Choose three random phrases from a stack of cards and rank them in a 1, 2, 3 order.  The first phrase goes in the first sentence, the second in the middle, and the third in the last sentence of a paragraph.  Timed write for 15 minutes.  PHRASES:  A foul odor, a repetitive noise, a stuffed grizzly bear.

The smiling waitress sets a steaming bowl on the table in front of my eager husband at the Longhorn Restaurant.  The elk meat in brown gravy releases a foul odor and the steam sets off my loud sneeze.  Our dark, leather-curved booth is in a corner, back-to-back to the kitchen wall, where I hear and feel the repercussions of a repetitive noise – a whack-whack-whack, which I imagine is a chef hitting a cleaver on meats that I don’t eat, such as bison, elk, and alligator.  It’s hard to eat in this place as every square inch of wall space is decorated with man’s trophies from hunts around the world – a brown-striped zebra, an honorable eagle, a wild boar, and one stuffed grizzly bear with smoky eyes who offers his out-stretched paws in a “why me?” way.