Raven's Challenge 54

Today's Link
Journal of a Writing Man

Today's Saying
Devotees of grammatical studies have not been distinguished for any very remarkable felicities of expression.
~Bronson Alcott

Today's Picture

It is Saturday and time to play with words supplied by Raven's Wordzzle

This Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: sugar bowl, cotton, wizard, fund-raising, Ben Hur, salmonella, luke warm, telescope, bank, walk-a-thon
Mini Challenge: challenge, sparkling cider, melancholy, snail mail, master carpenter

The Mega Challenge as part of
The Ongoing Adventures of Agent 012

Of all the situations Agent 012 had ever been in this was the most hitonious. A teterrimous demon was threatening to cut him up piece by piece with an axe .
He pulled his arm back from the chopping block and picked up his luke warm cup of tea with one hand and added a pinch of sugar from the sugar bowl with the other.
“Before you start to slice and dice me there is something I have to tell you and it is important.” he said.
Laughing the demon blurted out “ What in the name of the devil’s master carpenter could you possibly tell me? I think your stalling.”
“ Wrong! my dear Demon. You can bank on the fact that you need to hear this.” as he said this Agent 012 put down his tea , reached into his inner pocket and pulled out a bottle labeled ‘sparkling cider’. Continuing he added “ You see we have known about your help to Mute and other teterrimous organizations for a long time. In fact I was informed by snail mail to be on the lookout for one of your kind at this gathering. When I saw this room I anticipated your visit. Like all the Agents I was ready for you.” At this point Agent 012 saw himself as a kind of Ben Hur or to be more exact like Charlton Heston giving his famous speech.
The demon laughed again, “ You going to shoot me again? Make another hole in my rug. Then I’ll really be angry and the challenge will be to find the most painful way for you to die. You’ll wish I just chopped you up. ”.
“No more bullets” Agent 012 said.”That was just to get your attention. No, the Agency got to the Archbishop when he finished the Holy Cotton walk-a-thon the largest fund-raising event of the diocese and donated a very large amount. The good Archbishop blessed several gallons of very special Holy Water and some of it is in this bottle. With that he took off the cover and threw the water on the demon.
At first the demon just stood there with a kind of melancholy look on its face. Then the look turned to pain as if it had a horrible stomach ache caused by salmonella poisoning. Then he began to shrink like somebody collapsing the sections of an expandable telescope until he just blinked out of existence.
Suddenly there was a flash of light and a man with green skin in red tights was suddenly standing to the left of Agent 012.
“ I’m the Mighty Walking Wizard and I’m here to save you from the demon” He announced.
“Where were you when that demon wanted to turn me into hamburger patties?” grumped Agent 012
“Well to be honest. It took a while for my altar ego to sober up enough to get the Latin words right but I’m here now.”
“ Since you’re here you can whisk me back to headquarters and then take care of the Mute Agents here and in the old bus. For once I‘m going to have a great day.”

For a further mega challenge and a ten word challenge click here.

The ten word challenge- Catch the crook

Anthony Salmonella was not as you might suspect a Mafia leader but was instead the police chief of Sugar Bowl Pennsylvania. He was a real wizard at predicting criminal behavior and catching them in the act. Today he sat in a hotel room overlooking the bank drinking luke warm coffee and watching through his telescope for the gangster known as Ben Hur to hit the bank. The bank had just received a huge deposit of money from the fund raising walk-a-thon held every year in the hope of finding a cure for the dreaded Quivels. The chief who, himself, suffered from this debilitating word disorder did not cotton to the idea of the money being stolen.
Then the car pulled up. The masked gunmen ran into the bank and soon emerged carrying three heavy sacks. The car sped away.
As it turned the corner it ran into a police road block. Police cars converged from behind. The men were captured and not one shot was fired.
The Chief wanted to tell his men how happy and proud he was. If only he could speak in something other than that stupid poetry.

The Mini Challenge as Quivel
Police Chief's Speech to his men

A Master carpenter I’m not
Catching crooks is all I’ve got
To the challenge you arose
Spread havoc on our foes
Preventing a hitonious ending
By their mellifluous sending
So melancholy I won’t be
Have some sparkling cider free
I’ll thank you all by snail mail
For putting Ben Hur in jail

All the words in one sentence

Ben Hur the often melancholy master carpenter, cotton grower and fund raising walk-a-thon wizard put down his glass of luke warm sparkling cider next to the sugar bowl and telescope on the river bank while he contemplated the challenge that had come by snail mail to organize a walk to help stamp out salmonella.

All the words as News from Pigeon Falls

The little town in my basement where the trains still run, dragons fly, and life is back to normal
It’s Saturday and time to look back on the week in Pigeon Falls.
Monday– Little Tommy Anderson sent in a coupon from a bottle of sparkling cider a month ago and was notified today by snail mail that he had won a small part in the remake of Ben Hur. What made this extra special is this was the cider that was recalled for possible salmonella contamination. Even though they drank their bottle luke warm nobody got sick.

Tuesday – Patricia Pemberthy who had been deeply into winter melancholy had her spirits so lifted by the thaw and the flowers that she decided to take First National Bank’s challenge and join the fund raising walk-a-thon for cancer research. It was so warm now she thought she could wear her new cotton sweater with the wizard on the front.

Wednesday– Eino who in addition to running his garage is a master carpenter built a small platform next to the gazebo and put three pay as you look telescopes on them. Tourists can use them to watch the dragons or the pigeons. The money raised will go to the local food bank at Last Lutheran.

Thursday– Kevin Kallio got an e-mail from his cousin that they had taken his sugar bowl as requested to the Antiques Road Show and discovered it was worth $ 10,000. Kevin got it at a yard sale in Iron River for $.50.

All in all it was one fantastic week in Pigeon Falls.

Wrap UP

Just a reminder the dragons will be awarding the dragon award for best wordzzle just after 6;00 Eastern time. They now have their own blog. You can see it and find out about the award by clicking here. I had a grreat day but not much computer toime. My grandsons pretty much used up that time when we were here. We went out to lunch at I-Hop and then to the Mall. It was fun. My grandson asked if I had enough battery power so he wouldn't have to push me on my scooter. When we came back they helped the dragons judge the wordzzles. Alex , who is an all A student really enjoyed that.I did visit every blog that commented here yesterday. Now I really need a breathing treatment.
GBYA

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