One option is the Body Farm, where the corpse is tossed in a field and left to decompose for the purposes of education and training in forensic anthropology and skeletal biology for students and law enforcement agencies.

Another cool thing is that, if you donate your body "to Science" (which really means to a medical school), you can still donate whatever organs/tissues/bone/etc. are donate-able first.

One option is the Body Farm, where the corpse is tossed in a field and left to decompose

I think that would also be cool, provided my skull went to Jilli first.

Scene: Sean's Wake

t general Buffista's, Michigan folk, and family milling about

t Jilli enters carrying what looks to be a bowling bag

t quiet crowd noise

Joe (to Troll) : "Oh yeah? Too bad our friend is dead. I'll bet you wouldn't say that to his face!"

t Jilli rushes over, pulls something from her bag

t shoves Sean's head in Troll's face

t Troll passes out

One option is the Body Farm, where the corpse is tossed in a field and left to decompose

I think that would also be cool, provided my skull went to Jilli first.

claps hands with glee

Seriously, the Body Farm is very cool. My best friend studied there when she was working on her forensic anthropology degree.

The only sad thing about that is that I would be able to watch it happen personally.

And now for something completely different (though I do like skulls):

That tres cool bottle of wine I got yesterday has a cork in it. Me, with my never-progressed-past-college wine tastes, am unfamiliar with cork procedures. I'm sure somewhere in this house is an adequate cork puller. But what if we don't finish it? We're not that big of drinkers, and I'm not sure I want to share it with anybody other than Hubby. Can we shove the cork back in it and expect it to still be of comparative quality when we get back to it?

I was taught by several forensic anthros, no, not a crime girl story, just a way for anthros to make money while school is not in session.

Ooo. Y'all are talking about my field. My father's a mortician, like his father before him, and I spent my first 6 years living in the mortician's home built into the family mortuary.

Ah, the memories of playing hide-and-seek with my little sister in the casket showroom...sneaking into the chapel to practice on the service organ (now that sounds positively Wrong)...infuriating my father by messing up the movable type used to print the service pamphlets.

Oh, and being such a pest that they had to move all the doorknobs on the prep rooms up beyond my reach - not hard, I was a wee, wee child (round like a ball, but very very short). I used to say "My dad's in working with his folks" when strangers would ask what my dad was doing - that was Alex-as-a-child-ese for "he's embalming someone".

However, I faint at the thought of certain open wounds - blood doesn't bug me, trauma does - so, natch, I didn't follow in his (gruesome and cold-hearted) footsteps. Being a mortician embalmed my dad's soul - I'm not kidding. Cold as ice. We haven't spoken in 15 years - he could be dead, I would neither know nor care.

PS: "Six Feet Under" ain't far wrong.

Wow. Sometimes, I want to ask people "Why Goth?" NSM in your case, SH. :)

Can we shove the cork back in it and expect it to still be of comparative quality when we get back to it?

Short answer? No.

Longer answer: they make a device that allows you to put in a rubber stopper and then pull much of the air from the bottle, which will keep it fairly fresh for a day or two. IIRC, it's about $11 bucks. I *heart* it, though when we're both in a position to drink, a bottle doesn't usually last more than the one night.