Day At The Museum

This past weekend Lauren came 'home' to Lancaster for a couple of days. I knew she was here because clothes mysteriously kept ending up on the bathroom floor.

It was great to have her here.

On Sunday I asked her what she might want to do Down Below when I took her home.

By the way, if you are not an Antelope Valley-ite you may not understand the term "Down Below" so I will explain this to you.

No, it is not Hell. Well, not literally. Those of us who live up in the Beautiful High Desert call anything over the mountain range and into the greater Los Angeles area "Down Below". We have used this terminology as far back as I can remember.

All REAL Antelope Valley people use this term. Only the newbies are confused... 'OMG Like Down Below WHAT????'

Anyhow..........

Lauren said that she would like to visit the Mummies of the World exhibit at the California Science Center. Lauren loves history and museums. So Sunday morning she and my sister and Becca and I headed on over the hill... that is right... we went Down Below...

Okay... Mummies are just gross. There I said it. It was unexpectedly gross and disturbing. Lauren and Becca were fascinated. I was just trying to skirt the back of the room and pray that I wasn't going to have mummy dreams when I fell asleep.

Even my sister was grossed out and she is a critical care nurse.

Now, they would not allow photography which is a true shame because, there was a load of blog material there. But there is one thing I just have to mention. I am going to try to be discrete and by that I mean use a non-atomically correct word. So lets just use the word "Rice-a-Roni".

'Rice-a-Roni' doesn't usually show up on the bodies of mummies. Sometime 'Rice-A-Roni' is stored in jars called canopic jars with other organs of the body. Sometimes parts of the brain mummify and are still there. But one of these mummies had a really big extruding 'Rice-a-Roni' and I just don't understand how that could happen. So, I did what anyone would do: I emailed the museum curator and here is what they said, again omitting the possibly offensive word and replacing with 'Rice-a-Roni".

"Dear Ms Fenner: As it was explained to me it is mainly the soft tissue that becomes mummified. The intact 'Rice-a-Roni' on the Egyptian mummy is a little unusual and demonstrates the mummy's high status in Egyptian society.

Regards,

Paula Wagner"

I am pretty sure I am on some sort of museum watch list now.