Friday, January 08, 2010

Saturday Wordzzle Challenge: Week 94


This is week 94 of the Saturday Wordzzle Challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works.

I hope everyone had wonderful holidays and that your New Year is off to a good start. It's still cold here (15 degrees) and it's snowing as I type this, but my little corner of winter is pretty tame compared to other parts of the country so I'll only whine a little bit. And I'll whine about the words secretly in my head because I always whine about them and it must get boring hearing me do it. Looking forward to reading this week's offerings. Happy New Year!



Postscript: Went to read my first wordzzle and realized what my brain was trying to whisper to me all the while I was writing yesterday. Minarets are NOT Chinese. Pagodas are Chinese. I feel very foolish, especially since I came up with these words myself. Agggghhhh!



This week's words were:
space cadet, silver lining, wood, turtle soup, minaret, ice, grease, sales, mandala, mug And for the mini: broken bones, slide rule, garbage, Chinese, sanguine


My mini:

The sanguine Chinese gentleman after watching me slip on the proverbial banana peel in the garbage strewn alley, smiled as he helped me up, intoning what he called (in his somewhat unique English) "the slide rule." No want broken bones, beware banana peels and back alleys." I had to admit he had a point.



The 10-word:

The silver lining to being in love with grease monkey Johnnie "Ice" Wolfensen was that there was much more to him than met the eye. Those who didn't know him thought he was just some stupid space cadet and he encouraged them to think so. He was careful about who he allowed into his life. Behind the scenes he was a genius on multiple fronts. He was an amazing painter and exhibited under the "pen" name "Wood." He was quite famous in art circles and sales of his paintings were consistent and brought in major bucks. Her favorites were the mandalas he made. There was something transcendental about them as though he channeled peace and healing onto the canvas and not just paint. Oddly, she had fallen in love with him before she knew all this, against the advice of friends or her own common sense. He had only let her in on the truth of his other life after they had dated for six months... on the night he proposed to her, actually... She never quite understood why he loved her, but he made her happy whether he was Johnnie or Wood. For their wedding he had given her a special painting... her favorite among all his works. It was a mandala made of a series of exquisite minarets of different sizes. Impossible to imagine or describe. Almost as good as his paintings were his abilities as a chef. Tonight the smells coming from the kitchen promised that he had made one of her favorites... and indeed he greeted her with a smile, a kiss and a wonderful warm mug of mock turtle soup. "I'm a lucky woman," she whispered. "I love you.."



The mega:



Space cadet, space cadet
Sanguine, I sing songs of silver linings
Mandalas and beautiful music
Space cadet, space cadet
I make sculptures of wood and ice
Of water and wind
Motion and stillness combined
Space cadet, space cadet
I make a Chinese minaret
Out of garbage and grease
Broken slide rules and broken bones
Space cadet, space cadet
I search for sales and
mugs of turtle soup
I search for hope in all these things
And once in a while I find it


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



Words for next week's 10-word challenge are: alternate reality, shadows, frantic, tomatoes, field, lilies, DVD, snow mobile, aggravation, music


And for the mini: grounds for divorce, pink panther, salutations, wavering, lasagne




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:

Hobbes said...

Happy New Year.
I enjoy your work.

Connie T. said...

I enjoyed reading your wordzze challenge. I did a 10 word challenge this time.

Akelamalu said...

Always a pleasure to read your efforts Raven. I didn't join again just too busy what with the festivities and packing for the holiday. I hope to get back into the swing when I get back. :)

Argent said...

The mini was brilliant! So succinct and funny.
In your 10-worder you paint such interesting characters, I'd love to meet someone like Johnnie.
But my fave has to be the poem, the rhythm of it, the repetition of space cadet is very effective, but the aliteration and just the whole bouncing-along feel of it... terrific!

bettygram said...

I liked your mini. I liked the very talented Johnnie or Wood.

Reston Friends! said...

I always love your love stories...

And the Chinese gentleman's slide rule is very funny!

But I agree with Argent, the poem has an ethereal quality, very appealing! Good job with hard words!

Dr.John said...

Of the three I would put the poem last. I loved the use of slide rule in the first one.
But I really enjoyed the second.
Well done.

Fandango said...

WE dragons like number one best. We like the shift of slide rule. We don't like the romantic stuff in the second but we loved the flow and rhythm of your poem.

DawnTreader said...

If you hadn't added that postscript, we'd all just have thought there was some very deep meaning behind that Chinese minaret... ;)

Stephen said...

The mini story, about the Chinese gentleman and his rule on sliding, was good. The 10 word story, about the grease monkey who was also a painter (and did other things as well) was also good. I probably liked your poem best, though. I didn't mind the Chinese minaret. China is a big place and could even have a few, but even if they don't, it doesn't mean they couldn't make them.

I'm running very, very late, but I have my stories up now.

Stephen from Scottsdale, Arizona, USA
http://stephen-has-spoken.blogspot.com/

Alice (in BC Canada) said...

Hi Raven.
Just for the fun of it, I decided to throw a new game out for every one. It's called: WHAT IS ABOVE YOUR BED????? Thom showed what's on the ceiling ... guess I could have been more specific, lol. What I was getting at was "What is on the wall above your bed?" Ah well... either way is good!! Hope you come visit and bring your friends along.

Casdok said...

Brillient very enjoyable.
Happy new year!

Don't Feed The Pixies said...

I agree - the poem is great fun

here's some suggested words and phrases off the top of me head:

10 word: Triffids, Badger, roll out the barrel, amazing, a lovely cup of tea, pressure, frozen, gandalf, pixies, top gear

5 word: smelly, politician, favourite, token gesture, garden

Hope you can use them sometime!