Well, I'm not even sure where to start with this blog. I guess I'll start with when I was in junior high. I had a couple of songs that I would play over and over again to the point that I'm surprised that the CDs didn't stop playing in protest. My two favorite were "Crazy" by KC & Jojo (totally typical girly love song) and "Ms. Jackson" by Outkast. On a side note, did you know that "Ms. Jackson" was written about Erykah Badu's mother who Andre 3000 had an issue with? To this day I still rock out to "Ms. Jackson" but as it turns out, Erykah Badu's mother and I will be sharing the same last name. I'll just have to add a "Mrs." when I sing it now.
Majority of little girls grow up playing dress up. My favorite game was Pretty Pretty Princess. The sole purpose of the game was to put on as many plastic "jewels" as you could earn with your princess points. The ultimate goal is to earn the points to place the gorgeous (to a 5 year old) crown on your head. You would then pick up the fun house style mirror provided, look at yourself with all your acquired bling and say out loud, "I'm the pretty pretty princess." My future daughter will totally be allowed to indulge in this conceded stereotype promoting ritual after she cleans the cat box and does something else productive.
My very long winded and roundabout point is that after 20 years of wondering what that moment would be like and finally achieving that ultimate crown, I'm engaged!
I think everyone wonders who the man they are going to marry is. If you went back in time to Mrs. Sugars 5th grade classroom and told my 10 year old self that it was going to be the boy sitting on the other side of the room I probably would have thought you were one grape short of a fruit salad. Life is funny that way. It's funny when you date someone and imagine their last name attached to your first and wonder what it will really end up being. Outkast knew all along. It was an incredible day and it meant so much more to become engaged to someone who I have already walked down a long, windy and at times rough road with. Sometimes coming out on the other side shows you that there's no one else you'd rather travel that road with, bumpy or not. There's a lot more road to come, and I'm ready. I'll have my new last name, dreams for my future and my best friend at my side.
(My grown up pretty pretty princess ring)
Past the engagement, school has been kicking my ass. In my ceremonies course we dove head first into the death customs of the Roman Catholics, Protestants and the Orthodox Christians. I know next to nothing about Christianity and my most recent exam grade proved that unfortunately. You Christians are so complicated! At least we have moved on to the much more simple Christian Scientists and Muslims. I can handle them.
In my orientation course we've really been focusing a lot more on caskets and cemetery merchandise, in particular putter burial containers and markers/headstones. That class has become a lot more fun. The mortuary science program has its own selection room (which is where all the caskets and other merchandise are in a funeral home), so we get to touch, feel and oogle over all the different casket materials (wood, metal, plastic, etc.) and their interiors (crepe, linen, satin, velvet, etc.). Options, options, options. We've also really started to break down the components of a casket and the manufacturing process. No one would believe the amount of names and pieces it takes to construct a casket. Oh, and then there's the shape. Would you like a vertical straight rectangle, a vertical round, or perhaps an urn side square? Yeah, like I said, options.
(More casket options)
(Metal infant latching casket option)
(Plastic infant option)
(A Roman Catholic set up)
The best part about my orientation class has been sharing info about different strange death trends or uniquenesses. As a class we share different things we've seen or enjoying depending on the topic. Yesterday was all over the place. Our topic was customizing grave markers. Markers are defined as the flush to the ground headstones that you would see in a memorial park. Have you ever thought about what you want your headstone/marker to say? One of my dad's favorite jokes is about a wife who places her husband's obituary in the paper. It stated, "George Smith lived and died. Car for sale." You can tell she loved him dearly. Now when it comes to a grave marker, the options are pretty cool. You want a special font? A unique item attached to the stone? Your photo laser etched into it? One student described the gravesite of Sonny Bono. It simply has the year of birth, year of death and the title of his famous song "And The Beat Goes On." Pretty awesome. Another student brought up Sedlec Assuary which is a chapel outside of Prague constructed from the bones of those who died during the Bubonic Plague. It's hauntingly beautiful.
(Sonny Bono's marker)
(My favorite! EXPIRED.)
(The chandler in Sedlec Assuary)
On of my favorite movies of all time is "Under the Tuscan Sun." I love it for many reasons, but one of them is because of a particular theme in the film about ladybugs. The main character has always lived her life in a certain way, in the part of the world she was familiar with and with the people she had always known. Through a divorce, she finds herself on a trip to Italy where se spontaneously purchases a crumbling mansion from the 14th century. In her small town in Tuscany there is an eccentric, free spirited woman who the main character admires. She wonders how this woman simply adapts and lets life come her way. The main character is desperately trying to find herself. Almost like she's trying to find the self that she always knew was there. The eccentric woman tells her a story about being out in a field trying to catch ladybugs. Although she's trying incredibly hard, the ladybugs remain out of her reach or fly away when she manages to catch one. Eventually the woman becomes exhausted from her failed efforts and fails asleep in the grass. When she wakes, he finds she is covered in ladybugs. At the end of the movie, as the main character comes to terms with living life as it comes, a ladybug lands on her hand. Although the main moral of the story is to stop trying to force things to happen in life, I took from it that's it's important that you can't just sit on your ass, fall asleep wherever and then assume the ladybugs will come. You have to do the work to get yourself to the place where the ladybugs live. Don't fall asleep on the subway bench. It just isn't going to happen. I was terrified to move to Southern California. I thought that I could make my career work without moving to where the ladybugs live. After moving here alone (which was the hardest part) and letting life direct me, the ladybugs have come in the form of my like minded classmates that I've always yearned for, the friends I thought I would never make (that's you Schyler, Melody and Jillian!), the full connection to my passion for funeral service and best of all the feeling of being home somewhere besides Healdsburg. That has been the best ladybug of them all.
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