Wednesday: Acrostic Adventure

🌟 Form: Acrostic 📝 Instructions: Choose a word (e.g., “WONDER”) and write a poem where each line starts with a letter from that word. Be creative and explore themes related to the word. Share your acrostic on your blog with #WordyWednesday. Wordy Wednesday: Acrostic Adventure Whisper of the stars, guiding us through night, Open hearts to see the world in a new light.

https://celestialzkreationz.org/wednesday-acrostic-adventure/

Celestial Acrostic Wednesday

Daily writing prompt Where did your name come from? View all responses Wednesday: Acrostic 🌟 Form: Acrostic 📝 Instructions: Using your name write a poem where each line starts with a letter from your name. Be creative and explore themes related to your name. Share your acrostic on your blog with #WordyWednesday. “Celeste.” 🌟 Crystal skies above, where dreams take flight, …

https://celestialzkreationz.org/celestial-acrostic-wednesday/

#WordyWednesday: Bleb

(used in a mortuary context)

A blister on a dead body, filled with stinky liquid, which usually turns into an area of skin slip (moist peeling skin) after it's been drained. Not fun at all.

#HisAndHearsePress #Embalming #Embalmer #DeadBody #MortuaryScience #Bleb #Blister #Gross #Ew #Stinky #Vocabulary #WordOfTheDay

#WordyWednesday: Ptomaine 💨🤢🤮

Pronounced: toe-MAIN.

The unholy gang of nitrogenous stink compounds responsible for the indescribable stench of decomposing bodies. Found in decaying vegetable and animal matter and formed by the action of putrefactive bacteria.

Includes cadaverine and putrescine (the smell of putrefying flesh or rotting fish), indole (smells like mothballs), and skatole (smells like poop).

Other chemical compounds produce smells akin to rotting cabbage, nasty garlic, and rotten eggs. Ptomaine was originally thought to cause food poisoning but has been disproven.

Raise your hand if you've had this smell cling to your nose hairs after a long day at work! Semi-related, death workers deserve a raise.

#HisAndHearsePress #Ptomaine #Decomposition #Cadaverine #Putrescine #Indole #Skatole #Putrefaction #Funeral #MortuaryScience #DeathCare #Embalming #Vocabulary #Stinky #Decomp

#WordyWednesday: Half Couch vs Full Couch Casket

Most American caskets are half couch. What does that mean?

A half couch casket has a two-piece lid. The top half opens to reveal the deceased’s face and torso while the lower half remains closed to conceal the legs.

These caskets open on the left (it’s just the industry standard, likely because we tend to approach the casket and touch the person with our right hand while turned slightly toward their face; it just works better this way). The inside of the foot end of the casket is often “unfinished,” meaning that it’s spartan rather than upholstered in pleated fabric. We can’t spontaneously decide to reverse a body in a casket, but we can custom order a casket built to open in the opposite direction (like if the right side of a person is too disfigured for viewing).

Note: even though YOU only see the top lid open, rest assured that WE can open both lids to get the body inside. Once the body is nicely tucked in, we close the lower lid.

A full couch casket has a one-piece lid to showcase the entire body, head to toe. They’re uncommon, typically only seen in certain parts of the country. Some include an inner leg covering and/or a foot pillow. Funeral directors must accommodate a few details differently: standard casket flower sprays can only be placed on top when it’s fully closed (or a long simple garland is draped along the hinge panel inside), and similarly, the flag cannot be draped unless the lid is fully closed. Half couch caskets allow flower sprays or a pleated flag to be draped over the closed foot panel during viewing.

Either way, please bring pants for your loved one. Whether we can see their legs or not, they ought to be properly dressed. Full couch caskets expose the feet too, which is rough for us when the feet are swollen. Putting shoes on is really hard! It’s also tricky to keep the feet together rather than splaying out (this is a better reason to tie shoelaces together rather than making the zombie apocalypse funnier).

Which would you prefer? Full or half couch?

#HisAndHearsePress #Casket #Coffin #FullCouch #HalfCouch #Funeral #MortuaryScience #Vocab #Vocabulary #Caskets

#WordyWednesday: Ossilegium ☠️

A noun meaning the act of collecting bones for placement in an ossuary after the rest of the body has decomposed. FYI, an ossuary is a building or structure to house bones or cremated remains. (I’ll do one of these on ossuaries later!)

The collected bones may be stored in individual boxes, small niches, or arranged into magnificent displays with many other skeletons.

Many cultures performed this as a means of conserving burial space. Ancient Greeks even collected bones from funeral pyres and washed them with wine and oil before placing them in urns.

Pronounced oss-ih-LEE-gee-um.

Not to be confused with the metal band by the same name 🤘🏻

#HisAndHearsePress #Ossilegium #Ossuary #Skeleton #Bones #Crypt #Cemetery #Decomposition #MortuaryScience #Vocab #Vocabulary #WordOfTheDay

#WordyWednesday: Gravity Embalming

An old-timey method of embalming that predates electricity but can still be used in a pinch today.

A large glass jar is suspended over the body with a hose leading to a large artery. Embalming fluid flows into the body at a very slow and steady rate.

Raising the height of the jar increases the pressure (approximately 0.43 pounds of pressure per foot of height above the injection site).

#HisAndHearsePress #Embalming #MortuaryScience #MortuarySchool #Embalmer #Undertaker #Mortician #FuneralDirector #Gravity

#WordyWednesday: Reefer (no, not that kind) ❄️

AKA Cooler or Refrigerator

If a body needs to be held for a period of time and isn’t embalmed, it must be refrigerated to prevent decomposition. I mean, we’re going to decompose eventually, but the process needs to be paused for sanitation and funeral/viewing reasons.

Depending on the location, a mortuary might have a 1-2 person cooling chamber, or maybe a mid-size walk-in cooler with shelving or rolling tables. Some high volume facilities have larger capacities (40-50ish). Emergency situations like mass fatality disasters or hmmm, let’s see… pandemics! can necessitate the use of refrigerated truck trailers. They’re basically the same ones that keep your groceries fresh during transit and are referred to as reefers.

By the way, these are NOT freezers. The temperature is maintained between 36-39°F (that’s 2-4°C for you non-USians). This slows decomposition down to a crawl without creating ice crystals that damage tissues.

#HisAndHearsePress #Mortuary #MortuaryScience #Reefer #ReeferTrailer #Cooler #Refrigerator #HVAC #ColdStorage #Death

#WordyWednesday: Shrouding Women

When you think of morticians, you might conjure images of creepy old men in black suits. But did you know that they've only been "in charge" of the dead for the last century or so? Before that, men were typically responsible for building coffins and digging graves. Body preparation fell to the women!

Women were already tasked with nursing the sick, distributing herbs, and aiding in childbirth, so bathing and dressing the dead was a natural progression. Since it was a duty that demanded care, gentleness, and propriety, men were simply unsuited to the task. Enter the shrouding women.

Many neighborhood women became skilled and knowledgeable in the art of preparing the dead. They understood the weather's effect on decomposition and how to tend to bodies suffering from various conditions. They lent their expertise to those in need, not for monetary compensation but as an act of community.

Duties included preparing a cooling board (sometimes an ironing board or barn door placed over chairs), washing and dressing the corpse, closing the eyes and mouth (coins on eyes and jaws secured shut with tied rags or forked sticks propped against the breast bone), and otherwise arranging the body into a restful pose.

Commercialization of death care after the Civil War led cabinetmakers to evolve from coffin builders to embalmers. They wrested control of bodies away from women, claiming women were weak, delicate, and unable to tolerate the sight of blood. As the men rose into the ranks of professionals, women were relegated to the sidelines of death care. They became decorations. Trade journal advertisements portrayed men doing funeral work and women as objects of beauty. The foundation was laid for men to dominate the industry for the next 100 years.

Fortunately, we've come full circle and women are entering funeral service in droves. Over 70% of graduating mortuary science classes are women. Turns out we *can* handle some blood after all.

#HisAndHearsePress #InternationalWomensDay #WomensDay #WomenInSTEM #WomenSupportingWomen #DeathCare #FuneralService #MortuaryScience #MortuarySchool #DeathPositive #FuneralDirector #Embalmer #Mortician #Undertaker

Happy Caturday from the lead biscuit maker at Kneadful Things bakery! 💀🐈‍⬛

He’s a spicy boy, very feisty. What should I name him?? I’m looking for real names, preferably literary or historical.

#WordyWednesday #Caturday #BiscuitMaker #MakingBiscuits #KneadingCat #NeedfulThings #CaturdayEveryday #Kittens #Squee #DailySquee #NameMyCat #Catstodon #CatsOfMastodon