Murder Mystery Birthday (or 'Guess who Died at Dinner')

This post recollects events that occurred on June 21st, 2010 in Nizwa, Oman.  The original post can be found at: http://www.henrickatlarge.bloagspot.com. For those of you viewing this post through Facebook Notes, it  is highly advisable to click on the link to the original post.  This post contains embedded pictures, video and other media that do not transfer into 'Notes'.




As a general rule I'm not big on birthdays. I often view the celebrations of these 'occasions' as some sort of an obligatory social responsibility. Though once in a while I am reminded how cool such a celebration can be.  Especially when the itinerary deviates from the time-honored tradition of cake-and-singing.  This past Monday was just such a case.

We were gathered to celebrate the lapping of our star by three of our fellow Niz-wa-ra-tee.  My friends Jared, Emily, and Rachel (the last of whom we were all unaware of. as far as we were concerned, we were only celebrating the birthdays of the first two).  At the onset of the planning stage, someone put forth the proposition that we do something different.  That was OK by me.  By something different, I had assumed they meant a different type of liquor should be served, or a theme party where everyone dresses up like someone from the Matrix or something.  But when it was announced that we would all be participating in a murder-mystery, I was truly intrigued.

In a few days, we had all received scripts and characters.  The gist was this: It's the 1920's, and a Mob family is having a dinner to honor the ascension of a new Don.  The result: murder, madness, and mayhem ensues.  I was cast in the roll of 'Crusher Joe' a underground muscle type (talk about type-casting).  It was quite fun. I won't give away too much of the plot, but there was intrigue, roughed-up snitches and rats, and fake blood everywhere at certain points of the evening.  This all coupled with a lot of wine and a great pasta dinner.  I really did have a great time.  Kudos to Rachel for organizing everything and cooking an amazing dinner...
FORGETABOUTIT!