Murder Mystery Night

So yesterday was Thanksgiving, and I decided to celebrate by going to a party put on by a girl I know from the Hiking Society. She is raising money to do a charity hike up Mt Kilimanjaro, and last week she sent out an e-mail advertising a home-cooked pasta bake dinner and cake for dessert, plus a murder mystery game afterwards to top it all off, for a fee of 7 pounds. I thought it sounded like fun, and it was for charity, so I figured I would skip Jana's elaborately-planned Thanksgiving dinner to join in the game.

I was supposed to come as an old-time film director, so I donned a white blouse, put my hair back and carefully traced a pencil moustache under my nose in eyeliner. I get to the party only to find out there is no pasta bake, and no cake-- just a table full of white bread sandwiches stuffed with grated cheddar cheese, and a mound of cookies. I thought at first these were just pre-dinner snacks, but then the host quickly explained that too many people had decided to show up and she didn't have enough pasta bake for everybody. This was very disappointing, considering I had come hungry, and she hadn't warned us ahead of time that there would not be a real meal! I stuffed my face with cold sandwiches and eyed the Brits to see if they'd say anything. They didn't comment, so I kept my scathing thoughts to myself.

Loaded with cookies and white bread (bugh), we eventually started the game-- which turned out to be a lot of fun! Most of us had never done a murder mystery before, so it was a great new experience-- we each got a little character booklet with lines we were supposed to say to each other, and we all got into our roles.

There was one girl dressed up like Lara Croft who was supposed to be an adventurer called "Emily Airhead" (Amelia Earhart, get it), and she played her part with ditzy gusto. Another girl had brought in a feathered fan, and she was playing the part of "Fanny Shaker", a can-can dancer. The girl who dressed up as Poison Ivy on the Halloween hike was there, and she had dressed up as "Hagatha Twisty", the tweed-clad, scarf-wearing, crime novelist. There was a prince, a widow, an inventor, and of course, me. I think we all did our characters justice, and we had a lot of fun accusing each other and discovering who the REAL killer was in the end.

If nothing else, the party inspired me to look into having my own murder mystery party sometime-- you can get the materials online, and when I came around to Jana's house after the party to drop off her blouse, I told Tom and Sonja how much fun it would be if we could all play the game together-- Jana hid in her room until I climbed upstairs, and I can't recall if I suggested the party to her-- I think I immediately jumped into expressing my grief over the nasty food.

Jana took pity on me and said we could have Thanksgiving lunch together the next day to finish off her leftovers, which we did earlier today, which was amazing. She'd made turkey, cranberries, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy and of course her famous FUDGE-- and I got a taste of what I had missed the night before. She and her roommates had done the table up nice and fancy for their Thanksgiving feast, and had put everything onto porcelain platters, and drank sparkling wine together. You can see pictures on Jana's facebook, if you are her friend!

When I mixed my turkey with the cranberries and gravy, I got a sudden mental image of watching the Macy's parade, then sitting at home with the family, eating the same dinner with cheerful background noise in a big, warm house.

I do miss home-- I seem to talk about it a lot-- but! I will be going back sooner than you think! Yes! I am coming home for spring break, sometime in the month of April. So clear your schedules, start planning some Yours Truly outings, bake some pies, make pancakes-- I'm comin' home!

So that concludes blog post #49. I should put some virtual confetti on blog post #50, to mark the momentous occassion. Of course, my next entry will be on Sunday night, when I will have another adventure to tell: my weekend hike in the Lake District. The Lake District is very close to Scotland, and it's breathtakingly beautiful all year round. There is supposed to be a blizzard on Sunday, but I hope we miss it. Otherwise, it should be around freezing but sunny the rest of the time. Now I am off to get my last few things together for the long journey-- I bid you adieu, fair readers-- see you on Sunday!