We have been told that it is the sincere hope of our department’s instructional staff that – upon completion of our restorative arts coursework- we students will be capable of repairing the remains of deceased individuals in such a way that would make them acceptable for viewing… axes to the face, head-on collisions and self-inflicted shotgun wounds to the head be damned.

We’ve been given tools: 

…and wax: 

…and have also been instructed to make our very own human heads. To wit:

This is the start to my human head. I am modeling it after my friend Cindy, a delightful gal who is a mother, research scientist, medical doctor, triathlete, hates big meanies, loves her mother, enjoys long walks on the beach and prefers puppies over kittens. Cindy’s being a doctor meant she was delighted to have her likeness rendered in wax. This is, of course, is a welcome reprieve from several of my other friends who regularly put their hands over my mouth and say things like, OH NO NO NO… STOP RIGHT THERE whenever the subject of my current romp through education comes up.

At any rate, if you look at the photo above you might be tempted to think that it’s an ok start for a freshman attempt at molding a human face so long as the face in the photo above belonged to someone who wore their sweater tied around their neck, considered polka a legitimate form of music and had all the rhythm of a seizing epileptic. Unfortunately for me however, Cindy’s not white and my project is hopelessly hee-haw and all this means that I get to experience the joy that is scrapping the whole thing and starting from scratch which makes me use long run-on sentences about how I would really, really like to make some statement about suffering for my art but I think you all know me enough by now to realize that I don’t suffer for my art so much as get cranky when my homework cuts into the all-important Cocktail Hour.

Recently, my restorative arts class presented a problem unique to the funeral service major. I needed someone to pretend they were dead. Then, while they were laying around all un-lifelike I needed to take a bunch of photos of them. Then I needed to use said photos to reconstruct their lifeless likeness in wax, all the while convincing them that There Was Nothing Creepy At All About Any Of It.

Identifying an available pool of candidates has been difficult at best. I was lukewarm on picking a celebrity for reasons unclear to even myself. My brother the archaeologist seemed like a natural choice - as his occupation involves digging up dead people and has long since overcome the “ick” factor associated with death. But he lives too far away to make taking photos of him practical. And the though of recreating his viking beard gives me a headache. Also, he’s a goofy goober.

My sisters both looked at me and backed away slowly after the request had been made.

My husband crossed himself and then did some weird thing with his hands to ward off the evil eye.

The neighbors ran into their house, chased me off with a broom and installed new locks on their doors before arming themselves with pitchforks and organizing a torch light parade to my door.

Ok, not really.

Still, picking someone who would be comfortable going along with this project was pretty difficult. Then I remember my friend Cindy. Cindy, the doctor. Cindy, who has a fascination with the coroner’s office. Cindy who has spent a ton of time around cadavers and – in her work with AIDS patients – people on the verge of cadaverhood.

So I asked Cindy if she’d mind being used for my project and she agreed a little too enthusiastically. Now it was my turn to be weirded out.

At any rate, a couple of my classmates and I had the idea that we should document our progress in photos. Therefore, if you’ve ever been interested in how a group of people whose modeling skills barely qualify them to make ashtrays develop the skills necessary to rebuild a human head, stay tuned.

Since that time, however, I’ve noticed that I rarely write about my experiences in school.

For instance, before the end of last semester I was granted the opportunity to participate in an embalming at the coroner’s office. Now, while the experience was fascinating and I’ll admit that I very much appreciated and enjoyed the opportunity, it brought to the fore an ethical dilemma:

Where is the line between “acceptable disclosure” and “encroaching on the privacy of the deceased and their family”?

On the one hand, it seems apparent that a discussion of embalming should be limited only by the public’s tolerance for details of something that most find frightening and unsavory. On the other hand, morticians don’t practice in a vacuum. The subjects on which they learn and exercise their talents were at one time real, live people deserving of discretion. Also, lest we forget, the deceased will most often be survived by friends and family members whose pain would only be exacerbated by a lack of discretion regarding the treatment and care of their loved one’s remains.

So, when I was asked to join one of my professors and a few other students at the coroner’s office last semester I found myself on shaky ground blog-wise. Obviously, there are many details that simply should not be shared. Period. In the event of a cataclysmic lack of judgment, each of us were given a packet of information that explicitly stated as much.

However, while discussing specifics was out of the question there were more general facets that I personally find fascinating and believe worth sharing.  I had a grey area.

In the end, I decided so long as I had even the smallest doubt about sharing an experience I would refrain from doing so. After all, when a person dies they are no longer capable of speaking for themselves, defending themselves or voicing a preference. They are completely vulnerable, and the last thing I want to do is exploit that vulnerability. So I censor myself now and will continue to do so in instances where I have doubts.

These doubts are not helped at all by the constant blurring between the “real world” and the atmosphere created at school in which my classmates routinely discuss things that would send most people scurrying for a barf bag. You don’t have to be a super-genius to be aware of the fact that what is normal and mundane inside the funeral industry has the potential to be regarded as macabre and disgusting by people outside of it.

Hopefully that will clear up the questions I’ve been receiving from folks who e-mail me to find out what is going on in school and to ask that I write more about it. I will definitely make an effort to return to my former focus on school – because really? It is a very fascinating field to go into with a lot of very cool stuff the share. I just ask for a little patience in return as I negotiate my way through a potential blogging minefield…

So you can imagine his absolute delight last night when, after he’d shown up looking a little shaggy, the dean of our college gave a local news station full access to our classroom for a story they were doing on jobs in the healthcare sector:

The problem is this whole twenty-four-hours-in-a-day thing. It disappoints. It is a woefully inadequate amount of time for me to accomplish everything I want to do. Like take photos. And go to school. And bathe my husband in GHB-laced pudding.

Which is why I’m considering a move to Mercury since a single Mercurian day is the equivalent to 59 earth days which should be long enough for me to knock out at least two-thirds of my to-do list if I cut out items like eating and parenting my offspring.

So! How about I skip this post and do my normal lazy thing and throw up more photos, brought to you courtesy of the field trip that I took with my funeral education peeps last Friday…

Here is a group photo of all of us, taken in front of Cristy Vault Company’s world headquarters in Colma, California. Know why I don’t have any photos taken inside Cristy Vault Company’s world headquarters? We all had non-disclosure agreements foisted upon us prior to our tour in which we signed away our right to tell the public that their vaults are constructed by a magical army of unicorns and leprechauns that sprinkle fairy dust everywhere. Pity. The leprechauns especially seemed to like having their picture taken.

This photo was taken in the Neptune Society’s columbarium. It is a pile of cards, notes and letters written to both the deceased and visiting survivors.

This is a photo of a companion niche with the remains of a Chinese couple inside. California is home to the largest Chinese population outside of China itself. Therefore it is never a surprise when you run into the various expressions of this expansive culture. This niche, like many others inside the columbarium, had food left outside of it in a nod to Chinese custom.

Here is one of the many rooms that surrounded the bottom two floors and were formed of floor-to-ceiling niches.

Another niche before which food had been left. The packaged stuff next to the persimmons was unidentifiable as anything other than fuzzy balls of mold.

For obvious reasons, a niche provides limited space in which a person’s life, personality and values can be summed up. It is always  interesting to me to see how people condense the essence of their loved one into ten words or less. The plate on this individual’s niche is inscribed quite simply with the words, “Gay and proud.”

An incense holder on the floor outside the niche of a Chinese man.

A statue of St. Ignatius stands inside the Church of St. Ignatius on the campus of the University of San Francisco. The campus is one of the west’s oldest Jesuit universities.

 A tribute to La Virgen de Guadalupe stands inside the Church of St. Ignatius on the University of San Francisco campus. The photograph really doesn’t do this display justice, as the flash destroyed the ambiance created by the candles that surround her. Kneelers can be seen in the extreme foreground.

Interior of the Church of St. Ignatius. Architectural proof that we Catholics are good for more than just lopping heads off and drinking. Woo hoo!

Candles sit before a statue of St. Ignatius. The lighting of candles and offering of prayers is probably one of the loveliest – and more misunderstood by non-Catholics – practices within the church.

Here is the cornerstone to the synagogue we visited – Temple Emanu-el in San Francisco, California. This tour turned out to be quite wonderful as it was led by a pair of Jewish women who were more than enthusiastic about showing us through a gorgeous building while sharing information about the history of their faith.

An outside view of the sanctuary of the synagogue taken from the interior of the courtyard that surrounds it. I was surprised by the presence of a metal detector and security guard outside the temple’s entrance, and we were informed during the tour that the courtyard surrounding the entrance to the sanctuary had been constructed as a need for security made itself more apparent.

Here is a photo of stained glass and a chandelier inside the main sanctuary of the synagogue.

A menorah stands above and to the front of the congregation in the main sanctuary.

Books sit atop one another next to the ark in the Temple Emanu-el.

A flower spray sits at a grave on the grounds of Cypress Lawn in Colma, California.

But I will say this; this is what four wannabe morticians in a jacuzzi tub looks like:

Catch y’all next week.

Now for something completely different…

I was at my local grocery store today buying liquor and other assorted implements of impairment to help smooth the flight to Orlando tomorrow. Not so much for my sake, but for the sake of my fellow passengers who would no doubt prefer a passed out sasquatch to one that rocks nervously in her seat while mumbling about defective jackscrews and fuel vapor explosions.

At any rate, I was being checked out when the kid behind the register asks for my ID. So perplexed was I by this request that I stared at him blankly for a few moments before diving for my wallet while muttering something incomprehensible.

“Come again?” The kid asked.

“Uh… nothing. My english is not so good.” I joked before handing over my ID to prove that I am, in fact, 34 over 21.

“Really? I think you speak English pretty good.”

I gave the kid a half smile and narrowed my eyes. He looked back at me with the kind of bright-eyed innocence that told me that 1) he didn’t catch the joke, and 2) he really thought that English was my second language.

Which reminds me of when I was in college and working at the IHOP on Florin Road (and my readers from Sacramento will read “IHOP on Florin Road” and their eyes will cross because nothing good ever happens after midnight. Or on Florin Road.)

Anyway, after I started working at IHOP on Florin Road it was only a matter of days before it became apparent that many of South Sac’s residents had little regard for a white waitress. Or rather, a white waitress who was blonde, blue-eyed and six feet tall. In fact, so deep ran their disregard for me that many customers derived great joy from plying me with their rather colorful collection of racial slights.

Good times!

The matter was not helped by the fact that my primary advocate was a manager who was a warm and wonderful human being and spoke the king’s English but – being fresh out of Pakistan – had not yet mastered the blighted vernacular of his customer base. This led to frustration when I would try to explain to him why, exactly, a customer’s exclamation of “DIE HONKY BITCH DIE! DIE! DIE!” did not sit particularly well with me.

Another employee and I finally took matters into our own hands.

Aaron was a fellow server who, having noticed my difficulties, devised a plan by which I would be more readily accepted by the community: he made me a nametag that said “Olga” and started telling everyone that I was a Russian immigrant.

Though I concluded the plan was completely retarded I went along with it. It would work something like this: if a customer started giving me the third degree Aaron would sidle up to me, eyebrows raised.

“Her English isn’t bad huh?” My co-worker would then take advantage of the baffled silence to explain my status as a Russian refugee.

The “problem” customers totally bought it. In fact, most of them became downright civil with me.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, so I’m leaving for a funeral director’s conference in Orlando tomorrow and the guy at the grocery store now thinks I’m a lush who speaks English as a second language and while I’m gone I really do think you should check out the best political blog entry I’ve ever read, my brother’s squibbles on the occupational risks of being an archaeologist, and my future sister-in-law’s thoughts on, well, everything*.

* Oh yeah. That little tidbit there will most definitely get me a stern talking-to by my brother, probably right around the time I’ve finished the third screwdriver at the airport tomorrow and have been rendered incapable of speech. You’re welcome Matt.

This question, which really is a very good one, was not done justice by the fact that it came up at 8:30PM - roughly half an hour after which all of us had begun to drool on ourselves.

“Well?”

Blank stares.

“Not really, right? Joe Public can call a florist, talk to clergy, get stuff, right? Check costco’s website, you can buy a casket online. They can dress up their dead, put ‘em in a casket. Throw a funeral. So what does the public need from us that they can’t get for themselves?”

Blank stares.

At this point the instructor questions aloud our ability to find our way home at night much less identify and properly dispose of a dead human being.

“How about an EDRS number? They probably won’t have that. They’ll need us to file a death certificate for them. What else?”

Confused murmuring from the class.

“How about embalming? Your average person isn’t going to know how to embalm. So they’ll need us to do that if they want it. Anything else?”

Finally, someone in the back of the class threw out the word cremation, to which the instructor responded:

“Oh please, anyone can build a fire.”

Among last night’s topics:

- How does one get a bale’s worth of hay in one’s hair in the course of an automobile accident? And how can only the top half of someone’s head become completely caved in while the rest of the body is pristine? (A conundrum faced by the apprentice embalmer I sit next to)

- Pathological issues that cause the male scrotum to swell over 200 times its original size and what can be done to drain and embalm said organ.

- How to move 350 pounds of dead woman when you are an 85 pound gal armed only with a gurney and a dream.

Stay tuned. I have class again on Thursday.

At any rate, I can barely sit up so I’m just going to post photos and try to come up with something to go along with them. Sound good?

Alright, here goes: 

Ok, so let me explain; yesterday was our new housekeeper’s first day (yes, I am quite the spoiled bitch) and while I was taking a bath last night I noticed that not only did she manage to get the hard water stains out of the toilets and sinks, the woman made spotless our soap savers. 

I have no idea if she scrubbed them or soaked them or dipped them in a substance that will eventually eat my face off but who really cares, really so long as they look good. After seeing this I proceeded to throw the contents of my refrigerator on the floor before letting my children lick the tile clean. Just because I could.

This carving was a gift from a friend of mine who was gracious enough not to kick me out of her house when I ran rough-shod over her southern sensibilities:

It’s called “Love of Learning”. Isn’t she adorable what with her books and no face? And totally unexpected since just two days prior I had the audacity to ask my southern girlfriend about her rib recipe which, apparently, is grounds for justifiable homicide where she’s from. Even when the southerner in question is a white woman who threw off enough of her old-fashioned southern upbringing to marry a black man.

Went to Tahoe the other day: 

There was no real reason for the trip other than the fact I was about to kill and eat my offpsring if I spent one more day cooped up with them. In the end the pile of gold kugrands required to fill my gas tank was worth getting out of town for.

I helped out with a jog-a-thon at my kids’ school: 

Quite a few parents turned out, which was nice since it meant we didn’t have to jump through hoops for permission to beat students when they got out of line.

I finished up finals, but not before I snapped a few photos inside the Winchester Mystery Trailer: 

You know what I love best about this photo? The fact that right next to the infant casket is a Costco-sized package of granola bars and a sign admonishing people to pay fifty cents before taking one.

I received straight A’s by the way. Not that anyone really cares, but I figure what’s the point of getting straight A’s if you can’t lord it over everyone? Oh, and there’s more funeral education photos here.

I’ve been growing stuff: 

It’s large and loud and orange and therefore I am totally in love with it.

Ever see a wind farm?  

This is a photo of the wind farm on the Altamont Pass taken during the drive between Sacramento and Santa Cruz.

A friend of mine made the trip up to Sacramento to participate in the Sac State Alumni recital:

He’s an incredibly talented musician and I can’t think of anything smart to say about him although trust me – I’ve really tried to come up with something. Since we grew up together I try to tread lightly since he’s the only one who can produce photographic evidence that I’m a total tard and not at all as cool as I try to portray myself on this blog. He leaves for Kansas next month to earn his doctorate.

…and since this post doesn’t have nearly enough photos to destroy the bandwidth of most of my readers, how about another photo of the Winchester Mystery Trailer?

Yup. That just about wraps it up. Sorry about the loading time.