Friday, October 17, 2008

Saturday Wordzzle Challenge: Week 35

This is week 35 of the Saturday Wordzzle Challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works. I have had an AWFUL time this week. AWFUL. No more words from Melli... (just kidding... keep em coming... and thank you very much for coming up with this week's challenge.) Once again there is a mysterious black line that I can't get rid of. At least it feel in a sort of convenient place, I guess. Ok... on to my tragically convoluted and forced entries. Looking forward to seeing how everyone else did.

The words for this week's ten word challenge were: blinking, cellulite, crescent, ship-shape, homonym, suffering, packer, wind chime, scissors, necklace And for the Mini Challenge: static, floppy hat, penguin, cinnamon, alphabetical,


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


What a pain it is to see that broken pane in my otherwise ship-shape house,” Sarah chanted. “I do love homonyms.” She wondered if she could call having the electric company “sell you light” a homonym for cellulite. That was as far as Raven could get with the words. Yet again she was suffering from a sense of profound defeat as the words taunted her with an unwillingness to put themselves into sentences in her head. Nibbling on a yummy crescent roll as she waited for inspiration, she was beginning to worry that some synapses in her brain had gone packing. Typing that sentence she wondered if packing was close enough to packer to count. She wasn’t sure, so the computer’s cursor continued its relentless blinking, taunting her with her inability to move forward. Outside her window a wind chime seemed to be mocking her and she was tempted to pull out her scissors and silence it for good. Is that all of them, she wondered? Damn. Still have to use necklace. Whose idea was this stupid game, anyway?



And here's my mini challenge:


Aaron Anderson thought that sometimes it paid to have alphabetical order put you at the front of the list. Mostly, he preferred going last, but in this case… His girlfriend, Cinnamon, wanted that goofy penguin in the floppy hat that the radio station was giving away. “I’ll name him Static,” she had cooed lovingly, and he knew in that moment that his future happiness was tied to securing that penguin at any cost.



And the mega challenge:


Cinnamon the beautiful orange cat with the crescent shaped white mark on her forehead, sat blinking with contented pride in her recent decorating efforts, oblivious to the fact that her thick fur was standing on end with static electricity. Her human’s once ship-shape bedroom was no longer suffering from its formerly boring and tidy state. Cinnamon hoped that Person would be pleased with the improvements that she and her brother Packer had made to the rather staid décor. Packer, who had exhausted himself in his efforts to bring down the floppy hat Person wore to do her gardening, was curled up on top of it with his favorite penguin toy gripped in his paws. Around the room an assortment of books and papers lay in various states of shredding by the teeth and scissor-like claws of the two ambitious felines. The once alphabetical book shelf sat empty except for a small volume on How to Get Rid of Cellulite and the Big Book of Homonyms. Cinnamon’s favorite touch was the all the wonderful little pearl balls that she had finally freed up from that silly necklace. They were so much fun to play with that she could not understand why her otherwise creative human had kept them so foolishly tied up together. The familiar sound of the wind chime alarm system that person had hung over the door announced her return home. As sometimes happens with great artists when the throws of creativity pass, Cinnamon was suddenly not quite so sure of how warmly her efforts would be received.





This week's vanity wordzzle used the words: Smiley face, keys, stuffed parrot, fringe, molecular engineer, tribe, mist, undertow, forgotten


Wearing a black shirt with a big yellow smiley faces on it, a tricorn hat, a black eye patch, and carrying a large stuffed parrot on his right shoulder, John Jones always made quite a sensation when he visited the youngsters at the children’s’ cancer ward of St Mary’s Hospital. “Aye, matey,” he would bark in his best Long John Silver pirate voice, “I be Smiley Jack Jones, scourge of the seven seas. Who be ye?” And then Smiley Jack would regale the children with wonderful stories of his adventures on the fringes of the known world, trudging through steaming hot jungles or climbing into the mysterious mists of remote mountains to find exotic tribes of forgotten peoples and live among them. He would describe strange customs and sometimes even demonstrate special healing dances and rituals. Or he would tell the story about how once, on a tiny island in the Pacific, he had been caught in a strong undertow only to be rescued by the native, who having saved him, had, by tribal law, to adopt him as their own. Then he would take out his bag of test tubes and needles and explain to them how he was empowered to make them blood brothers as well. And even those children who were usually frightened of needles came eagerly forward to give their blood. Then at the end of the session, Smiley Jack would pronounce the world of initiation and there would be hugs and smiles all around. Only the next morning, bag full of samples, would Smiley Jack become again John Jones, molecular engineer and cancer researcher and go back to work hoping that somewhere in these children’s blood he would find the keys that would save them.


~~~~~~~~~~~~


Many thanks to Chatty, Melli, and my young neighbor Shannon for next week’s words. I stuck in a couple myself.


Next Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: build-a-bear workshop, man bites dog, opulent, disparaging, lipstick stain, preponderance, smoky quartz, clothes pin, meticulous, falling leaves

Mini Challenge:
moisturizing, pickles, seat belt, flip-flop, Chicago


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!!!!!



13 comments:

Chatty said...

Very cute, Raven. And yes, as far as I'm concerned, "packing" is close enough to "packer" I am supporting you now because I know I will need similar support later ; )

Mine are up, too.

Lu' said...

Ha I can see my two girls bringing that story to furry flurry life :)

Melli said...

HA! You DARE to complain about MY list - and THEN hit us up with NEXT WEEK's 10-Word!!! *GASP!* You gotta be KIDDING me!!! LOL! (actually, I had quite a time with my own words this week...*sigh*... but I also insisted on doing all 3 challenges - seeing as how they were MY words!) They are "scheduled" to be up sometime soon! (I'm not sure what time zone Blogger works on - I know it's not mine!) Anyway...

I'm LMBO at your 10-word! Your mini was cute... and I can absolutely PICTURE your mega! That was GREAT!!! Me thinks thou doth protest too much!

Akelamalu said...

LOL I love the way you made the impossibility of using the 10 words into a story - genious!

We both called a cat Cinnamon!

I really struggled with all the words this week - are they getting harder or is it just me? :(

Dr.John said...

Four great stories. I really liked the one about the "pirate".

bettygram said...

I am new and I have enjoyed the challenge. You did very well on the four stories.

Dianne said...

"sell the light" and "cellulite" !!! how can that be anything other than inspired.

and the feline decorating team! LOL
I especially love how they freed the pearls from the necklace. Siren often looks at me as if to say "but it's better this way! why are you upset?"

brilliant and fun and whimsical and wonderful Raven

Carletta said...

I loved them all Raven. You had me laughing from the beginning with your ten word - just how I feel most weeks attempting these!
Loved the mega - such a visual treat!

I don't think anybody got what I was saying with 'static' at the end of mine. I was trying to elude to the fact the little girl couldn't say 'stack it' with her blocks when I used 'static' - uh!

Richard said...

Great Mega this week. Is that really how Cat's think? Probably, huh?

Rich

Jeff B said...

I enjoyed the word frustration displayed in your ten word. Ha, been there felt that.

I'm taking another week off from participating. Yikes...that's two in a row. I had to work two night shift projects this week and it's thrown my schedule all out of whack. Hopefully I'll be back at it next week.

Travis Cody said...

Love the mega! My own Mr Tucker sometimes looks so proud of the messes he makes...how can you scold him?

~ej said...

love these still...must remember to participate in this coming week's!! :)

San said...

Raven, you've outdone yourself this week. The portrait of your cancer researcher/pirate is compelling. And the story of Cinnamon and her room redo unfolds so playfully. The books left on the shelf--How to Get Rid of Cellulite and The Big Book of Homonyms--hilarious!

Aaron's static moment of epiphany and Raven's ten-word frustrations--I enjoyed those too.