Saturday Wordzzle Challenge: Week 10

This is week 10 of the Saturday Wordzzle challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works. Expecting company tonight, so I'm posting extra early this week. We no longer have the benefit of colored text (or if we do I don't know how to do it), so I guess I will go with bold for the 10 word and bold italic for the mini words and see how that goes. I also can't figure out how to center things now. I'm generally irritated by all of this, but life goes on, I guess and I could have much more difficult problems to contend with, so I'll stop whining and get this posted. I'll leave that incoherent sentences about lack of color and centering, and tell you all that Jay Simser, hero of the hour, solved my dim-wit problem. "Try clicking compose in the upper right hand corner," he said. I did, and order has returned to my blogosphere. Thank you, Jay!

The words for this week's ten word challenge were: pleasant, fluky, desperation, penumbra, hoarsely, triumph, burden, colander, Kermit the Frog, lavender And for the Mini Challenge: avalanche, masterpiece, yellow, alligator, thieving


Here's my ten-word offering for this week.

Sitting under the penumbra of his colander shaped hat, Kermit the Frog sang in a hoarsely pleasant voice about the burden of being green. Watching the parade of other stuffed animals saunter along the toy store aisles, however, he realized with a fluky sense of triumph, that perhaps his tragic desperation had been misplaced. I could, he suddenly thought to himself, have been lavender and that would have been much worse.

And here's my mini challenge:

Although some hailed it as a masterpiece of creativity, there was a virtual avalanche of criticism from others who accused the artist of being a thieving poseur, simply because the giant sculpture was a somewhat modern version of The Thinker made entirely of alligator clips covered in paper mache made from yellow post-it notes, all of it stolen from his place of work.

And the mega challenge:

Stan "the Alligator" Almagorda, was - in his real life outside the ring - the mild mannered Martin Johnson. He was a tender father who read bedtime stories to his twin daughters every night and pretended to be Kermit the Frog, in a remarkably good imitation of the "real" thing. His at home voice was quite pleasant compared to the hoarsely rasping grunts he used for his WWF persona. He worked very hard keeping a penumbra of privacy around his children so that they would not be burdened by the fluky desperation of thieving yellow journalists harassing them and rifling through his and their lives with no regard for decency or their privacy. They had to be especially careful that nobody discovered that his arch rival Bruno Bunker (aka the Avalanche) was in fact his best friend and the girls' godfather. In later years, when the girls were older, they would live to regret the great blackmail material inherent in Bruno's regular performances as Don Quixote of Bensonhurst which had been such an instant triumph with the girls that he reprised the role often and even allowed them to film the theatrical masterpiece fully costumed in his colander hat with the lavender feather, their father at his side wearing something equally absurd. For now, though, they knew only the joy of the children's laughter.

This week's vanity wordzzle used the words: home, happy, scanner, smoke, flower, unsweetened iced tea, jealous, calculator, gym, widget

“What the hell is a widget?” Lucinda roared, angrily crumpling up the large instruction sheet which had come with her new exercise machine She had decided it would be easier and more efficient to do her workouts at home than at the gym, but here she was, tired after a long day at the office, forced to drink damned unsweetened ice tea instead of the gin and tonic that she craved desperately, and the damned instructions for the stupid machine didn’t make a lick of sense even if she knew what a widget was. It was insufferable. She wanted a cigarette too, but no, she couldn’t smoke either. She would show that bastard for leaving her. He would be sorry. He would want her back and she would happily laugh in his smug, stupid, ugly face. It would be his turn to be jealous. Yes indeed. Yes indeed. She pulled out her calculator and quickly computed how long it would take her to lose the desired 30 pounds if she allowed herself one drink a day. One probably wouldn’t hurt. But no, she needed to shape up and shape up fast before the stinking bastard hooked up with some flowering young thing who was all gooey-eyed and fresh faced and would worship the ground he walked on just as she had once done. Damned bastard. How could he have left her? How? She had given her all to make him happy, had given him two beautiful children and put him through his last two years of college. And what did she get for thanks. “Sorry, honey, it just isn’t working for me any more. I need my freedom.” Son of a. . . A voice from the computer announced cheerily – “You’ve got mail,” and she headed eagerly over to see what it was, wondering if maybe he had changed his mind, was ready to apologize, come home, then caught herself and shook her head. Fool. It was then that she noticed the scanner. It had been one of his favorite toys and now, suddenly, Lucinda thought, “Ah.” Perhaps a little revenge was in order. It would be a three-pronged attack. He was never coming back even if she lost 30 pounds and revenge was definitely sweeter than this lousy iced tea. First she would send his picture to a number of law enforcement agencies… Let’s see… If she was careful of her phrasing…. Lucinda sighed, mixed her self a stiff drink and smiled happily for the first time in days.


Anyone who wants to emulate the amazing megawordzzlers can try merging both challenges and make another megawordzzle. It's fun! I'm so glad that Jay Simser invented it. As if megawordzzles weren't enough - it seems to be a guy thing - some participants are adding extra layers of difficulty. Jay incorporates pet salamanders into his paragraph every week, the pirate not only got all the words in, but he used them in order.

Next Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: cranberry sauce, amber, laundry list, coffin, morning glory, shalom, mystery, sparrow hawk, pumpernickle, stained glass
And for the Mini Challenge: margarita, gum wrapper, spring fever, Darfur, lace

By the way: Spelling is not something I am very good at. If you notice a misspelled word (and you will), let me know and I'll fix it.

Thanks for playing. For those who are new, here are some guidelines to make the process more fun.

Enjoy! See you next week.

DON'T FORGET TO ADD YOUR NAME TO MR. LINKY!!!!!