Hey everybody! Welcome to Owl Chatter’s 250th Post! We’re so glad you could join us today!

As we “teased” earlier this week, our special guest is probably the most sought-after celebrity on the planet right now — C’mon, folks — let’s have a special Owl Chatter welcome for everybody’s favorite mutineer Yevgeny Prigozhin!

Yev! – C’mon in! You’re looking mighty spiffy out of uniform – just need to work a bit on that “thumbs up” signal — you’ll get it! Just fold in those other fingers a bit more. Phil — help him out!

And look what he brought, everybody! You can take the homicidal butcher out of the caterer, but you can’t take the caterer out of the homicidal butcher — as the saying goes. Amirite, Yev? You shouldn’t have — dig in everybody! Careful with those watermelon balls — if I know Yev, they’re soaked in vodka — or gasolene — Kaboom! Ha! I guess Zelensky’s not the only comedian around here! How about a few words, YP?

Thank you, Owl Chatter friends! What honor it is for invitation to wonderful 250th post party! Please enjoy food — there is plenty more in tanks. Thank you for making us feel safe — New Jersey is — how you say? — mob controlled. Even close personal friend Vlad Putin afraid to come here. We lost three men in Newark already, just shopping for CDs.

Thank you, Yev! The honor is all ours! But please, relax. We have a special guest for you and the fellas. TS — I think you have a message for YP?

Hey Mr. P and all of you good-looking manly Wagner Swifties! Welcome to Jersey — and Owl Chatter! Love those outfits! If anyone could use a good breakup song now, it’s gotta be you, amirite? You and that big Russian bully used to be so close! And now he’s trying to poison you, or worse — believe me, I’ve been there. Haters gotta hate. But here’s what you have to do, Mr. P — no question — Just Shake It Off!

Thanks for coming TS! Brilliant as usual. Enjoy the spread — Yevgeny brought it all — careful with those watermelon balls.

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Here’s a wonderful poem from TWA today — perfect for the occasion. It’s by Sharon Olds (who has appeared in puzzles from time to time) and it’s called Diagnosis.

By the time I was six months old, she knew something
was wrong with me. I got looks on my face
she had not seen on any child
in the family, or the extended family,
or the neighborhood. My mother took me in
to the pediatrician with the kind hands,
a doctor with a name like a suit size for a wheel:
Hub Long. My mom did not tell him
what she thought in truth, that I was Possessed.
It was just these strange looks on my face—
he held me, and conversed with me
chatting as one does with a baby, and my mother
said, She’s doing it now! Look!
She’s doing it now! and the doctor said,
What your daughter has
is called a sense
of humor. Ohhh, she said, and took me
back to the house where that sense would be tested
and found to be incurable.

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Thanks for coming everybody!