Weekly Wordzzle Challenge: Week 111

Is anybody else having weird blogger problems? While I was trying to write this, it was literally saving almost every other word... And now I can only access one post at a time, not the whole blog.... Just me or...?

This is week 111 of the Weekly (previously known as the Saturday) Wordzzle Challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works. Oops... the mini had six words! Sorry about that. Really sorry. I'm having a terrible time getting anything written this week. Sorry about posting late too... This was one of the toughest collections of words I've come up with in a long time... especially with an extra one!

This week's 10 word challenge is:

clam chowder, chapter and verse, mega sale, arguably, tribe, shake a leg, platform, smelly shoes, gray hair, dangling participle

For the mini: gone fishing, privacy, noticeable, customary, tooth ache, disposable

The 10-word:

It was Super Duper Mart's annual mega sale and the store was packed and noisy. As she was pulling a dozen cans of her favorite clam chowder off the shelf, Charity Johnson was startled by a voice directly behind her." Hey you, with the smelly shoes...Shake a leg." She turned around to see arguably the ugliest - and possibly the strangest - human being on the planet. He had long gray hair that was randomly streaked with pink and green, a large, bulbous nose, and a pair of glasses that magnified eyes that were two different colors. He wore a green hat that said "Chapter and Verse" on the brim, purple platform shoes, orange and green striped leggings and a t-shirt that said Dangling Participle Tribe. "Dad, you miserable dead beat!" she gasped... "I should have known you'd show up for the mega sale!"

The mini:

The swelling from Nate Wilson's tooth ache was noticeable even given the customary puffiness of what is wife referred to - much to his dismay since she did not limit her exuberance to the privacy of their own home, but felt a need to gush it out in every conceivable and humiliating circumstance possible - as his "adorable chipmunk cheeks". As a consequence of this, his ego had long ago gone fishing, so to speak, but fortunately his sense of humor, his self esteem and his lover for his wife remained in tact. He did on occasion wish that he had enough disposable income to take his cheeks to a plastic surgeon, but Helen was against it and now it seemed like the dentist was going to get any extra money they had in their bank account... and that was the case even though their dentist was Helen's cousin Jim. Speaking of Jim.... the door opened and a voice called... "c'mon in, Chip." It was going to be a long day.

The maxi:

Paula Platform pulled the disposable camera out of her pocket and snapped some tourist photos of the reservation, trying not to be too noticeable. Frank and the boys had gone fishing, trying to capture the spirit of the place without violating anyone's privacy. Looking around at the terrible poverty of the place, she decided to spend every penny she had at the Tribal gift shop's mega sale. How dreadful it must be, she thought, to have it be customary for some gray haired stranger like herself, sweaty clothes and smelly shoes wandering around your home observing you like you were a zoo specimen or an exhibit at a museum. Arguably, tourist trade was a source of income, but still... she wished she had a platform to express her distress... it nagged at her like a tooth ache or a dangling participle. She was a kind and passionate woman and this kind of poverty - and the history behind it - violated everything - chapter and verse - that she believed in. She hated that the only thing she knew to do to fix it - buying souvenirs - was part of the very thing she claimed to deplore. In the midst of this internal battle, she glanced at her watch. "Oh dear, I'd better shake a leg. Time to meet Frank and the boys at that clam chowder restaurant everyone was raving about at the hotel. She would have to save the world tomorrow.

***********

Words for next week's 10-word challenge are: carpenter ants, freak, good as new, jelly beans, olive oil, scamper, champion, goose egg, pizza, ceiling fan

For the mini: gravity, variable, swinging on a star, gardening, trombone

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!!!!!

The Daily Reminder

I got this idea to try and buck up the spirits of a friend of mine by sending her a daily reminder about herself.... I got so excited about the idea that I lost a lot of sleep last night thinking about what I would say and how I'd do it and then I thought.... well I could make this a daily feature at the blog and maybe it would get me blogging again, so.... here is installment one... slightly modified to protect the name of my friend. Hopefully I'll get better at it as the days pass.

Anyone reading this is reminded that God loves him or her. This love comes direct from God (aka Great Mystery, the Source, All-that-Is, Jesus, Buddah, Muhammed) and also through the love of friends and her/his 4 (and sometimes 3) legged companions. In moments of doubt or self loathing, dear reader, try looking at yourself through the eyes of your cat or dog or baby. Who are you to doubt the wisdom of God and all those who love you? To reject yourself is to reject their love as well. Do you really want to do that?

Katherine/Raven would be wise to ponder this thought. Do we dishonor those who love us - including God - when we are cruel to ourselves in thought, word or deed?

A few things I'm grateful for today.

ceiling fans

Tara Grace and Angel

Shannon has dropped by as I write this to brighten my day

Have a wonderful day

and remember to be kind to yourself

(and the rest of us too)!

The Texas Textbook Massacre

Seems like a petition worth signing. As I understand it, this rewriting of American history - because Texas is such a big customer - would be applied to textbooks across the United States. A history book which ignores Thomas Jefferson is not a history book. This country gets crazier and crazier every day. Scares me.

Weekly Wordzzle Challenge: Week 110

This is week 110 of the Weekly (previously known as the Saturday) Wordzzle Challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works. I had a tough time this week... my brain is in serious need of reprogramming. I think next week's words may be just as weird. Sigh. I guess a challenge is a good thing.... ????

This week's 10 word challenge is:

solar power, rooster, all God's children go to Heaven, prosperity, savage, cucumber salad, drizzle and fog, false teeth, library books, trench

For the mini: muscle spasms, charter boat, sunshine, microwave oven, ample bosoms

My 10 word:

Despite the morning's drizzle and fog, the neighbor's rooster was crowing so loud that Martin Trench was certain that there must be a loud speaker attached to barn. His feelings on the subject of the rooster were surprisingly savage. For a vegetarian who preferred cucumber salad to any form of meat, he was having visions of the aforementioned bird, plucked, basted and silenced forever. Inheriting his Grandmother's farm had not ushered in the sense of prosperity he had imagined. His first weekend here had been an emotional roller coaster, clear away the detritus of his grandparent's life-times... everything from old library books to false teeth, to brochures about converting to solar power (Grandma had never let herself get stuck in the past), to photo albums rich with memories of his own and his mother's childhoods. His favorite discovery so far was a dusty framed needlepoint Grandma had made as a child. "All God's children go to Heaven," it said. He knew she was there, at least.

The mini:

Standing by the microwave oven waiting for his instant dinner to be ready, Dan Jones reflected on his weekend with his daughter. Despite the agonizing pain of the muscle spasms in his lower back and a pretty bad sun burn, Dan Jones had to admit that his day of fishing with his daughter on the charter boat Sunshine and Roses had turned out better than he expected. The hot babe with the ample bosoms and a young daughter Rachel's age had proven to be good company and the four of them had had a great day. Rachel had a new friend and he had a date for next Saturday. On the whole, life was good.

The maxi:

Although the weather channel's promised sunshine had turned out to be drizzle and fog, Martha Jane Savage's spirits were high. She sat in a booth by the window at All God's Children Go to Heaven Cafe, savoring her cucumber salad, quiche and the wonders of sudden prosperity. The pile of library books and pamphlets on the table before her was enormous. She was still trying to grasp how much her life was about to change. Her 50 million dollar lottery ticket was about to propel her from a world of poverty and missed meals to a level of opulence she could only begin to imagine. She hardly knew where to start and found herself flitting back and forth between trying to select the right microwave oven to deciding how big her house should be and whether to invest in solar power, whether she should invest in more ample bosoms... her mind raced on and on in mad circles... Then there were some basic things. She wanted to get new, good, false teeth for her mother ... and a house for her too and maybe she and Rooster could get married now... and maybe instead of a house, they could buy the old Trench Family farm on Route 18 that hey had always loved... or maybe they should just travel or... Her head was suddenly spinning, though she had barely taken a sip of her glass of wine. It must be the tension of deciding what to do... It was giving her a headache and muscle spasms too... so she added massage and chiropractor to her list and reminded herself that she had a life-time ahead of her to make these decisions... and soon she would not have to make her decisions alone. Probably she would have more advice than she wanted. So far, she had somehow managed to keep the news of her winnings secret, but the State had promised that she would receive her first check next week. Conveniently, this coincided with her 40th birthday, so she had rented a charter boat for the weekend and told her family it was a birthday party. Instead she would surprise them all with her good news the promise of dreams come true for all of them. She could hardly wait to turn 40. Who would have thought she'd ever say that! Life was good indeed!

***********

Words for next week's 10-word challenge are: clam chowder, chapter and verse, mega sale, arguably, tribe, shake a leg, platform, smelly shoes, gray hair, dangling participle

For the mini: gone fishing, privacy, noticeable, customary, tooth ache, disposable

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!!!!!

Please Bless the Bees

(Please scroll down for Ruby Tuesday... but please read this too.... please?)

Yesterday I read an article about the dying off of honey bees. I've been aware of this for a while. I've read about it before, seen a PBS special on the subject... but most of all - what makes it painful and real - is that I don't see bees in my yard. The dandylions wave in the breeze untended by ungainly fuzzy little creatures who defy gravity. My flowering quince's blooms are unattended by pollen seekers. We take these little guys so for granted, but the dying of the bees is probably and even greater threat to life on earth than global warming. So far the source is a mystery... possibly pesticides, possibly global warming, possibly a mix of reasons. But whatever the reason, the pollinating bees are disappearing and dying at an alarming rate.

I'm more of a follower about things usually, but I want to try and start a "Bless the Bees" campaign. For myself, I'm going to figure out a way to send reiki. I haven't quite worked out a method yet. A friend wrote - "you mean like send reiki to the oversoul of the bees?" I love that phrase. The Oversoul of the Bees. I don't know if that's how I'll do it for myself, but it's such a great phrase, I don't want to waste it. In any case, I want to both raise awareness and try to send love and prayer out to the Universe on behalf of the bees and to ask everyone else to join in. Do whatever works for you, but do something. Here are a few possibilities...

• Prayer. Pray for the bees recovery.
• Gratitude. Hawaiian mysticism believes in the power of blessing, the idea being that that which we bless, that which we pay attention to, we draw toward us. I like that idea. So, you could take a minute to bless the bees when you see them. Bless their handiwork pollinating flowers and keeping our world green and growing
• Sending Reiki or some other healing modality (Love's a good one, white light... )
• If you're a gardener or have the ability, plant bee friendly plants or start your own hive
• Spread the word

Perhaps if we all spent some energy praying for, sending love to, even expressing our gratitude to these wonderful creatures who fertilize our flowers and our grains and keep the world in blossom, they will begin to recover. Let us hope they recover, with or without us. If they are wiped out by the mysterious plague that is currently decimating their populations - at least here in the US - it will be a poorer, hungrier, and grayer world.

I took this photo 2 years ago before my camera got

damaged and when the bees were still abundant.

I pray that they can recover and return.

So, anyway, I hope anyone who reads this will send some love or prayer or healing energy these small flying pollinators of our universe.... and ask your friends to ask their friends. I believe there's great power in prayer and love and even more in prayer and love wielded collectively. To help with the process, here's some information about bees. From Wikipedia and the article I read yesterday from Care2.com.

Wednesday Addendum:

I took up my friend's idea of talking to the Oversoul last night for a brief meditation on what to do and what I came up with (or the Oversoul or...) was an image of a giant "Healing Lotus" where the bees can come or be brought. In my "vision" (that seems a bit of a heady term for what it was, the lotus was surrounded by beings of light. That could be angels. It could be those of us sending love and prayer... or it could be both. Anyway, how exactly to use this image is still a bit vague for me, but I thought I'd share it in case anyone else wants to use it.

Gloomy Ruby Tuesday

Well, it's Ruby Tuesday.... brought to us as always by the amazing Mary at Work of the Poet.

There's sort of a dearth of red things in my life at the moment, mixed with gray skies and absurdly chilly weather, but I came up with a couple of birds and some confused foliage that thinks it's already Fall... Not my most inspired Ruby Tuesday, I'm afraid, but I wanted to try. I seldom flat out ask people to read things that I post, but I do hope you will consider reading about the plight of the bees in the post above.

I don't think my camera ever recovered from whatever happened to it last year when Shannon had an accident with it. I never like my pictures any more. Doesn't help that my windows are dirty and the sky is gray either, I suppose. Anyway, this is the best I have to offer at the moment.

This bush seems to think that it's moving to Fall,

even though Spring is just in mid bloom.

Of course the cardinal always insists on

hanging out at the farthest end of the yard

so blurry is the best I can get. He IS red, though.

This nice robin posed for me quite

patiently, but my pictures don't

do him justice at all.

It took me a while to realize (with

the naked eye) that this isn't a real

squirrel. This year the squirrels seem

to be hanging out with the bees . Haven't

seen a single one.

HAPPY RUBY TUESDAY!