZZLE!!!

I’m sorry for the delay. I had to edit this post. I could have sworn I’d scheduled it to publish this morning. ARRRR! No wait, Talk Like a Pirate day was yesterday... So, it’s Saturday and that means...


WORDZZLE!!!! (We need a theme song, seriously)

The words Raven has pulled out of thin air for this week's 10-word challenge: budget, news, outer space, gargantuan, brass band, Purple Rose of Cairo, polar bears, insight, innovations, mute. Thanks for making it so darn easy... NOT!


Steven walks by the brass band down the wide corridor and wishes their instruments were mute, his head is killing him. Ahead of him is a gargantuan door. Next to it, along the white wall is a row of chairs. The girl sitting behind the desk puts down the news rag and motions for him to have a seat. How did he get here? He didn’t have time for this! He had to balance the budget for the launch party his company is throwing in less than a week. Why the president of Insight Innovations decided a restaurant named The Purple Rose of Cairo was a good investment idea was beyond him, but then, his opinion wasn’t important. “NEXT!” booms a grave voice over an intercom. Quite frankly it’s a pleasant break from the horrible MUSAK they had playing. Seriously, David Frickin Bowie? Now he can’t stop singing Space Oddity in his head... It kind of feels like he’s Major Tom lost in outer space. The door opens and he unconsciously looks for the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain. How did he get here? A man sits behind a desk, waiting. “Hello Steven, what’s the last thing you remember?” he asks, his hands folded in front of him. “White, that’s all I remember...” replied Steven. “Ah... you remember the polar bears then? Welcome to Heaven.”



And now, for the wickedly fun mini challenge. This week, the words were: investments, purring, death penalty, mercury, convalescent home

Myrtle sat in her usual spot in the convalescent home. After her heart attack, the therapist said holding a purring cat might help ease the tension. Obviously the moron had never lost all his investments in a bad deal on Wall Street. She looked in the drawer next to her chair and counted the thermometers. 10. “I wonder if that’s enough mercury to kill that no good lousy stock broker nephew of mine”. Hopefully, New York State won’t enforce the death penalty.



Don't forget to visit Raven et al and read some fun stories. Hopefully Raven isn't regretting letting me join in again.

Saturday Wordzzle - what was I thinking!

Make sure you scroll down for my last entry in Robert's Show me Photography Challenge.

Last weekend, as I was recovering from being zombified, I decided to try my hand at Raven's Saturday Wordzzle Challenge. I have to excuse for myself this week.

The words we were given for the ten-word challenge are:
spam, problematic, flower girl, splurge, milk, orphanage, lyrics, politics, ice cream cone, cactus.

Here goes:

Wally looked up at the old clock tower and it confirmed what his stomach had been telling him, it was lunch time. He’d been thinking about his SPAM sandwich for at least half an hour. He always made it with sweet pickles and mustard. No one had ever wanted to taste his concoction and to him that wasn’t problematic because he liked it too much to want to share anyway. He put down the wheelbarrow he’d been pushing, wiped his brow with his handkerchief and walked over to the back of his old beat up Chevy pick-up truck. He leaned in and grabbed his lunch in the much reused wrinkled brown paper bag and his thermos filled with ice cold milk. He walked briskly towards his usual spot under the willow tree because he always looked forward to his lunch dates with Phyllis. He didn’t have to say much with her, which was a good thing. Wally wasn’t well versed in topics like politics and current affairs. He just liked to sit by her and look at the clouds in the sky, just like when they were children growing up together at the orphanage. Over the years, they had watched every other kid get adopted by nice families. But every Sunday night, they’d still be there and Sister Margaret would give them an ice cream cone to console them. Phyllis always cried and he would put his arm around her. Secretly, Wally was happy... he wanted to stay with Phyllis forever. Back in the summer of ‘71, she would turn sweet 16 and he was a few months shy of 18. Her favourite rock band was Cactus and she knew all the lyrics to all their songs. He had saved up for months working as the groundskeeper and splurged on concert tickets to take her when they came to town. He was going to ask her to marry him that night. Maybe one of the little ones at the orphanage could be her flower girl, he remembered thinking. He never did get the chance to ask her. After all those years at the orphanage with the sisters, she decided to become a bride of God and entered the novitiate. “So what do you say Sister, is today the day you try one of these sandwiches?” he said, as he sat down next to her. She looked up from her rosary and smiled. Almost forty years later, she still had an impish smile.

Words for the mini challenge were: drag race, poppy seed, swinging from a star, John Denver, diagram.



Tim was taking a break from prepping his car for the drag race. He'd been using a diagram that he got from the John Denver look-a-like at the track. When a girl walked down pit lane looking like she was a dancer at the Swinging From a Star stripclub, he dropped his poppy seed bagel on the carburator and his coffee in the oil tank. What a mess! She winked at the competition... mission accomplished!

Be sure and visit Raven and the other participants!