Question 15:
Other than “jolly,” in your opinion, what word(s) would best complete the following phrase, ” ‘Tis the season to be…” ?

Deck the halls with boughs of holly.
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Tis the season for dead bodies.
Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Wait a minute…dead bodies?

Well, yes.

My parents, my aunt, Fuzzy and I spent much of the day at the Museum of Science and Nature, in Dallas’s Fair Park. We began with a guided tour of the original Natural History museum, from curator Becky Rader, who also took us down into the admin offices, where we hung out with a real-life paleontologist, an incredibly handsome and gregarious fellow who talked to us about visits to various digs in Alaska, and also got to see the Jar Room (which is, just as it sounds like, a room full of specimens in jars.) Severus Snape would have felt quite at home in the jar room, with its shelf after shelf of pickeled snakes, skinks, turtles, frogs, and other such creepy crawlies. On the way to the jar room, we brushed past the Live Animal Room , with it’s warning sign: CAUTION: Poisonous Arthropods Within. We take no responsibility for your safety. Do I need to mention that we did NOT enter the poison bug room?

But we did visit the climate controlled Collection Room. A room full of amazing deep-drawered file-cabinets and coolers, all on rollers so that you could create aisles where you needed to be. Young Kelly, intrepid keeper of the collection, walked us in and said, “What do you want to see? Bird mounts we don’t use? Bats and mice for skin studies? Minerals? ” And let us look at whatever we wanted, rolling open aisles with as much magical aplomb as ever witnessed in a J.K. Rowling novel. And so we indulged ourselves, looking at geodes, and shark jaws (“Large shark jaw,” said my aunt looking at a blackened shark tooth easily three inches long. “It certainly is.” “Don’t worry,” I told her, reading the label, “It’s megalodon. They’re extinct.”

She showed us a stuffed owl and offered to then open the paleontology drawers, but we were running out of time, so we browsed the top floor of the museum without a guide, then walked along the lagoon to the The Science Place, which has merged with the Natural History museum to become one unit.

We had a quick lunch, then moved along to the Imax theatre, where we saw a six-minute flyover of Dallas and had fun trying to find the ComedySportz Arena, among all the other buildings, and then a BBC co-production about the human body. There was collective laughter during the bit where the soundtrack played “Let’s Get it On,” while the video was sperm valiantly trying to fertilize an egg, and collective oooh-ing at the images of newborns swimming in a “Mommy and Me” aquatics exercise. We left the theatre glad that none of us had to deal with a five-year-old that evening.

And then we went to BodyWorlds, the controversial exhibit featuring the anatomical display of real human bodies (you can see it, sort of, during one sequence in the latest James Bond film, I’m told). Even after browsing the website, it was difficult to know what to expect with all the hype. “It’s corpses,” was the first assumption, and while technically that’s true, it’s not at all what the exhibit really was.

First, you are eased into the exhibit gently, with a series of quotations about the wonders of the human body. Then you see the first specimen case, cross sections of human bones. If you’ve never seen the inside of a bone, it looks a little like layers of dense gauze. After the case, was the ligament skeleton, a human skeleton with most of the ligaments still intact. It was not in a case, merely arranged on a platform, with a caution sign warning, “Do not touch.”

The warnings were in no way ironic, because the prevailing sense was WANTING to touch. The crowd, allowed into the exhibit gallery in small controlled groups, entered laughing and talking, and was hushed almost instantly, with the general tenor of the group being reverence, awe, profound wonderment. As we walked through the various rooms, each displaying bodies, body parts, or in some cases, cross=section slices of bodies, we all – my group, and everyone around us – would look at a posed skeleton showing the lungs, say, and then breathe in, breathe out, try to correlate the placement and process of our OWN lungs with what we were seeing. At one point, looking at the ribcage and hips and pelvis of one of the bodies, my aunt paused, and felt along her own side, prodded her own hip. “I have to find this on my own body,” she said softly. “Find the correllation, see where the matches are.” At another display, focussing on the respiratory system, I stopped next to my mother, and realized we were both doing the same thing. “You’re suddenly hyper-aware of each breath, aren’t you?” I asked her, and when she said yes, I admitted the same thing, and we smiled at each other.

It should be noted, because I was asked this, that the only smell in this exhibit was that of the staffers eating Thai food on the other side of the curtains, out of sight. This is because the preservative method used on these bodies, all of which were people who volunteered to donate their bodies to science, and all of whom were kept anonymous so people would focus on the visual and not the backstory, is a type of modern mummification called Plastination. In some cases, colored dye was used to highlight certain things – blood vessels, for example – and there was labelling of specific parts, but not obtrusive amounts of labelling, and the entire exhibit was just…well, we’re back to profound.

Almost as amazing as the bodies themselves, many of which were posed to highlight certain things – strength, flexibility, etc. – was the crowd, which was multi-ethnic, and multi-generational. Staring at one of the posed bodies, a young girl asked her grandmother, “Is this a man or a woman?” And the grandmother replied gently that it was a man, and showed the girl the penis, the testicles (which, sans scrotum, looked like play-doh eggs on cords). “Oh, cool,” she said, and moved off to the next display.

Near the end of the exhibit, in the last gallery, was a curtained off section focussing on childbirth, with a collection of preserved human fetuses from 16 – 33 weeks of gestation. (It was noted that some were over 80 years old, and all had died of ‘natural’ causes). Most powerful was the posed body in this exhibit, that of a woman who died while eight months pregnant, her unborn child perishing with her. She was in a reclining position, with her abdomen windowed to display the fetus pushing her internal organs up toward her heart and lungs, and it was beautiful, and poignant.

Before leaving the galleries, we were given the opportunity to write in a guest book, and I confess that before I wrote my brief entry, I read some others. Overwhelming numbers of them had words like, “haunting” “amazing” “wow” and “cool.”

We were all very quiet on the way home, digesting what we had seen, moved and changed by the experience. We all came to the conclusion that this exhibit should be required viewing by all biology students and medical students. And we all agreed that it was fascinating and overwhelming and intense.

The museum states that it takes about 90 minutes to explore the galleries. I’d allow more time, because it’s truly intriguing, to see the human body, the thing we all inhabit, the one common element we have across ethnic, culture, and gender lines, so exposed. Seeing this, you would never want to take a life again, never want to cause harm, never want to overlook the tiniest moment of a long and fruitful life.

One of my favorite things about The West Wing was the attention to detail. If you watched the show, and especially if you’ve watched the special features on the dvds, you know that schedules actually had schedule information, and that when they needed a bill or any other document, there was real text for them to look at. And there was CJ’s goldfish. (Gail) It’s not so much that the fish remained on her desk from the time it was given to her to the end of the season, as that – and you couldn’t always see it – the aquarium was always decorated for the season.

Which brings us to today’s QotD:
Question 14:
Suppose you have a 50-gallon aquarium in your home. How will you creatively decorate it for the fish this holiday season?

I’ve never really been a fan of fish-as-pets. In fact, my philosophy has always been that fish are furniture, but if I had an aquarium, I’d certainly decorate it. After all, my dogs wear bandannas in their signature colors (blue for Zorro, red for Cleo) on special occasions, and they have their own Christmas stockings, in which Santa generally leaves bully sticks or pig’s ears.

The question then, is how would I decorate it. Well, I’m fairly certain you cannot convince fish to wear tiny Santa hats, but I do know that a wide variety of tiny aquarium ornaments exist. How cool would it be to have a sleigh pulled by eight seahorses, and a Santa sporting a Neptunian trident? How much fun to have white gravel along the bottom, so that the inside of the aquarium looked like a snow globe.

I could, of course get one of those aquarium screens that looks like a snowy sky, but really, less is more.

And the sleigh…that’s really the thing I’d want to see.

If, you know, I ever had fish.

It’s been the perfect rainy day. Soft light, Christmas music, and even though I got off to a slow start, some Breathe Easy tea and the lighting of the arched dining room window have improved my physical and mental well-being.

Right now, there is three-bean chili simmering on the stove, and there are two dogs snoozing in my office. The sky is dark, both from cloud-cover and just from the fact that it’s night, and the neighborhood is lit up like faerie-land. My plan for the evening is to write the last few Christmas cards – those that are meant for folks whose addresses I didn’t have – and finish folding metric assloads of laundry, which I meant to fold last night, and somehow didn’t. Probably beause we ended up doing the Holiday Grocery Shopping Extravaganza.

I’ve been woefully behind with my Questions of the Day – I wasn’t, until this weekend, and then I was, which is why I posted the last six questions all at once. This month, which seemed endless three weeks ago, suddenly seems to be racing by. My parents will be here in less than 48 hours, and the house isn’t yet Mom-ready. (No one else would find fault, mind you, just Mom. It’s how mothers are.)

Anyway, today’s question:
Question 13:
You’ve been chosen to host a sensational Christmas/Holiday celebration on TV. What three guests (living or deceased) would you have on the show to make it the best special EVER?

My guest list:

• The Fantabulous Klae, media mogul, and all around creative guy. I’d have him lead the audience in improv games, and then chat about whatever project was foremost in his mind.
• Alexandra Stoddard, interior designer, writer, and fellow stationery-holic. Her books are amazing, and she exudes graciousness.
• Margaret Maron. Her Deborah Knott books are delightful, and her Sigrid Harald series is just plain cool. This woman of mystery (novels) is one of my favorite to read, and I’d love to question her about her process, and just get to know the woman behind these amazing characters.
• My musical guest(s) would be The King’s Singers, a vocal group I’ve loved since they visited our high school and did a brown bag conference/performance/thing.

With the return of damp grey weather, I find myself more into the Christmas spirit, as if the relentless warmth and sunshine we’ve been having had somehow diminished the Christmas magic. It’s silly, really. I’ve had perfectly good Christmases involving white sand and sunny weather, and certainly California wasn’t always cold and grey in late December, but I was spoiled by my first Christmas in Texas, when I was presented with a dusting of snow, and now, nothing quite measures up.

The muted colors of the cloudy day outside serve their purpose however. Colors contrast more, and the moisture in the air makes lights seem to twinkle just a bit more. It’s as if some produce-department worker misted the neighborhood, as one does vegetables to make them glisten with crisp, fresh health.

On days like this, I turn the outside lights on before dusk, and let them shimmer happily in the fog. Every glance out the window brings a smile to my face, and the Christmas cd’s I play in the house sound sincere again.

I’ve been in a bit of a funk, despite choir and comedy, and today, the funk has lifted. Let the lights shine, the music play, and peace and joy come to us all!

Question #12:
What aspect of preparing for Christmas do you like the most?

I come from a family of letter writers. As far back as I can remember, fat envelopes from my grandfather, painstakingly printed so that my pre-cursive self could read them, would arrive in the mail, or nearly illegible cards from my grandmother, these addressed inside to “Hi Darling!” or “Hi Doll!” because she was never certain which daughter or granddaughter she was addressing.

And at Christmas there were cards, many cards. Some were from Germany, from my Aunt and Uncle, stationed there with the Air Force, others from California, which was a far away place at the time. Many were from friends and family in New Jersey, or new friends and neighbors in Colorado. Some were random, some were filled with pictures. Some had long type-written letters, and some had no signatures at all. As a child I made the decision that if an envelope either mentioned my name, or was addressed to my mother “and family” I was allowed to open it.

With each card came the ritual of taping them to the back of the front door. First, there would be the early arrival, from the one friend who actually knew how to organize. It would sit at the top of the door looking lonely, and a little forlorn. Then, slowly at first, but speeding up as the month progressed, more would show up, and the door would fill.

And of course, each day the house would have more and more Christmas – the mantel, the lights on the window, the small candles here and there as we followed the family tradition learned from my grandmother, of bringing Christmas through the house.

It was the cards then, and it is Christmas cards now, that really are the essence of preparation though. These days I write as many as I receive, and both the sending and the reading are parts of my Christmas preparation. It’s as if the act of putting pen to paper transports me from the mundane to the magical, as much as it does when fiction is involved.

Question #11:
During the holiday season, what specific aspect of being a young child do you miss the most?

When I was very young, I would wake on Christmas morning to find a trail of red construction paper footprints leading from my bedroom door to wherever my stocking was waiting. Usually, it would be so stuffed with tiny packages, that it would have fallen from its hook and sometimes this made me sad. Mostly, though, I looked forward to discovering what good things would come from those tiny boxes.

That anticipation hasn’t completely disappeared, but it’s waned a lot as I’ve grown older, and the unwavering belief in Santa and Magic has transformed to fleeting moments of complete suspension of disbelief, and the limited ability to turn off the jaded part of my brain.

I miss the innocence of childhood. I miss looking forward to those paper footprints. I miss the bubble of delight that would form in my chest when I saw packages labeled “To Melissa, from Santa” in red or green glitter. I miss the security of knowing my mother would always be my fiercest protector, and I miss the dreams of seeing a reindeer-powered sleigh cross the night sky.

When I was six, I believed it when the folks at channel 9 said they were tracking a UFO coming from the North Pole on Christmas Eve. Thirty years later, I watch the news and wish for such stories.