Tithing Tigers

So here's one of the stranger bequests we've seen to date:  An older gentleman recently passed away, leaving his expansive northern Florida estate to his three children, one of whom lives here in the Bay Area and is a client.  The home was quite nice, plantation style, landscaped grounds with large custom-designed pool - all that one might hope for and more.

And here's the more: the remainder of the grounds were generally wooded and non-descript, excepting a cluster of tidy outbuildings most of which service the main house.  One, however, appeared differently, with large venting windows circling it and one entire wall made of mesh grating.  That building, it turned out, was the tiger house.

Yes, the tiger house! Complete with a fully grown female tiger, lovingly bequeathed to the children as a parting gift.

As one might expect, the three were not interested in caring for their father's pet, whose tameness (not to mention legality) they had always regarded with some degree of skepticism.  A loving gift was thereby made to the region's rescue facility, and "Beatrix" as she was called, is off to happier pastures.

BB

Passing Thoughts, I

A few favorites:

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.  - Sir Francis Bacon

That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again and ever again, this soiled world. - Walt Whitman

A man dies ... only a few circles in the water prove that he was ever there. And even they quickly disappear. And when they're gone, he's forgotten, without a trace, as if he'd never even existed. And that's all. - Wolfgang Borchert, The Outsider 

Oh! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass; who standing among flowers can say- here, here lies my beloved; ye know not the desolation that broods in bosoms like these. What bitter blanks in those black-bordered marbles which cover no ashes! What despair in those immovable inscriptions! What deadly voids and unbidden infidelities in the lines that seem to gnaw upon all Faith, and refuse resurrections to the beings who have placelessly perished without a grave. - Herman Melville, Moby Dick.

Death is a new office building filled with modern furniture,
A wise thing, but which has no purpose for us. - John Ashbery, "A Last World"

BB

Flying lessons - courtesy Maria

Well, for quite a while I've had an itch to get up into the sky, and for my Birthday Maria recently scratched it.  She offered me a set of flying lessons from Fly Bay Area.  It was just an introductory lesson, but what a ride. 

Gabe (our pilot), led us upward effortlessly from the Palo Alto airport, and after that it was a dip and roll adventure over the bay and city.  Two hours of effortless flying on a clear crisp winter day. 

Controlling the plane was enough to make an old curmudgeon like myself smile from ear to ear.  Daedalus would have been proud.

Here's a couple pics: