Raven's Challenge 52

Today's Link
Thoughts-Usually with an Attitude

Today's Saying
Life is a mixed blessing, which we vainly try to unmix. ~Mignon McLaughlin

Today's Picture
My First Parish -Betty and I

It is Saturday and time to play with words supplied by Raven's Wordzzle
This Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: Netflix, mortgage, skunk, flagrant, the New York Times, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, perpendicular, geometry, crabby, shoveling snow
Mini Challenge: pragmatic, crystal ball, laundry, safflower oil, Gregorian chants

The Mega Challenge Expressed in The Ongoing Adventures of Agent 012

Agent 012 feigning being insulted and crabby said “ That’s a rather personal question isn’t it.” This gave him enough time to think of a reasonable story. “For your information the bathroom was so full of cigarette smoke from flagrant smokers that I went outside for some fresh air and got it caught on a bush. There are some really nasty thorns out there.”
At this point the host put on the next Netflix DVD “the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”
Having seen the movie fourteen times already , it was his youngest son’s favorite, Agent 012 moved off to the reading room where he pretended to be reading the New York Times but in reality was studying the room. He noticed that the walls in the room were not really perpendicular like walls should be but were at slight angles. He simply did not understand the geometry of such a room which was clearly not pragmatic. Even stranger was the crystal ball on the back of a plaster skunk which was in the exact center of the room. In his mind’s eye he could see strange people dressed in black with white stripes down their back intoning strange Gregorian chants over the ball.
In one corner was a shelf with a large bottle of safflower oil clearly not there to do the laundry with. “What could they be doing with the oil“, he thought.
At this point it was obvious a huge amount of money had gone into the place and he wondered what the mortgage had set them back. At least they didn’t have to worry about shoveling snow.
Suddenly A man materialized in front of him. He just seemed to pop out of the air. “ At last I have you Agent 012” he said.
Agent 012 now knew two things for sure. He was no longer dealing with Mute and this was not going to be his day.

The ten word Challenge- Bad Mail

Fransica was unhappy. She had ordered the “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” from Netflix but they had sent her “ The Crabby Skunk” instead.
Her copy of the New York Times came with the first three pages shredded and unreadable.
She got a notice her mortgage had gone up another half point in interest.
There was a note from the neighborhood boy that he would no longer be shoveling snow and the worst blizzard of the year was coming.
There was a letter from her son’s teacher explaining that he was flunking geometry because he just couldn’t understand three dimensional perpendicular lines.
Now there was only one letter left to open and she was afraid less it be an even more flagrant crushing of her life.
Mail was just bad news. One bit after the other until the weight was so heavy you fell down.
And the last bit of mail was from a lawyer.
She wondered :
Did her dog bite somebody?
Did her son break a window?
Did her ex-husband find a new way to get money from her?
What horrible thing was in this letter?
Did the lady at the tea hear her call her a bitch?
More bad news , on top of all the rest.
But it had to be opened.
On fancy legal paper with the name of some law firm in the center she was informed that her great uncle Frodo Frilkins had died and left her his most prized possession because she was the only one to ever show an interest in it. There was a telephone number for her to call.
With great excitement she called thinking that maybe the mail wasn’t so bad after all. Her great uncle had been very rich. But then she remembered she had only visited there once and she was five years old. What could she have said then that impressed him?
When the law firm answered she was transferred to the lawyer in charge of her great uncle’s estate. He told her her inheritance was being shipped tomorrow.
“Could I ask just what it is?” she asked.
“ I thought you knew” he said. “Its his 600 pound fifteen times life size statue of a Western Trail Skunk.”
Well it could have been worse Frodo could have collected live skunks. She thought.
But it certainly doesn’t constitute good mail.

The Mini Challenge- Skunked Good

It did not take a crystal ball to tell that Fransica was unhappy. She was listening to a recording of Gregorian chants for funerals while she stuffed the tablecloth her son had managed to soak in safflower oil into the washing machine. Ever since that stupid skunk arrived things had been going down hill rapidly. Looking out the laundry room window she could see her car with the four flat tires sitting in the driveway. She suspected it was done by the neighbor who paraded by every evening with the sign which said “ The Skunk must go!”. Her new skunk statue was not very popular except with the children who loved to climb on it just like she did when she was five.
The only pragmatic thing would be to get rid of it despite how cute it was. So she picked up the sledge hammer she had purchased for just this purpose and marched out to the skunk. It would be far cheaper to break it up and haul it away piece by piece that to hire somebody to haul it away. At least she thought it would be.
She decided to start on the back end , not its most lovable feature. She hit as hard as she could and much to her surprise the sledge hammer went right through and into the skunk. She pulled it out and it was followed by gold coins and the little plastic popcorn that kept them from making noise. This skunk sprayed wealth.

Wow! What an inheritance. What a really, really great uncle. She decided then and there when she got all the coins out she would have the end redone and the statue kept in memory of Frodo.

All Fifteen words in one sentence

The crystal ball was placed carefully according to mystical geometry on top of the Netflix DVD, on top of the “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” which was on top of the November 7th edition of the “New York Times”, on the somewhat perpendicular stand while crabby Thomas Skunk who, if at all pragmatic would have been shoveling snow or doing laundry was flagrant in his pouring safflower oil over it while intoning Gregorian chants hoping to cause his mortgage to disappear.

News from Pigeon Falls

The little town in my basement where the trains still run, dragons fly, and life is back to normal.
Its Saturday and time to look back on the week in Pigeon Falls.
Monday– Kevin Maki who was home from Northern for a three day break tried to explain to his mother what his class on the Apanthropinization of English Literature was all about. The term apanthropinization was so complex and outdated that he found himself with a paucity of words that could be used to explain it. It would be easier, he thought, to teach her to play the Zither.
Tuesday– Freddy Williams went door to door looking for little jobs that would earn him the four dollars he needed for the latest issue of Makeral Comics “ The Mighty Walking Wizard”. In the last issue the Wizard in his secret identity as a volgivagant drunk was caught by the demon posing as an isangelous waitress. He was too drunk to say the Latin words and become the Wizard. It looked like his time as a fighter against cynicocratical demon lead government was over. Freddy knew his Hero would escape but how? He needed that issue. So here he was cleaning out Tom Mattson’s pig pen.
Wednesday– There was another fracas over at the Fly Inn. Wednesday night is becoming fight night. This time the fight wasn’t over numismatics but rather in the area of linguistics. It seems that Robert Mattson felt that Perceival Pemberthy’s saying that he had “perspicacious judgment” was said to impress people with high falutin talk.So Perceivil proved he was correct by socking Robert. As usual they paid for the damages.
Thursday-Mrs. Trumble used a line of casuistry that would have made a Jesuit proud to get the Town Council to approve a full time constable. She pointed to many quondam instances of opprobrious conduct at the Fly Inn and the many times the State Police had to be called in. One council member voted no saying that it would be enough to have the part time constable sit in the Fly Inn on Wednesday Nights.

Wrap UP

Very busy day. Three of my grandsons are here and they did allow me a little computer time. I visited all the people listed on Raven's blog that had written wordzzles and left comments. I played canasta and Alex and I defeated Betty and Pat. Alex showed me some animation on the computer and let me know he made the honor roll again. All in all it was one great day even if I did miss my computer a little at times. Now I need a breathing treatment.
GBYA

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