Wednesday's Words on a Friday

The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over by a moveable feast of participants when Delores had computer troubles. Sadly, Delores has now closed her blog forever due to other problems.

The aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to mind.

If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please let us know so we can come along and read it.

This month the prompts are supplied by Margaret Adamson and Friend and can be found here.

This week's words/prompts are:

1. choleric
2. investment
3. curlers
4. agenda
5. lolloping
6. anosmia

and/or:

1. pawnbrokers
2. ackee
3. hen
4. articulate
5. speeding
6. ruler

Here is my story:

As I came in the door, I called out, "I'm home! Did anything happen that I need to know about?" and was answered by my daughter Karen. "Really mum, why do you always think we get up to mischief the minute you leave the house?" I gave her 'that' look. "Don't look at me like that," she said. "It wasn't me who used your best curlers trying to make the dog look like a poodle."  "But it was you who tried to make toasted cheese sandwiches in the toaster and we never could get all the melted cheese off it." "That was last year and I've grown up since then. I have a different agenda for my life now. I am ten now you know!" She turned away huffily and I had to smile. Another new agenda? Life promised to be interesting through her teens. 

I placed my library bag on the kitchen counter just as my middle child Stevie came speeding in through the back door, our golden retriever lolloping alongside him. Those two were always running and never more than six inches apart. I was grateful, Stevie was autistic and inclined to jump into doing things without thinking and Einstein, the dog, was very watchful from the moment Stevie woke up each morning. Stevie started his rapid-fire speech barely stopping to catch a breath. I placed a hand on each shoulder and made him look at me. "Slowly, Stevie. You need to articulate. Say each word slowly." He took a deep breath and managed to say the new hen was laying eggs now, at last, before bolting out of the kitchen to the safety of his room. 

Once Stevie was gone, his other "shadow", our older boy Justin came in and asked how my trip to the library had been.  "Did you manage to turn on their computer without help this time?" "Didn't have to," I said. "The previous user left it turned on and all I did was move the mouse thingy and up popped a list of words she must have been looking at. Or he. Anyway, I wondered about some of the words myself, I'd never seen some of them. There was anosmia, which I looked up and found it was the loss of sense of smell. I've never even heard of such a thing. Another word was ackee, which turns out to be a type of fruit used in Jamaican cooking." 

"We have that Jamaican barbecue cookbook Aunty Janet gave us for Christmas," said Justin. "I'll have a look at it later, maybe there's some recipes with this ackee fruit in it, but where would we get ackee from?" "I'm sure I don't know," I said. "I'm not going all the way to Jamaica just to buy a fruit. How is Aunty Janet anyway? Did she drop in like she said she would?" "No," said Justin. "She phoned and said her new haircut was all wrong and she doesn't dare be seen in public. She's just as whiny as always." "I'd rather you said peevish instead of whiny, or the new word I learned for that list in the library. I wrote it down, where's that bit of paper?" I searched all my pockets and found it, with Choleric written in green texta. "Here Justin, choleric, that's another word for peevish and would you please get the green texta out of my bag and ask Stevie to return my favourite pen? And where is your Dad?"

"He's down at the pawnbrokers again. Looking for "investments", although I don't see how secondhand junk can be any sort of investment. Yo! Stevie! Mum wants her pen back!" "Don't yell at him, ask nicely so he learns how to ask too. Funny as it might be, we don't want him at school saying Yo! Teacher! I need a ruler!" Justin heaved a huge teenage sigh and walked down the hallway to Stevie's room. I heard the murmur of words and Justin came back with my favourite pen. 

"Cup of tea Mum? Dinner's already under control, I made spaghetti sauce while you were gone, I kept an eye on Stevie through the window. So what kind of investments do you think Dad might come home with this time?" Justin was our resident chef-in-training, now that I was studying Computer Basics at the local library and Karen wasn't quite past planning more than toasted cheese sandwiches for dinner. Stevie loved watching the cooking process but couldn't be trusted near an open flame since he also loved fires. 

Comments

  1. Sweet story of busy days using all those challenging words :)

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  2. Well aren't you clever. I was really wondering how you would use those words I would have had to look up. Brilliant solution.

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    1. Arkansas Patti; I looked up the words and developed a story around their meanings.

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  3. I do love this - and the family you portray. An excellent use of the prompts. Again.

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    1. Elephant's Child; thank you. I do seem to be fairly good at families.

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  4. Boy that family took me right into their house. Very well done. Great take on the words!

    XO
    WWW

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    1. WWW; thank you, it's nice when a story draws you in.

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  5. You made me laugh, River. Your toasted cheese sandwich reminded me of what actually did happen the night my mother met her future daughter-in-law for the first time.

    My brother arrived in our old family residence in Gympie, unannounced, from Mackay. No forewarning - late at night with his to-be-wife in tow. I wasn't present. I was living in Brisbane at the time. I was told the humorous story many times over, though. Mum got in to such a flap...she did exactly that!! Started making toasted cheese sandwiches...around midnight...in the toaster!!!

    Good story, River. :)

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    1. Lee; I didn't know anyone actually did that! I saw it once in a comedy movie, but can't remember which one. I still make toasted cheese sandwiches the old way, in a frypan, just like when we were kids.

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    2. I still make my toasted cheese sandwiches the old way in a pan, too, River, even though I do have an electric sandwich-maker...the pan does me just fine.

      I have no idea why Mum made such a mess of them that night, other than she'd been asleep...woken up by surprise and in her flustered state she last all sensibilities! lol

      We always made toasted cheese sandwiches in a pan...but, we also had a jaffle iron and jaffles were also a huge favourite in our household when we were kids.

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  6. Einstein is a good name for a dog.
    Coffee is on

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    1. peppylady (Dora); I got the name from one of my favourite fiction books about a very smart dog named Einstein.

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  7. You make this seem effortless. Your characters have just enough traits to make them real, and I always feel like I'm right there in the story with them. Of course I'm quite familiar with the father's "investment" plan. I especially liked the "Yo! Teacher!" part. Thanks for explaining those words so I didn't have to look them up!

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    1. Val; I'm glad my characters are believable and I borrowed the investment plan from Farmer H, hope you don't mind. I thought "Yo! Teacher!" sounded pretty funny.

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  8. Oh, aren't you the clever one? Some of those words were a bit more challenging than usual, but you came up with a brilliant way to use them. Yay, you! The story is good, too. You're getting better and better at creating believable characters.Great job all the way around!

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    1. Susan; thank you so much, I've discovered I seem to be quite good at dialogue and families.

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  9. Wow. Great on you using all of those words. They were difficult! I love your family and again, wish there was more to this story.

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    1. Magical Mystical Mimi; I suppose it could go further, but which direction would I choose?

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  10. Too Funny - Thanx For Taking The Time To Share This

    Cheers

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    1. The Padre; welcome to drifting and thank you.

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