Saturday Wordzzle Challenge: Week 42

This is week 42 of the Saturday Wordzzle challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works. I do apologize for the "rhubarb" thing. I tried not put it onto the list but I just couldn't stop myself. I have no idea what the actual history of it is, but my brother and I used to walk around saying that when we were kids and for some reason I have always thought it extremely funny. But still, I'm sorry you all had to deal with it this week. My apologies.

The words for this week's ten word challenge were: think the rain’ll hurt the rhubarb?, B Vitamins, credit card, jolly, angels, mouse, three ring circus, haiku, sponge, copper Mini Challenge: compulsive, trunk, African violets, curiosity, UFO

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

Though it wasn’t a word commonly used except in regard to Santa Claus, Amanda Jones was, simply put, jolly. She loved life and she loved laughing. She had curly copper red hair, laughing green eyes and a smile that flashed easily and often. Sitting at the computer, she thought about the three ring circus of her daily life and rejoiced in it. Her children were by no means angels, but she took her B vitamins regularly, didn’t worry too much about keeping the house tidy and found ways to keep her creative juices going while the kids were at school. Thank god for her computer and the blogosphere. She quickly logged on and paid her credit card bill and then moved on to a haiku challenge. Use the two assigned words in a poem or poems. She’d already taken care of rhubarb:

Childhood silliness

Think the rain’ll hurt the rhubarb?

Who knows what it means

The second word was proving to be a challenge… She sat absent-mindedly spinning the mouse with her right hand waiting for inspiration. And then it came:

Choose the life you want

Some focus on grief and pain

I will sponge up joy

Life is good, she thought, posting her poems. Maybe I’ll even do some cleaning today.

And here's my mini challenge:

As she watered her African Violets, Sandy compulsively peered out the window, curiosity overcoming whatever fear she had. She could no longer pretend that the UFO had been a figment of her imagination. It was sitting in her yard and the strange being heading towards her front door – he or she looked rather like a tree trunk on legs - was certainly not a Jehovah’s Witness. “Oh my,” she thought, “It’s going to be an interesting day.”

And for the mega challenge:

Harvard J. Mouse nibbled on a B-Vitamin and pondered the wisdom of working for a travelling three ring circus. Compulsive curiosity had gotten him into this mess… that and the fact that he had been born looking like something that came off a UFO, but he wondered some days if it hadn’t been a mistake. Looking at his massive credit card bill, he felt seriously depressed. He would not so much mind paying for the exquisite porcelain statue of Santa and his 10 jolly elves, had Copper his beloved cat, not felt the need to smash them to smithereens within seconds of their arrival in their little RV. “Stay away from those African Violets,” he screamed as the aforementioned cat – no angel ( indeed he was prone to destroy everything within reach and reach everything no matter how hard Harvard tried to secure its safety) - was making an effort to do some pruning. The only way anything was safe was if he put it in the big trunk which rather defeated the joy of having it. But when he wasn’t being naughty (it did happen), Copper was a master hugger and his deep rumbling purr was a comfort against the loneliness of moving from one strange place to another. Without thinking about it, Harvard picked up a sponge and efficiently cleaned up the cat’s latest mess. Today, gloom and loneliness seemed to be overwhelming him. And then his eye fell upon a gift he had received from a friend from the blogosphere. It was a small self-illustrated book of haiku entitled, THINK THE RAIN’LL HURT THE RHUBARB. Just looking at it and thinking about Amanda Jones lifted his gloom. He was looking forward to meeting her when the circus got to LA in a few months.

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This week's vanity wordzzle used the words: technology, moonbeam, cork, light switch, birdcage, geisha, museum, alert

"I call it Moonbeam Technology," Fred Feldspar exclaimed ecstatically, his pride of inventorship literally glowing from him. Only the beautiful young Geisha standing beside him showed any signs of alertness. "Ah," she intoned earnestly, "and what does it do, Feldspar-san?" "Why, it doesn't do anything, Kyoko honey, it just is. That's why it's moonbeam; it's unconscious technology, like, say, the way the sound of a cork popping might invoke memories of your drunken father or fancy bird cage could mean any one of a number of things. In a museum, it could be a work of art, but even there if it were empty it could symbolize or invoke feelings of freedom or death or captivity depending on what you bring to it. So, Moonbeam Technology is anything which acts as a kind of a light switch into the subtler regions of the mind, into the unconscious. Get it?" Kyoko nodded sweetly and reminded herself that not all her days would be like this. "Ah so, Feldspar-san. Moonbeam Technology. Very unusual." Feldspar beamed joyfully. He had been heard.

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Next Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: Horny as a toad, Frankenstein’s sister, Greeks bearing gifts, Holiday, Cheese grater, Gridlock, Drip dry, Coffin maker, movie mogul, Turkish coffee

Mini Challenge: prenuptial agreement, The purple cow just hated the orange cat, potato chips, sari, Hammer and nails

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!!!!!