Saturday Wordzzle Challenge: Week 23

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This is week 23 of the Saturday Wordzzle challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works. Special thanks to Jeff B who sent me a wonderful list of about 60 words and phrases to take me through the next few weeks.

The words for this week's ten word challenge were: follow-up, buffalo wings, silversmith, furniture, as the crow flies, little red roadster, photograph, pencil pusher, argument, streaking

And for the Mini Challenge: Ireland, mashed potatoes, book worm, fog horn, T.S. Eliot

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

Martha wished she could get to Dinkledorfen as the crow flies instead of having to drive her little red roadster on twisting mountain roads, especially since there wasn’t even any place for her to pull over and take some photographs of the scenery, which was indeed quite beautiful. She was not adventurous by nature. No, she was a born pencil pusher who preferred shopping for furniture to pretty much any other sport around. About the most daring thing she had ever done (by her standards) was to eat buffalo wings at a greasy spoon in Idaho followed up by the worst and greasiest french fries ever made. She considered herself fortunate to have survived. That was as daring as she got, unless you counted streaking her hair that time, but she had only been 13 and all the girls were doing it, so it hardly seemed… but back to the point… she was not adventurous. She was not a driving mountain roads in Germany kind of girl. She was, however, a woman who didn’t like losing an argument and she would prove to that snotty, dim-witted Belinda Bigshot (who thought she knew everything), that the famous silversmith of Dinkledorfen was, in fact, both a distant cousin of Paul Revere and the greatest llving craftstmen in the world today – that is, if she survived the drive up this stupid mountain and lived to tell the tale.

And here's my mini challenge:

No place has better writers and poets than Ireland, Susan stated, serenely convinced of the rightness of her words. “What about T.S. Eliot, you boring book worm,” her brother asked, just to annoy her. (She loved T.S. Eliot.) “Well, of course T.S. Eliot is great,” she sputtered, “but the Irish as a whole… “She was interrupted by her father making a loud fog horn sound followed by, “Why don’t you both shut up and pass me the mashed potatoes. And also I’d like some tomatoes… Now that’s poetry,” he slurred drunkenly, and the children knew that conversation was over for the evening.

And the mega challenge:

Preparing to do her follow up report on the local silversmith and furniture maker, Reginald Ireland, who reputedly also made the best buffalo wings in the Sullivan county (yes, they were doing a follow-up report!), young reporter T.S. Eliot, briefly considered driving her little red roadster off the nearest cliff. She had gotten into an argument with her boss about the assignment to no avail. “You want to be a reporter or a pencil pusher?” he had snarled at her. “If the answer to that question is ‘reporter,’ your next assignment is to interview that wacky bookworm woman who wants to restore the fog horn and preserve the Streaking Island Light House by turning it into a library. And I want lots of photographs.” That assignment at least had some potential, she mused, and Reginald Ireland did have the virtue of being quite handsome and rather witty. He had also once starred in a soap opera called As the Crow Flies. Apparently, the secret of his buffalo wings was coating them with – you heard it here first – mashed potatoes. There was a good chance he was going to ask her out and dating a handsome ex soap star who could cook was not an altogether unpleasing idea. Looked like things might be going her way after all.

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This week's vanity wordzzle used the words: Recipient, rose quartz, UPS, yellow pages, the year 2000 computer problem, thermometer, flame, brandy snifter, electric toothbrush

What with the end of the world scheduled, Sylvia Johnson did not really see why people were so worried about the year 2000 computer problem. But then after she had had a few drinks, Sylvia tended to wonder why people worried about anything at all. She was not much of a drinker as a rule, but today had been one of those days, and she thoughtfully took another sip from the large crystal brandy snifter balanced between her hands. It has been one of the most horrible days of her life and she was tired to the bone. Aside from the fact that George had left her, finally, after years of threatening, the people at Publisher’s Clearinghouse had assured her that she was to be the recipient of a large sum of money on this very date. She had dressed herself neatly in preparation. (She did not intend to appear on TV in dressed only in a towel like some people.) And she had waited, and she had waited. Then finally, at 4:00 PM the bell had rung and she had run breathless to answer, only to find the friendly UPS man with a package for her neighbor. Some stupid electric toothbrush or thermometer or something according to the box. Insult to injury. The only delivery had been for someone else. Now it was 11:00 p.m. and as she stared wearily into the candle flame her eyes filled with tears. Sniffing them back she quickly gulped down the remaining brandy and rose shakily to her feet. Now what was she to do? At least with the money she could have hired a good lawyer, made sure she got her due from dear old George. Now she would have to resort to a lawyer from the Yellow Pages, if she could even afford that. It was so unfair. She hurled the empty brandy snifter against the wall and watched it shatter. It would be a nuisance to clean it up, but she had always wanted to do that or something like it, something high drama and passionate like they did in the movies. So perhaps the day was not a total loss after all, like her life. What had been the point, she wondered of all those years. A waste, a terrible waste. But even as she said that, here eyes fell on the large rose quartz heart that her daughter had sent her for her birthday last month and she realized with a start, that perhaps, disappointing and painful as this day had been, her life had not been such a waste after all. And picking up this rediscovered treasure, she went wearily to bed and fell into a gentle sleep clutching that precious heart against her own.

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Special thanks to Jeff B for next week’s challenges. Thank you so much Jeff. Thanks to him I have a list of words that will last me for another month or so.

Next Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: ghastly, excrement, bill of sale, vague, thicket, precarious, life long ambition, gunnery sergeant, posthumous, bellowed

And for the Mini Challenge: lap of luxury, yellow-bellied sapsucker, quinine, generalization, abnormality

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

Enjoy! See you next week.

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