Weekly Wordzzle Challenge # 219

Oops... I forgot all about Wordzzles today, so I'm posting very late. My apologies.  It's late, so I will yet again be putting off doing my exercises until tomorrow. Sorry again.

6:10 Saturday: Finally finished. Had a hard time doing these. I like the last one, just because I like my play on words. The other two are pretty lame. Now I can go read CJ's offering. Yippee! I'm not the only one this week!

Words for this week's 10-word challenge:  gratitude, immediate, vivid, choice, fragments, carving, charity, solitude, lagging, where did I put my glasses   And for the mini:  irresponsible, teddy bear, colorful, knife and fork, wheels


My mega: 

Amanda Collins set down her knife and fork and sighed deeply, enjoying a few moments of solitude.  and the luxury of being a little irresponsible and self-indulgent for a change. (Joe was working late and she had treated herself to Chinese take-out despite the fact that their budget was lagging slightly behind their expenses.) She would have loved a glass of wine but since that was not possible at the moment, settled on a glass of water instead. She could hardly believe that it was already September and that she was six months into married life. It seemed like only yesterday and not three years ago that she had met her husband at an event for the charity event in New York City...it had been called the Fragments Ball and Auction for Autism, she recalled, though she no longer remembered why. At the auction, Joe had outbid her on a wonderful carving she had fallen in love with. Afterwards he had asked her out on a date and a year after that - when he proposed - he had given her the ring attached to the small carved object that had brought them together in the first place. How could she not say yes to someone that romantic?  Reaching for the cookbook that was lying on the edge of the table, she whispered to herself, "Enough goofing off. Time to earn my keep and start planning the menu. Where did I put my glasses? I guess it's really true that pregnancy impacts memory." She was not looking forward to Thanksgiving. Not that she wasn't full of gratitude for all her blessings, but beyond the work involved in cooking for nine people, the politics of playing hostess to her own family and Joe's at the same time was daunting indeed. There was no choice, unfortunately. It had been scheduled months ago, before the big news. She was still only 3 months pregnant, but what she and Joe liked to call the Grandparent Wars were in full swing. Almost immediately on hearing the news a short two weeks ago, both sets of parents had apparently completely lost their minds. Her as yet unborn child had a huge and vividly colorful collection of teddy bears in many sizes, and two of the classiest baby wheels (strollers) on the market. And there were promises of furniture and a host of other gifts. Not that they didn't appreciate their parents' enthusiasm and their offers of help, but it was already clear that finding a way to draw a line so that they got to enjoy the journey and excitement of preparing for their first child together was going to be tricky. We'll work it out, I guess, she whispered to the miracle still forming in her belly. Lucky you.... to be so wanted.


And my mini:

"How could you be so Irresponsible! I want an explanation and I want it now! I can't believe you did that! Put down your knife and fork and answer me now, young man!"  Fred "Wheels" McCarthy could hardly believe the fuss she was making. Looking at the filthy, mutilated pile of his younger sister's once colorful teddy bears, he replied. "We needed targets, Mom and Annie said we could borrow them." "Annie is three and you know full well that she didn't know you were going to destroy them.," she said shaking her head in aggravation. "Well, you will pay for them. No computer for a week and you will work until I decide you have done enough to pay for replacing them." "But, Mom," Fred started to offer his best whine.... then, looking at her face thought better of it. "OK," he said, instead. "Good decision," his mother said, "Now, finish your dinner and when you are done you can clear the table and help me wash the dishes... for starters." Life, Fred, thought to himself, is so unfair.


And the 10-word:

"Where did I put my glasses?" Choice Martin, asked his wife, whose immediate response was - incorrectly in this instance - probably on top of your head." Despite her penchant for gentle mockery, Choice felt nothing but gratitude for Jenny, his beloved companion of 30 years. She had rescued him - he still  felt a kind of awe-struck wonder at the fact that she loved him - from a life of wounded solitude. His had not been a happy childhood. His mother - a fanatical anti-abortion activist (hence the name Choice) had made it clear that she had given birth to him as kind of a noble act of charity because it was, she was fond of telling him, "the right thing to do." He had vivid fragments of memory of being forced to stand outside clinics at the age of 2 or 3, carrying a sign that said (he learned later) "Make the right choice." Annoyed by his lack of toddler gratitude and enthusiasm, she would scold him for lagging and lolly-gagging, explaining how less morally right mothers - usually, she would point to some young woman entering a clinic - might have ended his life before it began. By the time he was a teen, he found himself rather wishing that she had spared him and when he reached his 20s and moved out on his own, he began working for a pro-choice (ah, the irony) organization in the community where he first met his beloved Jenny, whose perceptive heart saw beneath his surface and began gently, patiently, carving through the layers of hurt and shame and self protection to help him realize that he was not a burden to be endured, but a treasure to be mined. She had taught him the difference between love and duty and he had felt not only loved, but liked, for the first time in his life.  His mother had never spoken to him again. "Your choice,"  he had replied in their last conversation, wondering if she understood the irony.

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Words for next week's 10-word challenge:  funding, week, truck, paper, salt, that's why we're here, globe, lemonade, tight, vigor 

And for the mini:  extreme makeover, perfect sense, good news, cheater, share

Thanks you for playing.  Newcomers can check here for some guidelines to make the game more fun. There are no rules, just some general guidelines and tricks.