Saturday Wordzzle Challenge: Week 44

Yikes! I almost forgot it was Friday! This is week 44 of the Saturday Wordzzle challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works. I had a hard time with the mega this week.... Not happy with my results this week, but such is life and it's only a game and...

I’m thinking that everyone is probably going to be busy with the holidays for the next couple of weeks so maybe we should take a break and return to Wordzzles in the New Year on January 9^th/10^th.

The words for this week's ten word challenge were: When pigs have wings, Moonlight, Mystery, Tower of Babel, Butterflies, Bread and butter, Beef barley soup, Charley horse, Novelty, Cold shoulder Mini Challenge: Software, Lottery, Newspaper, Mailman, Ringo Starr’s drum

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

The Tower of Babel club was hosting its annual Moonlight Mystery weekend at the Old Spangler mansion. Mortimer Spangler had made his fortune selling novelties and his fame exploring discovering a new species of butterfly. Rumor had it that the mansion was haunted but nobody really believed it. It was Charley Horse’s turn to be in charge of the event. Everyone should have known it would be a disaster. Charley was cheaper than Jack Benny pretended to be. So when the main course for the mystery dinner turned out to be beef barley soup and bread and butter, there was general grumbling and talk that perhaps it should be a real murder this year and not just a pretend one. Charley was oblivious, of course, until Margie Winslop, who until now this occasion had been flirting shamelessly with him, gave him a glacially cold shoulder and responded to his request for a date by saying “when pigs have wings and not even then.” Once the Spartan meal was behind them, however, the event went splendidly. Charley not only got his date with Margie but ended up married to her. The club members forgave him, but he was never ever allowed to plan the meal portion of an event again.

And here's my mini challenge:

Sam Martinez had been content enough working as a mailman, though the strain on his knees and back had begun to tell of late. He had been working since he could remember, delivering newspapers on his bike starting when he was seven. Now suddenly he was a lottery winner, able to live some of the dreams he had never thought possible – a home of his own (and one for his parents), a fancy computer with all the software anyone could ever dream of having… and best of all a special gift for his father… a signed replica of Ringo Starr’s drum – signed by the man himself, along with tickets to London and a live performance featuring his life-long hero. Finally a Christmas gift his father would like. Life was good.

And for the mega challenge:

Harvey Hegglemeyer, the software genius – he had been written up in the national newspapers - and creator of three best selling games (called respectively Butterflies in the Moonlight: A Mystery; Tower of Babel; and When Pigs Have Wings) had a weakness for catalog shopping. It was a good thing that his genius earned him truckloads of money because he tended to spend his fortune almost as fast as he earned it. His favorite catalog was called Charley Horse Novelties and he waited eagerly each month for the mailman to deliver it to his door. It offered a range of unique products which included things like (allegedly) Ringo Starr’s Drum and other rare collectibles which were sometimes sold by lottery. His other favorite catalog was Cold Shoulder Organics which provided him with his favorite foods stuffs, among them Happy Hoof Beef and Barley Soup, a dazzling assortment of breads and butters (all organic), and some of the best “home made” jams a man could dream of tasting. Of course they sold popcorn and chips and even organic wines and fresh vegetables too. Harvey hardly ever went to the grocery store any more. Amazingly, there was even romance attached to his catalogs because he had written to the Janna Janes, the editor of Cold Shoulder only to discover that she was incredibly beautiful and a kindred spirit besides. They had exchanged first letters, then phone calls and when they had met a few months later, it was love at first sight. They were to be married in June. He had ordered his tux from his favorite clothing catalog. Janna had thought that was a bit too much catalog shopping, but she loved him enough to overlook it.

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This week's vanity wordzzle used the words: monastery, cyclone, corncob, tenacious, rat, be-bop, Marxist, tingle, fraction

It had been a bit of a leap, going from being a Marxist to being an initiate at a Jesuit Monastery, but Edgar Martin - or Brother Eustacius as he was now called - had always been a man of wild extremes and divergent interests. During his pre-Marxist years he had studied classical violin at Julliard, but several years into his studies had decided he preferred the freer rhythms of Be-bop. Then one evening, returning home from a gig in the Bronx, he had gotten lost and had stumbled on a ragged, starving street person fighting a rat for a half-eaten corncob. Like a cyclone, that scene had spun him around and lifted him out of his complacent middle class world forever. He had become tenacious in his passion to eradicate such scenes, such injustice from the face of the earth. He had tried social work first, but it was not enough, was too slow, too mired in bureaucracy and hypocrisy. Marxism had proven to be no better, so now he had moved on to the Church. The fire to bring hope and healing tingled and burned and churned inside him. He could not still it. He had faced the reality that on the material plane, he could accomplish barely a fraction of what was needed, so he had decided to throw his lot in with the Almighty. It was said that prayers and faith could move mountains, so maybe they could move human hearts as well. He would try. At least he could do that much.

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Next Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: We were born on the same day in the same hospital, Weeping willow, Two for one sale, Highway robbery, Burial ground, roll of paper towels, gospel singer, gallows, weirdo, volcano

Mini Challenge: Symbiosis, Sagging breasts, Navaho blanket, Frogmen, Who says I got no heart?

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

Enjoy!

See you in TWO weeks.

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