Wordzzle Challenge

Raven, at Views From Raven's Nest, has created this word puzzle, Wordzzle, for us to have a challenge and write to. The words/phrases to work with this week are:

Main Challenge (10):
apoplexy, doctor, hummingbird, shallow end of the pool, brigadier general, mustard, greed, parallelogram, slumber party, casual

Mini Challenge (5): Mount Olympus, arsonist, portraits, birch trees, "that car needs a new muffler"

And it's always fun to do an extra challenge, combine the 5 + 10 and do a 15 word challenge.

My Mini Challenge (5):

With the incredible sunset, it looked like an arsonist had been at work up on Mount Olympus, the sky glowed fiery red. Oliver enjoyed sitting quietly among the birch trees, watching the mountain at the end of day. He had done this every day for more years than he cared to admit to, and had even had a few portraits taken of himself sitting here. As his solitude was shattered by a most noisy car passing by, he said "that car needs a new muffler" then returned to enjoying the sunset.

My Main Wordzzle Challenge (10):

Brigadier General Mustard nearly died of apoplexy when he found out that his daughter Linda, or Hummingbird as she insisted on being called these days, was inviting several of her looser friends over for a slumber party. Being a career military man with a greed for military structure, he saw his daughter's friends as being from the shallow end of the pool, genetically speaking, and could not abide by their casual approach to life. He would have liked to see his only child go into the military as he had, or at the very least, marry into it, an officer or a military doctor in the family would have suited him just fine. Now he pulled his mind back from the contemplation of his daughter's life, returning to the work at hand. He was writing a speech using words to draw a parallelogram of the Outer Banks.

My Mega Challenge (15):

He'd said it before and would likely say it again, "That car needs a new muffler". Brigadier General Oliver J. Mustard sat amongst his beloved birch trees, wrapped in a blanket to guard him against the cool of the evening. He had gotten a a comfortable chair placed out here so he could sit and watch his beloved sunsets over Mount Olympus. All had changed the night Linda had left home, he still couldn't think of his daughter as Hummingbird. It had been a terrible argument. She had told him she was in love with one of her looser friends, a young man from the shallow end of the pool, in Oliver's way of thinking. She'd obviously had a slumber party or two with this fellow as she confessed to being pregnant, and her father had exploded, he could not be casual about this kind of behavior. The lines of the parallelogram of his life hand moved and crossed that day, resulting in apoplexy, this time for real, and nearly resulting in his death. His doctor said he had to retire, to stay home take life easy. Oliver still had a thurst, a greed even, for a life he could no longer live. His wife long dead, now daughter was gone, and he feared he would never see her again. His face that he had been proud of was misshapen to where he would never sit for any more portraits. He was so unhappy he didn't even pay attention to the fire in the sunset, what he had come to think of as the Arsonist Sky. There just was no point in living any more.

"Daddy?" he thought he heard Linda's voice. "Daddy?" there is was again. He looked up. "Daddy, can we talk?" she queried. The old man's broken heart nearly stopped, skipping a beat or two in joy as he saw his 'little girl' standing there.... with a bundle in her arms.

"Linda? Errr, Hummingbird?" he choked out.

"Yes, Daddy, it's me. It's okay if you call me Linda. My friends still call me Hummingbird, but I know now that it's okay if you still call me Linda. It can be our special name, and I will still call you Daddy. Okay?" She smiled at him as she said this.

"Oh yes, that sounds good to me, Darling," her father agreed.

"I thought you would like to meet your grandaughter, Daddy."

"Grandaughter?"

"Yes, Daddy, I had a beautiful baby girl. I hope it's okay with you that we named her Elizabether, after Momma."

A lone tear ran down the old man's cheek. "Elizabeth! Lizzy! Oh, Linda," he choked out emotionally, "that is more than okay with me!"

The healing had begun, for both the old man and his daughter who had so rebelled against his strict military ways. The pendulum had swung the full distance, and now was evening out in the center of its reach. Life would find a new normal and a new joy.

Next Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: acrobat; grocery store; ceiling fan; dandelion; bumble bee; alabaster; scissors; chartreuse; strenuously; cube

Mini Challenge: iPod; poison ivy; computer; interpreter; optometrist
.