His name is Trouble



Into Trouble, deep.

It was one of those wonderful later Summer nights, where the air cooled down enough to make a girl in a shoulder free dress wish for a cover. I stood at my favorite spot of our home, down by the retaining wall below our pool and and the back yard.

From here I had a magnificent view of Santa Moncia and Venice blow, Huntington Beach in the distance and in a clear night like this I could see the tiny lights of air planes climbing into the sky form the distant LAX airport.

It was a Saturday night and this was the reason I could hear my childrens voices and the splashing of water up by the pool. Melissa and Thor my daughter and my Son, Nine and seven years old. The pride of my life, listening to their voices playing and having fun was sweeter than any music to me.

I heard steps coming down the small steep flight of concrete stairs that led to this little retreat of mine. I turned and expected to see my wife but it was Sarah, her mother.

Sarah, my mother in law normally lived with her husband Benjamin in Seattle so I was smildly surpised to see her. Sarah was drop dead gorgeous and no one ever guessed that she was close to seventy. She was always elegance personified and always wore the finest and most expensive things, right now she wore a white exy v next sleeveless halter dress wit black polka dots with matching heeled sling backs.

She was as as tall as me and had a killer body shape, some of it I knew was due to shape wear underneath but Sarah would never step out looking less than perfect.

Unlike the endless jokes about mother in laws, Sarah was not just the mother of my wife she was one of my closest friends. She knew all my secrets more than even my own mother.

Sarah's hair once had the same golden blond luster that was the trademark of my beautiful wife, but now it had silver streaks and it added to her luxurious refined appearance.

She kissed me on the cheek and then fished the pack of Camels out of my Shirt pocket and put one of the cigarettes between her perfectly painted lips.

The soft orange light of the path lamps softened her usual stern facial expression. I gave her a light and got one one going for myself.

She turned away and leaned on the almost chest high wall and stared into the night. “I always liked this little spot of yours down here. The Ocean is really beautiful.” “So are you. I really like what you wearing.” I said.

She brushed her long fingered hands over the skirt of the dress. “I thought you might, it has a little retro look to it.”

“I had no idea you come, is Benjamin here too?”

“It was a spur of the moment decission, Benjamin flew to Amsterdam with a friend so I had the jet all for myself, I have a few cute things for you as well.”

I took a deep drag from my cigarette and watched the Hummingbirds hover around the sugar water feeder. “And you see nothing wrong with that?”

<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">She put her arm around my shoulder. “The only thing I see wrong is you not having fun with it and accepting it. That part of you is a big reason Tatti married you in the first place.”

<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">I hugged her back. “You are the best Mother in law there is. I can't wait to see what you got.”

<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">She laughed and said. “That's the spirit. Instead of sulking down here, you should write a book about it. They made movies and best sellers of less interesting families.”

<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">I looked up to the house and said. “Maybe I should write it down.”

<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">“ hold you to it. I want to read it before they shovel dirt over me.”

<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">“Don't say stuff like that.”

<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">“Gives you a reason to actually do it.”

<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">She crushed her cigarette and said. “I am also starving and wanted to check how my chances are to get one of your delicious steaks.”

<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">“Pretty good, Sarah. I just got a delivery from the Ranch today.”

<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">--””--

<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">The Kids were in bed, Sarah and Tatti were down in our home theatre watching a movie. I was in my study as every other Saturday, checking and paying the family bills. I was old fashioned that way and preferred to write checks over paying bills online. After I had stuffed the last check in its envelope. I leaned back and was thinking about Sarah's proposal to write a book about us. It would be a waste of time. Writing a book only made sense if it had readers and is published. But maybe Melissa and Thor wanted to tell their children how it all came to be.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">A story needs heroes and villians, a beginning and an end.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">Where would I start?

<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">My hand slid of the armrest and into the warm fur of Trouble, and I begun to pet our big cat.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">To call our family normal might be far stretch, but we never really considered ourselves really special. There is Tatiana my beautiful, gorgeous wife, a real life super model. There is Melissa my daughter and Thor my son. There is Barrow our Husky, Scape our goat and Trouble our Siberian tiger. We all live in a beautiful home located above the beaches of Santa Monica in the Hollywood Hills, California. You might have blinked and read the list of family members again, but yes there is indeed a Siberian Tiger and he is a real one. Big powerful able to bite a bowlign ball in two and throw car tires over a 14 foot wall clear into the neigbours pool. His name is Trouble and not Tony as everyone suggests, because he does get into Trouble, but he is family.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">Now before I tell you more about Trouble and how he ended up being a family member I think I tell you how it all began. This story is as much about trouble as it is about my family. Since I am the one telling it I think I start with introducing myself.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">-1- ME

<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">I wasn’t born in the United States. I came to this world in Germany and during the sixties in a town called Karlsruhe. The big war that ruined Germany, cost the lives of millions and burned the word German as the ultimate evil race in the Universe firmly in the minds of everyone else on this globe. Another war was fought and again with Germany squarely in the center. The Cold War, east versus west. Countless nuclear warheads, bombs and other sinister devices pointed at major population centers of the other side. Germany split into two. East and West Germany and thanks to the immense help from the United States and the Marshall plan, the West prospered like never before in a time called the “Wunderjahre”. Luckily for Germany it was the Marshall Plan and not the Morgentau plan that had been picked as what was to be done with that nation after that great War.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">Germany was divided into four zones : The Russian, the British, the French and the US Zone.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">My mother daughter to a very old Prussian Noble house fled with her mother and many others before the vengeful Russians. Once they had estates as far as one could see, with horses and servants and castle like houses, in 1945 they arrived in what later would be West Germany

<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">My mother a medicine student in a time where female med students were still a rarity, especially in Germany, was recognized by her professors early on to be a great talent and would be a brilliant doctor one day. She was the only female student and much to the dismay of her male colleagues the darling of the teaching body. It was a hard fight she often told to be accepted and to stand up and speak her mind in front of the class and to old Professors who got their education even before the mad man from Austria took over. Some of them still had a firm idea in what was proper and what was not. An American Guest professor saw my mother’s potential and managed to get his University offer my mother a chance to study at one of the most prestigious Universities in the States.