Saturday Wordzzle

Go over to Raven's Nest and see how you can join us in the weekly Wordzzle. You can find the rules there.



The 10 words are: spaghetti, larkspur, Prilosec, roaring lion, adamant, green green grass of home, paradox, filibuster, face cream, trout fishing.



Here are the 5 words: jury of one's peers, barking dog, a wing and a prayer, liver, sprained ankle.



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Rep. Jimmy Joe Larkspur, (D) of Paradox, Arkansas, was one of the longest-serving members of the U.S. House of Representatives, and far and away its most colorful. He was known for his use of the filibuster at every opportunity, because he loved the sound of his own voice. Part of his filibusters always included him singing to his audience.

Just last year, he had to appear before a jury of his peers because his neighbor sued him. The neighbor claimed that Jimmy Joe’s barking dog startled him as he passed by, and he suffered a sprained ankle trying to get away from it. Jimmy Joe defended himself, and his dog, He said the neighbor was counting on “A Wing and a Prayer” to help him win his case. At that time, he started singing the song of the same name, and the jury joined in, and then acquitted him and his dog of any negligence.

His constituents loved him because he managed to include an astonishing amount of “pork” for his beloved home state, in the bills he championed. Currently, he was adamant in his determination to filibuster until he got a bill passed federalizing Roaring Lion State Park, which boasted some of the best trout fishing in the country.

Jimmy Joe was superstitious, so the night before every filibuster, he ate a huge plate of liver and onions and a side of spaghetti because he thought it gave him the energy to talk as long as necessary, and just before he went to bed he took a Prilosec. The next morning, he rubbed face cream into his lips because he though it kept them from getting dry and cracked.

At work, he whistled under his breath as he organized his papers for the filibuster. Finally, it was time for Jimmy Joe to be recognized. “Showtime,” he whispered, as he went to the podium and started to sing, as he did before beginning every filibuster, “The Green, Green Grass of Home.” The rest of the Representatives sat back and got comfortable to watch the show.

Wordzzle

I haven't done one of these in a few weeks because my brain was on vacation, and, as you will soon see, all of it didn't come back. Anyway, go to Raven's website, if you want to read all the other efforts.

The 10 words (actually, only 9 this week):

perpendicular

carpentry

garage

lute player

radishes

tin roof

wild flowers

stop light

gargantuan

The 5 words:

gravy boat

cat carrier

Madison, Wisconsin

March hare

gratitude


So, I decided to try putting them all together in the same little story.


Once upon a time, there was a man in Madison, Wisconsin, who practiced his carpentry with the precision of a lute player. You could tell he was a perfectionist by looking at his garden, with its perpendicular rows of wild flowers and radishes and other vegetables, which he watered with a gravy boat.

One day, he decided to take on the gargantuan task of building a new garage, with a tin roof. He was hurrying to the hardware store for more supplies, and blew through a stop light like a March hare and, luckily, received only a warning from the town constable. He expressed his gratitude by offering to build something for the constable. The constable thought for a moment, and said his wife wanted a cat carrier. So, the carpenter built the most ornate cat carrier he could design, and the constable and his wife loved it.

They all lived happily ever after, except for the cat.

Wordzzle

Another week, another attempt to put Raven's words together in a coherent story. This week's 10-word challenge is:


cocker spaniel
penultimate
fetter
warranty
tarmac
quartz
paparazzi
apple sauce
ear splitting
lackadaisical



My flight to Los Angeles was stuck on the tarmac, waiting for a gate to clear. For once, I didn't mind. In my lackadaisical fashion, I checked my quartz watch, the one with the lifetime warranty. It had stopped. This was the penultimate insult. I let out an ear-splitting howl, not unlike that of my cocker-spaniel, Puparazzi. People say my shreik can turn apples into applesauce, so it wasn't surprising when the flight attendant, unfettered by her usual duties, hurried down the aisle. "Madam," she scolded, "if you don't stop that screaming, I'll have to pt you off of this airplane. " The other passengers looked at each other and, opened their mouths as one.


They say you could hear them all the way to New York City.





My mind went blank on the five-words this week. Better luck next week.

Wordzzle

Jay, at Cynical Bastard, got me interested in reading the entries for Raven's Wordzzle game, and more or less dared me to give it a try. So here goes.




Five words:

History, Shylock, myrmidon, frozen, incapacitated

Due to a history of dealing with the local Shylock and his club-wielding myrmidon, Bruce, I am incapacitated inside the frozen tundra that is my mind.

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Ten Words

Fruitcake, necromancer, gibberish, Marshland, Lone Ranger, hog-wild, Effluvia, plaintiff , phonograph, Fern





“What’s that?” asked my friend, Fern, as the strains of the William Tell Overture sounded in the next room.

“Oh, my brother’s listening to his favorite radio show, “The Lone Ranger”.

“Sounds like gibberish, to me,” said Fern. And we turned our attention back to our dolls.

The year was 1948, the year that I discovered that I could talk to the dead. Just the night before, I had overheard my father telling my mother that it wasn’t natural for me to have so many imaginary friends. Imaginary?

I turned to Fern, “Are you imaginary?” I asked. “No,” she chuckled. “Then, why am I the only person who can see and hear you?” I asked, confused. She shrugged her shoulders and said calmly, “Because I’m dead.”

As the years went by, I learned the term for it. I was a Necromancer. By the time I was a teenager, I was acquainted with more of the dead than the living. At one point, I tried to turn off this unusual talent. But, they wouldn’t leave me alone. Sometimes, I would wake up in the night and hear music that sounded like a scratched record, played on a phonograph. Other times, I was confronted with a newly-deceased spirit that emitted an odor similar to marshland effluvia.

Naturally, it was impossible to keep my ability a secret. I tried to explain this talent to my parents, who wasted no time getting me into therapy. Then, when the therapist became convinced that I was the real deal, my parents made appointments for themselves, to learn how to cope with this changeling daughter they felt they no longer knew.

My brother blabbed early-on, of course. He couldn’t help himself. He went hog-wild with newfound popularity at school. Thereafter, I was called various names, but the kindest and most common one was “fruitcake.”

After law school, specializing in the area of wrongful death, I became a Plaintiff’s attorney, representing the families of the dead. Until my retirement, two years ago, I was very successful at obtaining large amounts of money for my clients, as well I should, since the dead could tell me what caused their untimely deaths, whether it be from a faulty appliance or at the hands of someone else.

Lately, however, since my retirement, it has been increasingly difficult to tell who’s dead and who’s alive. Everyone wears white, here, and they refuse to enlighten me. They keep wanting me to guess. I’ve never been especially good at that.