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| More on that picture later |
They prohibit picture taking but I took notes all along the way. We spent several hours there, but we could have spent much more. It is a small museum, but it is packed with specimens!
There is a tour available by calling a number on your cell phone and punching in the number of what you're looking at.
The museum begins with a wall of skulls:
That floor continues on to a second room that is home to the Soap Lady. The Soap Lady experienced the rare confluence of conditions that leads to the body becoming adipocere, essentially turning into soap.
On the other side of that room was an exhibit that the tour guide from DC would love. It's called "This Dust Used to Be a Man: The Final Days of Abraham Lincoln."
The exhibit featured body parts that went through the same trauma as Lincoln and his killer, John Wilkes Booth.
They even had an official piece of the man. A small piece of something in a jar was sitting next to a sign reading, "Piece of the thorax of John Wilkes Booth."
The exhibit then blended into an exhibit of other assassinations, including a "Piece of epidermis (skin) from the back of President Garfield."
Along the ledge leading downstairs, there were pieces of animal skeletons. Including a hand from a gorilla (Latin name: gorilla gorilla gorilla) and the skull of a turtle which looks exactly like what you think a turtle skull would look like:
Downstairs, there were sections highlighting deformities of birth and the reproductive system, the digestive system, full sized skeletons, and the circulatory system.
I spent the most of my time in the reproductive section. There are clearly so many ways reproduction can go wrong, it's amazing how often it goes right.
It turns out that the picture the museum uses on its brochure (featured above) is an ectopic pregnancy -- a pregnancy from outside the uterus. The actual specimen is a few inches across. The note below explained that historically, ectopic pregnancies were the cause of 26% of maternal deaths and left 70% of patients infertile. So ladies, if you have one-sided shooting pains that radiate up to the shoulder or down to the thigh, get thee to a doctor post haste!
There was an example of a birthing stool that explained how we ladies really aren't meant to give birth alone. We, unlike any other animal, most often give birth with the baby facing away, making it enormously awkward to reach down and pull the baby up.
On the other side of the display, were example of children, infant, and fetal malformations. Included was the skull of a boy who had hydrocephalus (water on the brain) the condition the waiter in Atlanta is trying to treat because his brother has it, too.
Treatment has come a long way, but before it did, the pressure of the non-draining spinal fluid would cause the skull to expand to dramatic size. The example on hand had a circumference of 27'. That's the size of my waist!
And on the subject of waists, they had examples of skeletons that had practiced the art of corseting. The one on display had a waist circumference of under 20".
Standing in the middle of the floor was a cast of Chang and Eng, the world's most famous conjoined twins.
It may look like it's just a small amount of skin that joined the brothers, but they actually shared a liver. The giant liver is on display in a puddle of liquid under the cast.
In the corner were three skeletons striking in their comparison. There was a dwarf named Mary Ashbury who was forced into prostitution and died in 1856 while giving birth. Next to her was an average sized human for comparison, and next to them, was the skeleton of a man who stood 7'6".
After passing some more oddities -- including a "jar of skin" and a "70 lb ovarian cyst" -- we ended up in the gift shop. I picked up a müg, but declined to purchase the Soap Lady soap, as I think it is in pretty bad taste.
At the counter under glass, I found two pieces of jewelry that I had to see up close. The first was a pendant of a skeletal hand made from the freely given fingernails of the artist:
You can buy your very own discarded fingernail masterpiece here.
Next to that was what I was really interested in:
A silver pelvis!
No Indian or Chinese people were harmed in the making of this necklace . . . I think.
I put it on and looked in the mirror for a while. What better way to end this trip than to buy that long desired pelvis, but one that never lived inside a person!
I ultimately decided that my $70 could be better spent elsewhere. That telling this story would be good enough, and that if I really wanted one, I could talk to my dad. (And maybe she should start designing one anyway, as according to the interwebs, the pelvis is the new skull!)
After the museum, we went to Village Whiskey because Genevieve and her friend wanted to try the duck fat fries. They split the fries and a burger, and I had a feast of my own. I had the veggie burger, homemade cheese puffs, and a blueberry pie milkshake. The were all fantastic and when our checks came, we realized it was part of the same group that owns Distrito, the restaurant where we ate last night.
After lunch, Genevieve and I returned to her apartment so she could get back to studying and I could look into getting that bang trim.
Back in December, I had my hair cut right before I left Portand for Philadelphia. Afterward, I noticed that my bangs didn't seem to be even, but I figured it was just the way I'd styled them and figured they'd work themselves out. In Pennsylvania, I still couldn't get them even and realized it was because they'd been cut unevenly. My mom confirmed the lopsidery and we searched for a salon that could get me in on our way back to the hotel from breakfast.
We ended up find a salon that could take me and the stylist who cut my hair took more time and was more precise than any bang trim I'd ever before received in my life! She stood in front of me looked at me from all angles making small snips along the way.
As she leaned in front of me, I noticed how beautiful her hair was. Long and blond with soft curls. "Your hair is just beautiful," I said, "Is it all yours?"
It was, and it wasn't until I returned back to the hotel that I realized how rude that question was. I was hoping to make an appointment with the same stylist, and seven months after the fact, apologize and make amends.
Unfortunately, it seems the salon closed down in the last seven months and I don't know how I would get in touch with her again. So, I'll have to settle for putting this apology out into the universe: To the hair stylist who did such a fantastic job fixing my bangs, I apologize for doubting the authenticity of your hair. I'm sorry.
I decided I could wait another day and ask my cousin in Beverly where she recommends.
When dinner time rolled around, I was so excited to go back to the site of the last amazing meal I had in Philadelphia last December. Genevieve invited all of her roommates and two of them agreed to join us -- the third decided to stay home and bake a blueberry pie from scratch!
We began our walk to the White Dog Cafe. My mother and I had saved it for the last night of our stay and it seemed appropriate to eat there on, essentially, the last night of my cross-country adventure.
They specialize in fresh, local food, and the last time I was there, I ordered three side dishes of delectable winter favorites. I had the broccoli rabe, fingerling potatoes, and the creamiest, cheesiest, most amazing Brussels sprouts ever.
The best part of my meal, though, was dessert.
It's never been a secret that I enjoy pepper. Whenever a waiter offers me fresh ground pepper, he stands there for a good while until my plate is mostly grey and speckly. It is by far my favorite spice. And while I have sprinkled pepper onto many different dishes, I have never had it served to me as an ice cream. Black pepper ice cream! I . . . was . . . in . . . heaven.
This time, there was a whole new dinner menu, but I had my fingers crossed that the dessert menu had stayed the same. I even asked the waiter if he could bring me the dessert menu before the meal. And while black pepper ice cream was not available this time, it gives me another reason to visit again in December. And homemade blueberry pie is not a bad alternative.
For dinner, we stuck with the side dishes. Two of us at the table were vegetarians and we each chose a veggie dish with the promise to share. I ordered the snow peas (because I really like saying snow peas) and she ordered the curried cauliflower. The two omnivores at the table strategized to order different dishes and share, but in the end, they both couldn't turn down the lobster macaroni and cheese and ordered one apiece.
During dinner, the classmates discussed their other classmates. There is a wide range of ages, but most of them are in their early to mid-twenties. These women are all similar in age, meaning they are all a good deal younger than me.
I've had friends older than me, but it was seldom really noticeable. I was surprised that our age difference became noticeable at the table when they began talking about what PBS shows they watched as kids. They watched Arthur and Ghost Writer. I watched the Electric Company and Square One. None of them had even heard of Square One! I feel so sorry that these woman have never known the numeric joys of Mathnet.
After our scrumptious dinner, we walked home and were welcomed by the smell of freshly baked pie. Genevieve's roommate served it with a heaping scoop of vanilla ice cream and we all sat around "Mmmm"ing until it was all gone.
Another wonderful day spent with good people and good food.
Tomorrow, I make the final leg of my journey. Boston (Beverly) or bust!
Odometer Start: 40850
Odometer End: 40850
Miles Driven Today: 0
Miles Driven Total: 7012
Today In/Around: Philadelphia, PA
Tomorrow: (Last Stop) Beverly, MA
States Visited: 18.5 (Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington DC, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania)
Time When I Would Not Want to Be a Nurse (or a Patient): the 1800s
Pictures of Horrible Skin Deformities I Did Not Feature Here: Many
