Money can’t buy you divorce: Divorce is messy. Isn’t that the way it always goes? The other day I watched “The Squid and the Whale,” which is all about a teenager struggling to cope with his parents’ divorce. And if Barack Obama should someday be elected president of the United States of America, they should thank the Chicago Tribune and a California judge for unsealing Jack Ryan’s divorce records. But apparently, two billionaire Californians decided they were going to make things a lot less miserable for everyone:

When [Tim and Edra Blixseth] decided to divorce, they spent a single afternoon in the Beverly Hills Hotel, dividing it all up. With just two notebooks and a bottle of wine, the Blixseths — California real-estate tycoons and founders of the famed Yellowstone Club — finished the job in a matter of hours.

No attorneys. No accountants. No judges.

She kept their 420-acre estate. He got the house in Mexico. He kept his land businesses. She kept the dogs. They each got a Rolls Royce, and they will share their three private jets.

[…]

Rather than fighting over every piece of silver, the Blixseths decided to keep what’s most important to each of them and split the difference. Life’s too short, they figured. And why give the lawyers all the money if you can work it out yourselves?

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