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The skinny

By Times Wires
Published December 11, 2007

Animal kingdom

Luckily, the big kitty didn't want a bath

A South Dakota woman was taking a relaxing soak in her hot tub when she looked up and saw a mountain lion staring at her. "I heard a little rustling sound in the needles right beside me," said Marlene Todd. She thought it was her cat, but then realized it was a much larger cat. "I didn't realize what it was until it took a leap and jumped up on the side of my hot tub." The cat was cornered, which is not a good situation for anyone, and finally decided its only exit strategy was to leap over the tub. "Now I know what a goldfish feels like when the cat is staring in its bowl," Todd said.

Big tortoise loses slow-speed chase

Making an entirely more deliberate escape, and somewhat less effective, was Willy the 200-pound tortoise. Shelly Larsen figures Willy got out of her back yard in Riverside, Calif., when her son left the gate open. He made it about a half-mile before animal services caught him and took him to the shelter. "The whole shelter was abuzz," said John Welsh of animal services. "Willy is the size of a small bathtub." He wasn't always. The Larsen's bought Willy 11 years ago, and he was palm-sized. "We had no idea he'd get so big," said Robbie Larsen, Shelly's husband.

Death and dining

For the finest in graveside dining ...

There is nothing unusual about the New Lucky Restaurant in Ahmadabad, India. Just because people dine in the midst of centuries-old Muslim graves, doesn't mean it's weird. "We're used to it," said waiter Kayyum Sheikh. "There's nothing odd about it." The restaurant was built over a centuries-old Muslim cemetery, and the graves were just incorporated into the decor. "The graveyard is good luck," said manager Krishan Kutti Nair. "Our business is better because of the graveyard." The graves are located randomly throughout the restaurant, and each day they get a single dried flower placed on top.

A hotel people are dying to get into

If having lunch in a graveyard sounds like a good idea to you, here's a place to stay: A woman in Lishui, China, has opened the Mausoleum Inn. Jiao Meige told the Jinling Evening Post that she bought the property to farm, but since there were several old graves in the fields, no one wanted to work them. "Since there are so many graves, why don't I give people a chance to experience death?" she said. The building is shaped like a Chinese mausoleum, and the beds are shaped like coffins. Jiao says she does not accept guests with heart problems.

Compiled from Times wire services and other sources by staff writer Jim Webster, who can be reached at jwebster@sptimes.com.

[Last modified December 11, 2007, 00:37:03]