Watch the birdie

[carolynwhite2]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Barry Arrowsmith" 
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
> > 
> Lugubrious is understandable when stuck in the verse of someone 
like Poe. It's hardly a bundle of laughs. 'Specially if Jack Schitt 
were still in there. 
> But there's another reason for favouring ravens over owls in HP, at 
least
> for someone with my tendency to find plots all over the well, plot.
> What's the collective noun for ravens? 
> A conspiracy, of course.
> Lovely!
> 
> Kneasy

Fortunately Jack is well, lost in the plots..

But owls, now. Mustn't dismiss them so quickly. Can't help but remind 
the assembled worthies of their role in creating that most decorative 
of accessories - a FEATHERBOA. (Worn by all the best dressed men on 
the Welsh borders, y'know, possibly to the consternation of the local 
virgins).

Trust we've moved on far enough to read the following, and smile.

>From 35324:
The not-altogether-lacking-in-blood-thirst herself Tabouli wrote:

> A mere hour later she has managed to convince Pigwidgeon, Errol and
> Hedwig to sacrifice their lives and feathers for the cause, and is 
> swiftly, silently closing in on the savage sofa springers, ready to 
> smother and bind them all in...

> F.E.A.T.H.E.R.B.O.A.S.! (Foaming Enthusiasts of Ambush, Torture, and
> Hostility, Embracing Really Bloodthirsty Operations And Savagery))

Elkins, blinking quizzically as she tries to deduce just what Cindy 
might have *meant* when she just hissed "Take one for the team, 
Elkins!" and shoved her off of the rock like that, catches her 
balance, removes her pipe from her mouth to gesticulate, half-turns, 
and has time for only the briefest of alarmed squawks before finding 
herself lying on soft sand, wrapped head to toe in mangy old feather 
boas. She thrashes wildly for a few moments then freezes, staring in 
disbelief at the bloodied owl feathers -- the bloodied and yet 
monstrously *familiar* owl feathers -- from which her bonds would 
seem to be crafted.

"I--" she gasps, a look of sick horror slowly spreading across her 
face. "Errol?" And then a hoarse, a disbelieving whisper: "*Pig*?"

"NO!" she screams, struggling madly to free herself from the remains 
of these cruelly- and gratuitously-sacrificed minor characters. 
"NO! Oh my God, Tabouli, what have you *done?* MURDERER! 
MADWOMAN!! FIEND!!!!"

As she degenerates into incoherent hysteria, Elkins' alarmed 
companions rush to her aid: Tough Cindy, who begins slapping her 
repeatedly in the face while screaming, spit flying from the corners 
of her mouth, "Suck it *up,* soldier! Suck it *up,* damn you!"; and 
Amiable Eileen (looking cute as all get-out in that horned helmet she 
always wears to our FEATHERBOAS meetings as a part of her blood-
thirsty "Lucky Kari" persona), who after a few futile attempts at 
intervention ("Er...Cindy? I, um, don't think that that's 
necessarily, um, helping. I think, you know, that the...the 
*hitting* may be...well, it just might be increasing her sense of 
anxiety..."), simply shrugs, sighs, shakes her head, and goes off to 
brew a nice hot cup of tea.