Xerotolerant

What I'm Doing: Final day of the weekly volleyball gig.

212:

Finding a word that begins with “X” is just as hard as it sounds. Even after submitting to Google’s almighty searching powers, it was still difficult to find the right word. Many of them are scientific and foreign; others are just strange and obtuse. I found myself strained like the stretching dude from Fantastic Four. That is, stretched between a Firefox tab filled with alien “X” words and ten other Firefox tabs with their definitions (presented by Google). I think that in the future, I will have to buff up my personal “X” word dictionary and astonish some folks with fluent use of xylyl, xysters, and xanthopsia.

Xerotolerent, as I am newly informed by Wikipedia and Google, is meant to mean tolerant of extremely dry conditions. After growing up in Arizona, I can say that I’m xerotolerent. However, that doesn’t mean I’m going to use it in my next greeting.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Sam. I’m from Arizona- and you might just say that I’m… xerotolerent.”

It’s been harder than I expected to keep up with writing throughout the remainder of June. As I mentioned in my previous post on the 29^th, this month has slipped through my fingers. Strangely enough, I’ve spent that past three or four days with my first ear infection.  But I’m not trying to make excuses here. I realize I’m behind schedule. Cheers to August for a fresh start and hopefully a better track record for those ever elusive Wednesdays.

The Adventures of Captain Ralf (Part Three)

Age of Sam McGuffin: 9-10

All writing copied, including spelling/grammatical errors

(This is the final portion of Captain Ralf. Parts Two and One are in previous posts.)

When all eight of them got to the scene it was a distruction. It looked as if it was a construction sight after it was deserted. “We better get back quick.” One said. But the boy wasn’t listening. Instead he was looking in the direction of the two other boys, who looked as if they battled Dr. Reeeally Evil, the mad onster in a trashcan.

Later in the town of Conodac, in a bright early morn, the boy who’s name was Josh was watching the found boys. Felix and Ralf yelled with pain as the doctor egnighted a shot in each of their legs. The pain from the shot was probably just as painful as when they were struck by lightning. “Easy now, we don’t want this antidote to hurt more than it does now, do we boys?” The doctor told them nicely.

“When are they going to be up and about?” Josh asked worriedly.

“Oh in about 2-3 days for them.” The doctor told him.

“Gee, that quick!” Josh said in surprise.

“Well it only will take them so short of time because they survived that bolt of lightning. No origanol man could survive that, so they should only take that long to recover from such a strike.” The doctor said putting his large hand on Josh’s shoulder.

Three days later. The sky was a redish brown as the sun was setting three days after the accident. The two boys, Ralf and Felix, had been up and about like summer wild flowers.

“Gosh, that doctor did the trick!” Ralf told Felix in a happy mannor.

“You know what, I Don’t think the doctor did much.” Felix questioned.

Ralf changed the subject, “How ‘bout we go get some brunch?”

“Alright.” Felix sighed as if he just had the wind jump out of him.

The marketplace was as loud as huge rain drops pelting the dusty ground. There were men and women selling all sorts of goods- food, weaponry, sheilds, and herbs. As you might have guessed Ralf had yanked Felix over to the food cart. “Ahh, so, what would you like you little scamps? Eh?” The shop keeper asked them in an unfriendly voice. “Uhh…” said Ralf, “We’d like sixteen apples, twenty oranges, six pears…”

Three minutes later.

“… and finally three peaches.” Ralf told the shop keeper nicely. “So you want sixteen apples…”

Five minutes later.

“Is that all?” The shopkeeper asked, changing his tone.

“Uhh… ummm.” Ralf murmured, but Felix cut in and said, “Yes sir, that is all. Thanks.”

Once Ralf and Felix packed up their things….

Pages 15-18/18 of Captain Ralf

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Captain Ralf was written when I was around 9-10 in a Harry Potter Platform 9 stationary book. It filled the first 18 pages of the hard covered journal, and ended abruptly. Recently, I’ve found many other stories and drawings that are similar to Captain Ralf. One’s about a talking weapon called “Monkey Spear”- which was also written around the same time as Captain Ralf. It’s fun to look back and see my writing style when I was younger. I pick out those wild metaphors of my youth- and laugh- because I still do the same thing today. Captain Ralf was a pleasure for me to reread, despite getting lost in all the abrupt changes and misspelled words.

That’s the end of Captain Ralf. Thanks for reading!

-TWO-12