Lately I’ve become busier and busier as nearly everyone in the greater Sacramento area has come to realize that I am congenitally incapable of uttering the word “no”. Not that I’d want to anyway since I really do enjoy making myself useful and I am very much in love with every single project that I’ve managed to smash my fingers into.
The problem is this whole twenty-four-hours-in-a-day thing. It disappoints. It is a woefully inadequate amount of time for me to accomplish everything I want to do. Like take photos. And go to school. And bathe my husband in GHB-laced pudding.
Which is why I’m considering a move to Mercury since a single Mercurian day is the equivalent to 59 earth days which should be long enough for me to knock out at least two-thirds of my to-do list if I cut out items like eating and parenting my offspring.
So! How about I skip this post and do my normal lazy thing and throw up more photos, brought to you courtesy of the field trip that I took with my funeral education peeps last Friday…
Here is a group photo of all of us, taken in front of Cristy Vault Company’s world headquarters in Colma, California. Know why I don’t have any photos taken inside Cristy Vault Company’s world headquarters? We all had non-disclosure agreements foisted upon us prior to our tour in which we signed away our right to tell the public that their vaults are constructed by a magical army of unicorns and leprechauns that sprinkle fairy dust everywhere. Pity. The leprechauns especially seemed to like having their picture taken.
This photo was taken in the Neptune Society’s columbarium. It is a pile of cards, notes and letters written to both the deceased and visiting survivors.
This is a photo of a companion niche with the remains of a Chinese couple inside. California is home to the largest Chinese population outside of China itself. Therefore it is never a surprise when you run into the various expressions of this expansive culture. This niche, like many others inside the columbarium, had food left outside of it in a nod to Chinese custom.
Here is one of the many rooms that surrounded the bottom two floors and were formed of floor-to-ceiling niches.
Another niche before which food had been left. The packaged stuff next to the persimmons was unidentifiable as anything other than fuzzy balls of mold.
For obvious reasons, a niche provides limited space in which a person’s life, personality and values can be summed up. It is always interesting to me to see how people condense the essence of their loved one into ten words or less. The plate on this individual’s niche is inscribed quite simply with the words, “Gay and proud.”
An incense holder on the floor outside the niche of a Chinese man.
A statue of St. Ignatius stands inside the Church of St. Ignatius on the campus of the University of San Francisco. The campus is one of the west’s oldest Jesuit universities.
A tribute to La Virgen de Guadalupe stands inside the Church of St. Ignatius on the University of San Francisco campus. The photograph really doesn’t do this display justice, as the flash destroyed the ambiance created by the candles that surround her. Kneelers can be seen in the extreme foreground.
Interior of the Church of St. Ignatius. Architectural proof that we Catholics are good for more than just lopping heads off and drinking. Woo hoo!
Candles sit before a statue of St. Ignatius. The lighting of candles and offering of prayers is probably one of the loveliest – and more misunderstood by non-Catholics – practices within the church.
Here is the cornerstone to the synagogue we visited – Temple Emanu-el in San Francisco, California. This tour turned out to be quite wonderful as it was led by a pair of Jewish women who were more than enthusiastic about showing us through a gorgeous building while sharing information about the history of their faith.
An outside view of the sanctuary of the synagogue taken from the interior of the courtyard that surrounds it. I was surprised by the presence of a metal detector and security guard outside the temple’s entrance, and we were informed during the tour that the courtyard surrounding the entrance to the sanctuary had been constructed as a need for security made itself more apparent.
Here is a photo of stained glass and a chandelier inside the main sanctuary of the synagogue.
A menorah stands above and to the front of the congregation in the main sanctuary.
Books sit atop one another next to the ark in the Temple Emanu-el.
A flower spray sits at a grave on the grounds of Cypress Lawn in Colma, California.
