Raven's Challenge 41

Today's Link
A Sower's Heart

Saying for the Day
Playing with words is lots more fun than playing with blocks unless they have letters on them. Dr. John

Picture of the Day
From the Archives

It is Saturday and time to play with words supplied by Raven's Wordzzle
This Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: posthumous, flagrant, seven days a week, cheese and crackers, pyramid, civil war, clarinet, microwave, absent without leave, blue jeans
Mini Challenge: sugar-coated, thermometer, tractor pull, evangelical, masquerade

The Fifteen Words in the Ongoing Adventures of Agent 012

Facing the possibility that he would be forced into bed with Cinnamon , seven days a week , for the rest of his life Agent 012 did what the Agent’s Manuel told him never to do . He panicked
Now Agent 012 did not panic easily.
He had been on a pyramid in Egypt with a civil war raging around him and a man shooting at him with a gun shaped like a clarinet and he didn‘t panic..
He had been chained behind a tractor at the Great Midwest Tractor Pull by evil men masquerading as Evangelical pastors and he didn’t panic.
He had been held prisoner in that log cabin with only cheese and crackers to eat for so long the Agency declared him absent without leave and he didn’t panic.
He had been thrown into the world’s largest microwave with ten bags of sugar and the door closed. He thought he was about to become a sugar-coated Agent and he didn’t panic.
He had faced Thomas Thermometer, the killer in blue jeans who came after him with a chain saw and he didn’t panic.
But this was different. This was a fate worse than death. This was worse than getting static from the Chief. It was even worse than a visit from his mother-in-law. So in flagrant disregard of basic Agency rules he panicked.
In his mind he could see the posthumous report issued as internal memorandum at the Agency. It would read “ Agent 012 died yesterday because he panicked. Let this be a warning to other Agents. The rules are written for your protection.”
Despite all of that when he looked at Cinnamon and saw the gun and that look on her face he still panicked.
He could face being shot, or pulled apart, or living forever on cheese and crackers, or being cooked, or even being sliced and diced but he could not face one night in bed with that woman.
“ Come on lover” she said. “ Get out of those blue jeans and back to my bedroom . Let the ecstasy begin”
This really was not going to be his night.

All fifteen words in one sentence

The posthumous report had not sugar-coated the fact that Sergeant Timothy Masquerade while absent without leave for one month had , seven days a week, in blue jeans and carrying his clarinet and thermometer climbed the civil war pyramid to see first the great Evangelical Tractor Pull and then the Evangelical Microwave Cheese and Crackers Cooking Contest without paying, a flagrant misuse of power .

The Ten Word Challenge

Everyone has a pyramid of values. On the top is the one thing most important to us and then below that layer by layer the other things in our lives. The most important ones near the top and the one’s we can do without on the bottom. On the top of Jonathan’s pyramid was civil war history. If he didn’t have to work playing the clarinet he would spend seven days a week reading civil war history.
At the next level was his microwave and cheese and crackers. One gets hungry reading all that history.
In any case his clarinet was on the bottom of the pyramid just below being sat on by an elephant wearing blue jeans.
Now he was absent without leave from his position as head clarinet player for the Army Medical Band, a flagrant breaking of army rules.
Jonathan did not care he had found this huge book entitled “ Posthumous Citation of Civil War Veterans” and he just couldn’t put it down. If they came and threw him in the brig or whatever an army jail is called he didn’t care as long as he could take the book.
It was after all far more important than playing clarinet for a bunch of screaming school kids at the Abraham Lincoln School for the Upward Mobile Student which was the bands next concert.
The Army of course has a quiet different pyramid of values with obedience to orders at the top. When the two pyramids meet the Army pyramid will always win.
The really sad thing is they took away his book when they locked him up.
But they did give him his clarinet.

This week's vanity wordzzle uses the words: tiger, false, camera, obsolete, velvet, novelty, timeless, contract, mellifluous, sandalwood, perfection, xylophone, topography

He entered the make believe world of Doctor H. P. Sandalwood through a velvet curtain. In the background mellifluous xylophone music was playing. Keeping with the elaborate contract he had brought his camera and movie camera. He was assured that the novelty of this place was that it made obsolete animals appear to be alive. The topography was sheer perfection .The animals moved and certainly looked real. This was an unbelievable place and he felt so lucky to have been chosen to photograph it. Over there was a flock of White-eyed River Martins next to a Western Black Rhinoceros . Now that's not something you see every day. As he walked along there was one extinct animal after another. What a wonderful idea to show the world the timeless creatures that we had lost.
Now coming toward him was a tiger. He supposed it to be one of the many extinct tiger groups , like the Javan Tiger . He was sure that it was as false as all the others and he had nothing to fear. But he was wrong.

The Mini Challenge in News from Pigeon Falls

The little town in my basement where the trains still run, dragons fly, and life is back to normal.
It is Saturday and timer to look back over the week in Pigeon Falls.
Tuesday– The Petrovich twins were running a fever. Mrs. Petrovich used one of those new fangled ear thermometers to take their temperature and it was 102 . So she took them over to the clinic where the Nurse Practitioner gave them some sugar-coated pills that she said would make them well. Trying to get them to take regular pills would be like trying to win in a tractor pull with a little lawn tractor. For those of you who with evangelical fervor oppose candy like pills for children what was important was getting the fever down and they did.
Wednesday– Alex Maki was given a $ 200 fine and time served for trying to dump a crocodile. Poor Alex what do you do with a crocodile? You can’t have it masquerade as a deer and get shot by a hunter, although hunters from below the bridge might shoot it and think they got a deer. Last year those apple knockers shot his father’s cow. To make matters worse the thermometer in Pigeon Falls now reads twenty degrees and so they have to keep the thing in the house where it is warm.. It has already eaten a box of sugar-coated raisins and the frozen turkey Alex won at the Evangelical Tractor Pull. Mrs. Maki said she didn’t even know it could eat frozen turkeys.
Friday– The Tommy Club met. Somebody suggested they look for a message inside the driblet. Like every third word or fourth line. So they assigned everybody a task in pairs. One pair got to try every third word and every sixth word, One pair got the fourth and seventh. Tommy UK and Tammy got the fourth sentence and seventh sentence. The Club didn’t know they weren’t talking and they didn’t make an issue of it.

Wrap Up

Today I payed for the wonderful day I had at Pat's yesterday. Four hours in the car took its toll. My oxygen was down four points and I feel rotten. Pennie is sick. But yesterday was worth it. So today I didn't do much. I worked on some Christmas gifts. I scanned some more slides. I visited a few blogs. No0w I need a breathing treatment.
GBYA

****************************************************