What Are You Doing New Year's Eve, or Whodunit

Hello, blogees, and welcome to what will surely be my last blog of 2010.

Sadly, I will be saying the same thing to 2010 I said to 2009 this time last year. "I hate you, I smite you, and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out." And to 2011 I shall say, "Welcome, my new friend. Have a cookie and a drink. Let's be friends." Of course, I said that same thing to 2010, and look what he did to me.

Now, I've lived through many a New Year's Eve. Some good, some not so good. One of my favorites was spent completely alone, curled up in the Comfy Chair, playing with colored pencils as the ball dropped.

I've been at big parties at people's houses, and at big hotels full of revelers (normally associated with going to Va Tech Bowl Games) that were generally miserable. I've spent my share with the Sauerkraut Band getting so inebriated I honestly forgot what happened on the night. I can only assume a good time was had by all. (To paraphrase from what they used to say about Studio 54: If you can remember what happened, you weren't really there.)

So when I got an invite a little while back from the DeepFatFriar, it was different and intriguing, and I just couldn't say no.

See, I'd just gotten home from work and was hanging around the computer catching up, and I got a Messenger boing from DFF. He asked if I had plans on New Year's Eve. I said I didn't, no one in the SKB had even mentioned a party, and he asked if I'd like to do something with him.

Seems he'd bought, at an auction, entrance to a Murder Mystery Night. It was being held at his church, the Unitarians, and he was wondering if I'd like to come along and be a part of it all.

Well, here's the thing. As said above, I've had my share of drunken revelry, and I've hated this entire year, and I thought, "Hey! What a new and interesting thing, a good way to stay out of trouble and start the new year with a little something different!"

And I accepted right there and then.

DeepFatFriar told me he'd email me with all the details I needed to know, and I said fine, and didn't think much more about it than, "Ooh, I have real plans this year."

Then the email came, and as you might expect, if you know me but one whit, I started to get hinky.

The first hinkiness came at just reading the logistics and my part in it all. Seems the night is called "A Taste for Wine and Murder," and here is, and I quote, the theme of the evening.

This mystery is set in the wine region of Napa Valley, California. Five years ago, Barry Underwood, owner of the prestigious Underwood Wine Estates, mysteriously disappeared during the valley's annual wine festival. A massive search at the time failed to turn up any clues and the case has been in the FBI's unsolved files since then.

Now, five years later, it is once again the annual wine festival in Napa Valley. Last night, family and friends gathered at the stately Underwood Mansion to celebrate. At midnight, a minor earthquake shook the mansion, causing an old wooden floor in the wine cellar to buckle. Barry's well preserved body was discovered under the cedar planks.

It is a clear case of murder and you are one of the suspects.

Well! I am, am I?

Then I read on, as to who I'm supposed to be for the evening. And although it says, notice, "suggestions," I've just gone all to pieces over this.

Heddy Shablee - The owner of the neighboring vineyard and a fierce competitor of the Underwoods. Barry's disappearance has uncorked a new vintage of troubles for unhappy Hedy.

Costume suggestions: Flowered skirt, off-the-shoulder peasant blouse, sandals or bare feet, headband of flowers, carrying a basket of her best vintages.

Custom suggestions are entirely optional.

Oh, my. Oh, my, my, my.

I'm expected to wear a skirt and peasant blouse on New Year's Eve? I don't don a skirt in my one church appearance per year!

I want very much to take Heddy in the opposite direction, with jeans, Birkenstocks, flannel shirt, and severe hairdo. But could I be so bold? Would I offend the putters-on of the Murder Night? Can I find some common ground in between?

And then, I got to thinking about the night in whole. I have to be this character. Can I do it? More importantly, did I do it? Am I the killer, or am I just filler? Will I have some sort of skeleton script to tell me where I was during the murder, or is this the second coming of Second City, a totally improvised night?

All I can hope is that the assembled throng are as naive as I am.

I've set tomorrow afternoon to look around for an outfit, and maybe once that's done I'll feel more like Heddy Shablee. Or not.

But you know, I'm trying to tell myself that other than the DeepFatFriar, who knows I'm crazy anyway, these other people have no idea who I am and will probably never see me again. If I fuck it all up, well, at least I'll give them something to talk about for a while.

But my biggest hope is that I can crawl out of my shell long enough to ham it up as Heddy Shablee, however she's dressed, and make at least one person, or even myself, laugh.

I mean, isn't this what these things are about?

They're not? They're serious mysteries? Oh, shit....

Oooh. I just thought of something. Since myself and the victim were arch rivals, maybe I can work in the line, "Flames! Flames on the side of my face!"

Happy New Year's, everybody!