...and more death

Life is full of ironies. Sometimes, you have to hunt for them. But not today. As if to put an exclamation point on last night's death-rumination festivities, this morning's Science Club field trip was to a

Pathologists's Lab!

We saw diseased and normal examples of lungs, hearts, digestive systems, kidneys, bones, and reproductive organs. Seeing all the bright yellow fat buildup around the typical person's intestines made me want to go to the gym and eat salad for the rest of my life. But I loved it. I love that kind of stuff. Anatomy is my thing. Feed me some tidbits about the inner workings of the human body (okay, I guess that metaphor was in bad taste [get it? bad taste]) and I'm happy for the rest of the day. E.g., you wouldn't believe the difference lung cancer feels like compared with normal lungs -- really hard versus floppy and squishy. And did you know that if you have three or four alcoholic drinks one night, your liver is yellow the next morning with all of its processing, but that fades pretty quickly? We explored the hows and whys of an enlarged heart, and saw the heart/lung system of an individual who'd had Down's Syndrome.

My kids were not so happy about the whole floppy-squishy aspect of the morning.

Ella was interested. Ella was minorly squeamish at the beginning, and wouldn't touch anything, but didn't actively turn her face away as a matter of principle. She stood close to the demonstration table, though she did kind of back off when the pathologist was gleefully flipping around the different chambers of the heart to show us the valves that had become blocked.

Madison pretty much sat in the back and averted her eyes--although not rudely--and only glanced up from time to time. She reported she really does like the theory of anatomy, but it belongs in books.