A friend's mother kept changing where she hid the silver. No one could figure out whether she kept thinking of better places or she had some sort of belief that the burglars were watching her. Finally my friend asked her mother if she could just put a note in the safety deposit box about the current location of silver.

Ginger, I know you've been asked before, but I love your tagline. Where's it from?

It's from Lois McMaster Bujold's The Paladin of Souls. The whole quote is:

"And the Bastard [a god] grant us in our direst need, the smallest gifts: the nail of the horseshoe, the pin of the axle, the feather at the pivot point, the pebble at the mountain's peak, the kiss in despair, the one right word. In darkness, understanding."

It's a wonderful book that really hit me emotionally. At the end, a character says that he's too old to start over, and the heroine of the book says, "You have more years ahead of you now than Pejar, half your age, whom we buried outside these walls these two day past. Stand before his grave and use your gift of breath to complain of your limited time. If you dare."

On the other hand, before he died, my grandfather made my grandma promise to go through everything in the basement before she threw anything out. We think he may have hidden money down there-- it's the kind of thing he'd do.

My grandfather always told my parents to "look through the books" because he hid money in there.

A very good friend of ours grandfather died. The family went through the house. As far as I remember, over $100,000.00. Depression era man who never trusted banks again.

And in thinking about it, it would be a hell of a way to NOT pay taxes on it. It's CASH.

Isn't the first million of a given person's estate tax-free anyway?

No idea. Just being silly.

"You have more years ahead of you now than Pejar, half your age, whom we buried outside these walls these two day past. Stand before his grave and use your gift of breath to complain of your limited time. If you dare."

Mmmm. That gave me chills. Note to self: seek out some Bujold.

Isn't the first million of a given person's estate tax-free anyway?

Not in my experience.

Isn't the first million of a given person's estate tax-free anyway?

Not in my experience.

I think it's $10,000. Though I have inherited only insanity, so I don't know for sure.

Paladin of Souls is a beautiful book. I'd suggest reading The Curse of Chalion first, which is also lovely though not quite so brilliant, because it gives you a bit of a grounding in the 'verse. (Paladin is a rather loosely connected sequel to Chalion.)