This is the kind of cold that is lacking in humidity. The kind that produces whispery white snow filled with ice that you can hear as it hits your windows. Its been Miami prep today along with work. Packing, putting away, buying food, writing schedules with phone numbers etc. I made 4 quiches (one for a French Club event, one for our grandmother, and two for teeny A and his snacking) and lunch for our construction crew. The site is a bit frightening with all of the cement getting moved away before the new porch happens. Slow, slow progress.

Good news. The Baker Institute for Animal Health Annual Report (2007) won a silver metal in the Annual Report category of the CASE (Council for Advancement and Support of Education) competition. My client was ecstatic as this is truly something in the eyes of her peers, colleagues, and the broad university. This was her first big print job that she had ever managed--and so she was not really expecting this--We are delighted for her and for us. There may be some good PR for this recognition. She had a tremendous time at Eukanuba in Long Beach--the west coast version of the Westminster at Madison Square Gardens...and had some very insane breed related displays and presentations.

Did I tell you about our new scanner? The company has a little money to move before the end of the year so we got a new scanner to replace the tired old thing that we have been using for years. I was always bothered and sad with our small scanner and decided we should get a large format ( 12.5" x 18") with a transparency head. We got the Epson 1000XL and its a beaut. Lovely that it is one swipe with the big notebook...no juking around--with nice software that is easy to use to modify the scan before it's done.

I was thinking about remains and "the departed". Seems a bit obsessive, but its interesting to toss around as I mill through my laps at the House of Health. Consider, when you are dead, your body is done and your spirit has departed--your brain has shut down--all the memories, all the chemistry, all the ideas that were stimulated by electrical pulses, genetics, chemistry and stuff--go away. When you take the thinking part away from the body, I can understand that. But taking the thinking away from the spirit is a new idea. So, that life spirit is divorced from human intelligence. Is there a spiritual intelligence or intuition? Once the spirit has been blasted away from the dead weight of the remains, the memories, ideas and earthly intelligence also either go dormant or become part of that remains. Makes sense, but a new thought for me. So what is the characteristic of the spirit? Does it just come down to good and evil? Positive energy? Does the life spirit even have a will of it's own as there is no brain to drive it? Or are there aspects of one's human intelligence and spirit that goes with the departing force?

We leave before lunch tomorrow--so I could be bouncing in the ocean by 3:30, reading trashy novels and thinking higher thoughts like the 6 black cloaked women that always stood by the corpse during the time after the service and before the burial as part of the puritan traditions. Was reading about the Puritan religion and beliefs along with the theological turmoil that was stirring up the colonists at the Massachusetts Bay Colony that threatened the ability of this group to stay together.
I love the idea of the 6 black cloaked women, flanked by candles with their "good gloves" and golden rings to honor the death--very Edward Gorey but puritan and not the victoriana that he popularized and referenced.