Turkey Hot Dog & Caskets

Another week has passed here in Long Beach. Since the NFDA (National Funeral Directors Association) convention was being held in San Francisco this week, school was cancelled so the instructors, who are practicing funeral directors, could attend. It's been a great week of catching up both with school work and settling in to the apartment.

I've been trying to check out as many restaurants as I can lately to get the lay of the land. I've found that people are naturally nicer to a gal who's young and on her own. I've gotten high fives from strangers, lots of smiles and plenty of advice. So far my biggest adventure has been the laundromat and Walmart. You can make your own assumptions as to what type of people watching is available to me at these two establishments. : )

                  The tip jar at an awesome Thai restaurant I found. I thought it was quite fitting : )

So, I'm a firm believer in doctors. If something hurts, go get it checked out. Something wrong with your eyes? Go see an optometrist. Your feet? Go see a podiatrist. Your intestines? That'd be a gastroenterologist. So when you're sad, lonely and trying to adjust to a new place completely on your own, go get yourself an amazing therapist! I've been working closely with a wonderful therapist here in Long Beach who has really helped me through this transition. Because there wasn't going to be school this week to keep me busy, we made a game plan of how I was going to stay positive and healthy. From how I was expecting this week to go and how it ended up, it's hard to not think little strings are being pulled in your favor sometimes with the universe...

One of my favorite people in the whole world came down to Studio City for her son's wedding last weekend, so I drove up on Sunday to visit her. We went to her son's really nice house in the same area for a BBQ. It was so wonderful to have a piece of home down here with me. When we got to her son's house they explained how there was a crazy cat lady who lived next door. This was no exaggeration. I could see over the fence into her yard where there were TONS of kitties of all ages including kittens. I could also see that many were suffering from illnesses and one was even going blind. It was further stated that the crazy cat lady refused any help from the outside world for the cats so rescue organizations had been setting traps in hopes of catching them to treat and then release again. Apparently the shelters in LA county only give cats 2 weeks tops to be adopted before they are euthanized so instead of calling animal control, the neighbors feel that at least these kitties are getting food and shelter, and I'm sure some form of attention versus being put to sleep. As I watched the lady come out onto her back porch with her walker to feed all the cats, it made my heart hurt to think that she is probably very lonely and probably thinking that she's protecting herself and her cats from the outside world that she sees as a threat when in reality she's doing just the opposite. As I drove back to Long Beach that night I couldn't stop thinking about all the kitties. We can only act when we truly can I suppose.

                        The original Brady Bunch house!! I got to drive by and take a snap shot of it


As I parked my car and walked into the creepy alley I live in I instantly noticed halfway down it a little gray kitty looking for food by the dumpsters. Now this is not an alley you want to hang out in at night. Sex, drugs and the homeless are common and the goal is to get inside the house as quickly as possible. As I bent down to talk to her I saw that she was friendly but it was going to take a lot more to get her to come close enough for me to grab her. Although some shady people began to congregate nearby, I decided that even if I couldn't help crazy cat lady and her herd, I was going to help this little one. I quickly ran inside and grabbed a turkey hot dog and ran back out into the alley. With the help of the hot dog and some soothing words, I was able to get close enough to grab her. She immediately made herself into the shape of an X. Fully stretched out from top to bottom with claws out. I know nothing about football, but the scene looked exactly like the guy holding the football running as fast as he can with one arm out to shove anyone coming in the opposite direction off his prize. Needless to say we made it inside. I plopped her on the floor and she's been with me ever since.

                                     Ally enjoying a butt rub from the great vet I found!
The rest of the week has mostly been Ally (named after the alley she's from of course) and I getting to know each other while I work on my loads of homework. This week has been all about merchandising. Caskets, caskets and more caskets. Here are some fun facts: Did you know that the terms softwood and hardwood do not refer to the actual relative hardness of the wood? For there are, indeed, some very soft hardwoods and very hard softwoods. How about caskets gauges? Did you know that caskets are constructed of 16 gauge, 18 gauge and 20 gauge metal and that the relationship to these numbers is inverse with the gauge number and the metal's thickness? If the casket is 20 gauge steel it means that it takes 20 sheets of steel to equal approximately one inch of thickness. Therefore the lower the gauge number, the thicker the steel and the higher the quality metal casket you have. Fascinating, no? Well, either way, it's my life for now.

                                                  Caskets, caskets and more caskets.
Tomorrow starts the new week of school, although shortened for 4th of July. We'll be diving into how to do a proper funeral arrangement with a family. We're learning how important the small details are in terms of accuracy and thoroughness. First the living and then the dead is how this program seems to work. Trust me, the living are way more difficult to deal with.

Be thankful for those around you who keep you grounded and off the ledge, even if it may be a little scraggly kitty you lifted out of an alley in Navy Seal rescue fashion. Support can come in all forms whether it furry, from your mailbox or the person laying next to you in bed at night. It's all relative in the end. I'm off to go do some more homework now. I'm sure I'll have some more interesting stories to share with you all next week. Until then, keep staying alive.

"Do it all by yourself"

I've officially made it through my first week of mortuary college. Tomorrow will be a week since I left Healdsburg. Only 5 more to go. It's a bit difficult to adjust since everything I am adjusting to is (thankfully) temporary. Being in a new city and not knowing anyone and not knowing your way around isn't the easiest but I've definitely learned a lot in my short time here so far. Here are some observations thus far:

• The 405 will NEVER be my friend, but the 91 has stepped up and decided to play nice.

• The slow lane, which is one of 5-6 lanes down here instead of the 2 I'm used to, consists of going about 75mph. Any slower than that and people are chomping at the bit to give you the finger.

• Long Beach is a huge dog city! I had no idea how many people owned dogs here. I literally can't turn a corner without seeing someone new walking a dog, if not 2 dogs. The best part is that I've seen a ton of well taken care of Pitbulls and many mutts. The best has been seeing extremely large and ganster looking men walking various forms of Chihuahua and Poodle mixes. It warms my heart.

• As my friend Schyler explained, Long Beach has the highest population of Cambodians outside of Cambodia and let me tell you, I appreciate that. My apartment required I get my own refrigerator or rent one from the management company. I chose to buy my own and "Cambodia Town" as the street sign said has an awesome second hand appliance store with $25 delivery charge. Thank you Cambodia for my giant $250 refrigerator! 

All in all my living situation is nice in Long Beach. I do have a family with small children living above me. The youngest child likes to run in what seems like circles at 11pm every night. As the other neighbor explained though, I should count my blessings since this little guy used to enjoy riding his scooter at 11 instead of running. Pick your battle I guess?

So, on to the whole reason I'm here in the first place: school. This has been some week. Although I am already feeling the stress of the workload, I am much calmer about how this program is going to go. I found my little route to school, found my usual parking space and I have found my seat in class. It just so happens that it's right behind the huge projector and I can't see the board to save my life, but hey, creatures of habit die hard.

Our main focus in class this week in my Into to Funeral Service was removals. Although the funeral home I worked for rarely made removals themselves (we had a removal company that did it), it's still very important to know the proper procedures since you never know what type of funeral home you'll end up working for. And here, ladies and gentlemen, is where Mr. Randy Rescue takes center stage! Randy Rescue is 165lbs. of pure plastic (or some silicon type equivalent) who we had to practice removing and bringing to the mortuary (AKA, the table across the classroom). The instructor explained that our end goal is to know how to move a 250lbs+ body from the floor, the bed, the toilet, etc. BY OURSELVES and into back of the removal vehicle and off to the mortuary. Now, had this statement been made by one of the giant gangster men who walk their Chihuahuas in Long Beach I would have scoffed and rolled my eyes. Yes, easy for you to say/do. But no, this statement came from a woman who is about 5'1" and is quite robust to explain it politely. She had made plenty of these types of removals on her own and as she explains, it's all about geometry, physics and leverage. To me it equals tying to figure out how Stonehenge was created, but that's another story.

So here we walk into class in the morning and there's Randy Rescue on the floor, around the corner and literally wrapped around the corner itself. "Do it all by yourself," the instructor says. I should say that there are people in our class with specialties. Some have never stepped foot inside a funeral home nor seen a dead body and others have been in the industry for years and are now wanting to become licensed. We happen to have 2 young men who work for removal service companies contracted through various different funeral homes. Naturally these two jumped right up to "save" Randy and get him on the cot. Did you know that once the body is strapped onto the cot you can flip the cot up vertically and walk the deceased out of the house upright in dolly fashion? No? Well either did I. Here goes this guy strapping Randy in and then there goes Randy vertically and walked over to the "mortuary" table to be embalmed like Home Depot moves heavy appliances. It was amazing. I don't think I could have gotten Randy out of the yoga, wall hugging pose he was in nevermind delivering him UPS style to the other table. It was quite a day.

As the week progressed we really dove into the ethics of funeral service. There are such extensive laws and codes of conduct for funeral directors and embalmers to follow. It's a world that few will ever know. One of the most interesting discussions this week, among many, was the call to serve and what it truly means to serve a family. We learned that it's vital to understand all cultures and religions we come in contact with and if we don't know something about either of those then we need to study up. We can't judge a family based on religion, culture or their financial standing. What really becomes interesting is serving a family that you may not agree with morally. About 6 months ago I worked a funeral service for a neo-Nazi family. Except for the obvious, they were similar to other families I had worked with. Did I mention I was a Jew? No. Did I want to mention that fact along with many others? Of course, but I didn't. It was a learning experience to say the least.

What came up in class was the Boston marathon bomber. For those of you who don't know, the bomber was a 26 year old named Tamerlan Tsarnaev. He was ethnically Chechen-Avar and was religiously Muslim. A lot of Americans don't like Muslims and almost all Americans don't like murderers. This led to the problem after Tsarnaev was killed by police of who was going to take care of the body. Tsarnaev remained at the coroner's office for weeks in refrigeration because no funeral home was willing to take him. These funeral homes cited very valid reasons for not, such as fear of retaliation from the public in the form of vandalism and threats. Think Planned Parenthood here and what the people who work there have gone through in the past. Other funeral homes said that morally they would not serve the family because of the crime Tearnaev committed. Many did say however that they would be happy to cremate him since it's a huge slap in the face to his religion to do so. Revenge post-mortem was their goal.

The funeral director who did finally step up said that he was not taking the case out of respect for the individual, but out of respect for the profession and the reality that human remains need to be disposed of properly. The flip side of the situation is that if no funeral home had stepped up, the family who was willing to pay, would lose custody of the body and Tsarnaev would have become the responsibility of that county and labeled an indigent. Indigents are disposed of through public funds i.e. taxpayer's dollars. This is what happens to the homeless found under bridges who no one claims. Had this funeral director not take care of Tsarnaev, it would have been salt in the wound for the people of Boston who would have ended up paying for his disposition. Interesting how that works huh?

All in all it brought to light our morals and ethics not just as people but as future funeral directors. What would you have done?

Alright folks, now that the refrigerator is here I'm off to do some grocery shopping and work on my boat load of homework. More to come as the weeks progress. Keep smiling and staying alive : )

"This will be the hardest thing you ever do. Good luck."

Today has been a day unlike any I've ever experienced. I work up at 6AM in order to prepare for the day and I'm only now settling in back at the hotel and able to gather my thoughts. Today was my all day (8AM-5PM) orientation for mortuary college. If I'm able to complete this blog series with a photo of me in a cap and gown and not back in waitressing attire I will be one happy camper!

I woke up feeling ok, but as the time drew closer to my dad dropping me off at the campus, I started to panic. This is really my new school, in a new city, in the other half of the state. In the best way that my dad can show affection, he held out his hand for a high five. Anyone who knows him knows that this high five was equivalent to a warm and loving good luck hug. As I walked away from the car and started up the stairs the panic truly set in. With each step I thought, "I could turn around right now. No one knows me, they'll never know. Dad hasn't left the parking lot yet. I can totally back out while I'm ahead." Now anyone who knows me knows how many opportunities I've missed in the past due to my anxiety. I try not to beat myself up too much about the past, but I do sometimes wonder what opportunities and memories I've let slip through my fingers. With those memories of past failures propelling me, I made it up the stairs to the health science department and through the door.

What ensued was eight straight hours of pure information. How to dress (or more like how not to dress), how to speak, how to study, how to network, etc. Not only did I learn that I had dressed completely inappropriate (leggings and sandals), but that I would have to get used to a strict dress code for the next year and a half. Knee length skirts, hosiery, full suits, no visible tattoos or piercings, and closed toe shoes. As the instructor/dean of the program stated, "It only takes one time in the prep room with a body purging on your feet and it running between your toes for you to remember the closed toe policy." I personally don't think I'll need that reminder. It was explained that conservative clothing and attitude is due to many reasons, but mostly out of respect for the families. Although I had experienced it first hand, it was still interesting to hear that 80% of your time is spent with the living and only 20% with the dead. It makes sense that will those numbers you know which group out of the two you're aiming to impress.

Past the basics, the instructors got into the nitty gritty of what we really needed to be prepared for. "You are a tight, unique group of people. Look around. This is your new extended and dysfunctional family. Say goodbye to your old life, your old friends and your relationship. This is now your life." This was my first, but not my last, instance of wanting to cry today. Thankfully the instructors brought in the second and third semester students who acted as mentors for us today. The support was overwhelming. I couldn't have gotten that many numbers and emails without trying even if I was Brad Pitt! It was such a change from my past experience in college. Both experiences will have required a TON of work and dedication, but I don't remember a time in my life that I felt more lonely than at UC Berkeley. This will be the opposite, and for that I am so thankful.

                     (The heads for the restorative art course that I'll be taking. These were some of the best examples)

Between campus tours, buying my books (EXPENSIVE!) and eating cookies, I met some wonderful people. One of which is (hard to believe) just as obsessed with her kitties as I am! Because of our student discount, we already have a carpool trip planned with another cohort student to San Diego for the cremation operator certification course. Very excited!

                                                 (My books for this summer semester plus tons of online reading)

So, many more subjects were covered and even more homework was assigned that my head is still spinning. I'll spare you all the details, but even with all the support, the shear volume of work and percentage of drop outs and fails left me feeling scared, incompetent and overwhelmed. As the long day came to an end, I said goodbye to the new friends I made and I deliriously made my way to the parking lot to wait for my dad. I decided I needed to call my mentor for support. She was my inspiration to apply to Cypress since she graduated from there in the early 90's. She is the most amazing funeral director I have ever met and I aspire to be half as talented and knowledgeable as she is. Unimaginable circumstances brought her to the decision to become a funeral director, and if she was able to emotionally handle extreme grief and go through this program at the young age of 18, I sure as hell can give it a shot at 25 with a ton of support. As one mentor stated, "This will be the hardest thing you ever do. Good luck." I've got a million hands, and many paws (both kitty and doggy) holding me up, so I'm hoping no luck is needed.

Until next time, keep staying alive : )