A hauntingly Egyptian weekend

This is another post that I began over a month ago and never moved forward with. I'm posting it as is.

Earlier this month, Captain America and I took a weekend trip to LA to participate in Tea with Amelia Peabody.  For those of you who don't know, Amelia Peabody is the narrator of a series of books that take place in the Victorian era in England and Egypt. 

I must admit, I had to trick Captain America a little bit to get him to go to this, but I think he ended up having a jolly good time.  First, I told him that we were going to meet the Professor and the Professoress in LA.  That was fine.  Then I told him that we were going to tea.  He thought that was a little unmanly, but agreed.  Then I told him it was Egyptian-themed, and was put on my ARCE, the same group that organized our Oasis trip.  He was okay with that.  The the Porfessoress bought the tickets, I sent her a check, and informed Captain America that it was a costume event.  He declared, in his most Emerson-esque voice, that he was NOT going to a costume event.  I could go alone and waste the money we spent, AND that I had better not spend too much on the costumes, either.  It's a good thing I have my own bank account!

The website promised a skit, and that never really materialized, but we did get pictures with Peabody and Emerson.  Everyone at our table won something in the raffle, so that was fun.  There was a ton of food and tea, and little games on the table, including Amelia Peabody mad libs.  Here is an example:

Amelia peered over her husband's shoulder at the papyrus he was unrolling.  It seemed a _____ specimen, possibly dating from the reign of _____.  She could see finely painted figures of _____, _____, and _____.  The hieroglyphs seemed to have been written in a _____ hand.  Her _____ son, Ramses, cleared his throat.  "Excuse me Mother, your _____ hat impedes my view."  Reluctantly, she withdrew her hand from her husband's _____ chest, went to the mirror, unpinned and removed the offending hat, decorated with ever fashionable _____.  Really, she thought, they might have washed up after coming in from the railway station at _____, which everyone knew was _____.

 It was good fun that became even better fun when we stared making up our own words instead of using the set we had been given. 

Did you know that Amelia Peabody loves donkeys?  I knew she liked them to be clean (or as clean as possible) and that she abhorred the mistreatment of animals, but I did not know of Animal Welfare of Luxor (AWOL--no, I did not pick that acronym).  You can check out their site and make a donation at http://www.awol-egypt.org/.