Looney Birds of a Feather...

If you're wondering what crazy nonsense I'm involved in this time, let me just say that I've been tagged! This writing meme is a pretty interesting concept, started by Kid in the Front Row (winner of the Best Entertainment Weblog Award for 2010) and entitled "A 30-Sentence Kid In The Front Row Story, by 28 Authors."

Basically, the "Kid" has already started and ended the story. The rest of us are supposed to fill in the blanks, one sentence at a time. CJ from Small Stories and Stuff tagged me, and you can find my contribution below: lucky #13! As for me, I am happily tagging my good friend, Jenny Matlock, from ...off on my tangent... to follow in my inimitable (?) footsteps by applying her considerable skills to sentence #14. Go, Jenny!

1. Jane never expected to visit Belarus, but it was the only possible solution after what had happened.

2. Her lonely planet guide had advised her that it was a great place for birdwatching- so she packed her binoculars- Todd would have been proud, had he not been lying in a coma.

3. Poor Todd; Jane remembered the incident so well: he had spotted a rare long-whiskered owlet, had ran out into the street to snap a photo, and had thusly been hit by an ice cream truck.

4. Except the ice cream truck was actually a roasted salmon!

5. Upon seeing this strange occurrence, a Portuguese fisherman who happened to be standing on the other side of the street (and who was also, coincidentally, the resident expert on salmon) ran to scene and called 911, prompting Todd's speedy - albeit smelly - rescue.

6. Naturally, Jane was distraught over the entire salmon/ice-cream truck affair , moreover considering that she was the one who had wanted the photo of that owlet; they were both avid birdwatchers, but she was particularly fond of the owlet.

7. She had gone off owlets since then, and as she checked into the little hotel by the river, she wondered if she could find solace in the azure tit, a beautiful bird that, while easily spotted and hardly rare, at least had a name that sometimes made her giggle.

8. Surrounded by beautiful little azure tits as she wrote in her journal to un-bird-en herself of thoughts of fish, and fowl, and Todd (who was slowly recovering, and would join her soon); and as room service arrived with her vegetarian plate; her phone vibrated, signaling a text....

9. Alas, the careful study of azure tits would have to wait as an urgent text message from the manager of the treatment center where Todd was hospitalized informed her that something truly extraordinary was happening to him

10. Please return to hospital stat - patient awake, agitated, requesting nurse to masticate and regurgitate his dinner - wings noted sprouting from back, need your expertise in birds ASAP!

11. When I returned to the hospital and Todd's room, I was shocked to find that his nurse was a female member of The Blue Man Group.

12. He had a bowl of Froot Loops soaking in milk dyed blue and was layering them carefully on Todd's wings, feathering them smoothly while intermittently tossing handsful of the colorful orbs against the wall and screaming the lyrics to Blue Bayou and muttering "Great Blue Heron, oh, Great Blue Heron."

13. I quickly dispatched the toadying, looped-fruit-cereal-soaking sycophant of a "nurse" (and I use that term loosely) back to Vegas and took the helm; if my friend Todd was metamorphosing into a Great Blue Heron, he was gonna be MY Great Blue Heron, not some gender-bending nitwit's from the Blue Man Group.

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30. The three of them left as quickly as they could and vowed never to return again, especially if Jane was in town.