Out of the mouths of babes

Spoken by my 4 year old niece who was speaking to her mother(my sister) referencing my mother(her grandmother) who was standing near-by...

"Mom...you'll have to use small words when you talk to her, she's a little slow today."

The BODIES exhibit

Lot's of anatomy and physiology geekiness follows, read at your own discretion.

So Monday, my friend and I went to the BODIES exhibit here in Seattle. I had gone through a six week cadaver course during massage school, but this was lots more art'y than formaldehyde soaked corpses.

There were many displays of cadavers in various positions: throwing a basketball, sitting and thinking, running. One of the muscular exhibits had many of the individual muscles flayed and hardened away from the body so you could see each origin and insertion of each muscle. It was so cool to be reminded of where many of the muscles attach, how deep and thick some of the muscle groups are. The lumbar erector spinae are 2 inches deep.

The circulatory room was KILLER! They did a process in which they injected a hardening colored plastic substance into the veins and arteries, then they chemically melted away the rest of the flesh. All that was left was a perfect colored cast of the circulatory system. They did the process with many individual organs. The most fascinating of these was the kidney. The kidney is the most highly pressurized system in the body, and the cast of it's circulatory system looked like red velvet. It is completey inundated with arteries.

The fetal room was a bit difficult to take. It was medically fascinating, but I tried to just look at the pathologies without thinking too much about them. There was a fetus born with spinal bifida, one born with anencephaly Look at your own risk, and one born with abdominal herniation, which is when all of the internal organs form on the outside of the body. There were also small exhibits in which you looked through a magnifying glass into a tube that contained various developmental levels of fetuses(what IS the plural for fetus?). That was a little difficult, especially since we just found out that another of our good friends is pregnant(I had a little breakdown about that, but things are better now).

The pathologies were also utterly transfixing. There was a complete transverse cut of the brain. This brain had had a major stroke. It looked as if the entire surface of this brain had mold on it. It looked as you would visualize a circuit board that had browned out and blew many fuses. There was a brain with Parkinson's, there were many blackened lungs (this was one of the hardest parts of the exhibit, for me). There were also various organ pathologies such as liver cirrhosis, enlarged hearts, and brain tumors.

They used a distinct polymer in preserving the cadavers, but you could still smell the dead body smell underneath it. It ended up being very acrid and sickningly sweet. So after about one hour, my friend and I couldn't take the smell anymore, and had to leave. Dead body smell tends to stick with you, literally. It sticks to your skin, your windpipe, you taste it for a few hours after you've left. So we had to leave, get some fresh air, and put something else down our gullet other than dead body smell and chemical polymers.

I have to say though, I found the exhibit exhillerating. It reaffirmed my desire to study craniosacral. Looking at the inside of the skull made me remember anew how intricate, complex, and like a little factory our brains are. Seeing the Sella turcica, how it connects the front and back of the brain, how the pituitary sits in the center, and how one can affect it through craniosacral, was fascinating.

Any of you locals who have the desire, and the stomach for it, I highly suggest seeing this exhibit. I'll go with ya, if ya want.

Chirp, chirp...

Man, it's deader n' a friggin doornail in bloggerland these days. I know, I know, I'm one to talk. Life gets crazy, and all of the sudden you have 20 emails to respond to, 7 phone calls to return, 2 feet of paperwork to do, a stack of sheets 12 miles deep, and voila, many other things suffer.

Despite the treading water aspect of the previous paragraph, things are good. I've started my new schedule at both my locations. This leaves me working Wednesdays at the fitness center, Thursdays through Saturdays at the chiropractor's, and then Sunday through Tuesday not doing massage (theoretically). After tomorrow, my hands will have logged 23 hours of massage this week. 16 hours is considered full-time. And as I typed the above paragraph, I couldn't help thinking to myself, "yes Stine, you officially HAVE become your mother." I love my mother desperately, but daily updates of the "work" one has done make for a quick pathologic psychic fix.

I got's me a new 4 drawer file cabinet. My Lordy how it has made me creamy to not have to bend over and search through an egg crate full of extraneous file folders and papers for a blank insurance file folder. I swear there is much Virgo in my chart somewhere. A big double fire ball of controlfreakdom. Yay!

So if you haven't read Ly's latest post about the TV on the Radio concert, it was simply to. die. I haven't been this gung ho about a band since Youth Group. Ly's the music nerd in the family, so you know if I'm all over it, it has to be good, or a show tune. Both lead singers were haht(yes I did mean to spell it that way). Their harmonies were flawless, there production was first rate. I loved every second of it.

In other news, I've been thinking about looking for a yoga class. It's time for me to take a class again as I've been feeling like a bit of a work horse lately - a role I've completely taken on in all it's perfectionistic glory. I've been on output mode lately, a lot. It's time to have a little input time. If it weren't for my Buddhist practice, there wouldn't be much input at all. I've had a few boughts of feeling a little blue. Perhaps it's the changing seasons, even though I simply adore fall. I also managed to wean myself off of the medication I was taking (approximately 2 months ago). I had been taking Wellbutrin for a few years prior, but for the last 9 months or so, I've only been taking it because of the resulting weight loss it afforded. I finally decided that this wasn't an excuse to keep taking it, and besides I have no prescription coverage, and it's a gazillion dollars a bottle. Drug companies, I love you. I'm so glad you exist to help people in need

Une pause to remove my tongue from my cheek.

So you know how some people have a biological clock? Well ever since I found out mine was broken, I've taken on having an automobile clock. I thought I could wait until next December when Ly and I finished paying our credit card consolidation bill (after 5 years of insane monthly payments). But now that I'm working 4 days in a row, and needing 12 million sets of sheets, my neck and shoulders are like, "yeah, right Stine." I just keep fantasizing about a nice relatively new Honda for my next birthday. Ly and I are thinking about a Civic or Accord. Thing is, at 36, I have never owned nor bought a car. I(we) need help. I want to go buy a car with someone who knows the system, knows what sales people try to push off on customers, and can tell them to take a flying leap if necessary. All I know is how much I want to spend each month, and what kind of car I want. See, I don't even know if we're supposed to go to the bank first, get the loan, and then go choose a car. Are we suppose to choose the car, and then go get the financing? I mean shit, I feel like I'm 16 in this area. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated. Because if mamma can have a nice new'ish car in her driveway for her 37th birthday, mamma's gonna be real, real happy. You hear that daddy?

Seriously, you hear that?