2.25 Looking Forward

“Mom, what's it like to go hiking? I'm supposed to explain outdoor camping activities and I'm not in the scouts.” Casimir asks over his mom's questionable breakfast before school one day.

“You could join the scouts, it would be good for you.” She tells him hopefully.

“But I just need to know enough to tell the class on report day.”

She explains that the more time he spends being outside, the more he will love being outside. She makes it sound easy because there is not a day that his mom is not outside doing some activity or other. She cannot remember a day where she wasn't outside, even if it meant having a sleepover in a snowdrift. She was an adventurous child.

This is very confusing. His mom drags him out of doors for every single community fair event and he still doesn't like those very much. Won't you get rained on, if you go marching around the backwoods somewhere for hours? Why would anyone want to do that? It's not like anyone will give you extra points for school or pay you for it.

“No thanks, mom, scouts sounds so boooooring.” He laughs as if her idea is silly, because the idea of camping out of doors actually terrifies him and he doesn't really want her to know that.

She finishes her meal and gets up. She'd offer to help him more, but it's mostly writing, something he's teaching himself that is not her strong suit. He struggles now as the subject matter does not interest him at all.

He's really different from her, sometimes. For some reason she'd thought that motherhood would solve all of her reservations about how to live an adult life. 'When you get married, get a job, start a family it will all make sense.'

But... nothing makes sense. She tries to be loving and supportive towards Caz, as much as she can muster, but times like these she just feels so lost. None of it is coming to her naturally.

Meghan's pulled back on her experiments of late. She'd always been addicted to the grind, the fact that every 3.5 experiments or so she would make decent money. The ratio had only gotten better over time, especially as she was well known for the quality of what she produced. Even if the market for certain formerly rare beetle types had been flooded largely from her own work, even then, there is much that she could be doing.

For some reason, in recent months, she just doesn't feel like it. Her worktables start to shift into regular tables. Her tools go into storage, and if they are too large for that, they are essentially mere showpieces now.

She and Dustin spend more time visiting locations in town, most of them very different to the kind of places they frequented anywhere else. Boxing is huge in this town, and the local rings have produced a number of powerful sportsman over the years. The high schoolers even take extracurriculars at the local boxer's gym.

The elders keep it lower impact.

Leila can't always make it outside these days to do her business, so Jyo makes extra time for cleaning her up when work is over.

Casimir has schoolmates his own age, but no one that he's close to. He doesn't really mind that though.

People are a mystery to him in a way. He gets his homework done, because it's what his mom would want, also she will let him play more video games if it's already taken care of. She likes the initiative, and then won't make him do too many chores afterwards. Mostly that's because Grandpa Dustin does so much around the house for everyone.

Dustin meets someone whose boxing technique is skillful and well practiced. She offers to go a round in the ring as he's already warmed up.

He doesn't really care about the sport. Does she even know, “My grandkids are the actual cutest?”

People around town happen to notice when other people around town have not-broken appliances and plumbing objects. Somehow, word got around that Jyo could fix things.

Leila tries her best to get her human's attention. She's been fixing up that old stereo for hours as an opportunity.

Leila: ((COUGH))

The narrator has more questions than answers...

“Good girl, mom will love this!”

The old dog managed to bring home the heaviest of things. That deserves more than a 'good girl', so Jyo makes her a batch of homemade chicken and pumpkin dog food afterwards.

Dustin meets Jet and Christian at a local beach to enjoy the sunset after working out at the boxing gym. 

The sky is gorgeous, the water pristine, and he gets to hear about his grandson's milestones. Mal just said 'DADA' for the first time, and Christian's a bit jealous over it. Life is moving on in a way that Dustin is never quite ready for.  

They must not be used to hiring other people to watch their two boys, as Christian is trying to relax but clearly has her mind somewhere else.

The local Hospital has been refusing to name any groups that they buy research from, and is silent on the matter of the new research center that was sending trucks their way. The facility offers training and workshops for nurses and doctors from various places, so it claims that it cannot vet every attendee.

After her workout with Dustin, Meghan brushes up on local research projects, trying to pass the time. It's hard to hear news one week, and then nothing again for months.

This huge fountain was a gift someone gave the family nearly nine years ago, back when Jyoti and Malcolm first got married. It was too big to fit anywhere before, but ironically this much smaller house in the Heights has a space for it. It gives something like a +10 environment score, easily making pool parties and birthdays out here more successful. I don't remember where I got the columns of flowers that were added.

Caz meets Regan Capp, a classmate after school, at an unconventional art museum. His mom told him to go out to do his homework sometimes because he's such a homebody.

The place is full of new and old artwork and sculptures, and the house itself once belonged to a famous artist. Cas doesn't mind the art, but after a few moments all the old fixtures and creaking staircases are very boring, so he turns the conversation to comics and super heroes.

They seem to get along alright.

Jyo is still at this. The woman who requested her help cannot be offering enough as payment. She wants her CDs saved from the five disc changer in the top of the entertainment system, and it's a lot of delicate work to not crack the aging plastic in the process.

Finally she gets in there and rescues The Andrews Sisters.

Dustin stays out longer as he's been feeling much better since taking ill earlier in the season.

The city lights at night are pretty from any angle.

“...Why do you smile like that?” The girl is weirded out at first, but Caz doesn't care about it so pretty soon she doesn't either. Some people's lips just don't have the right muscles to be able to curve up at the sides she guesses.

Regan is a bit more serious, and less inclined to change for other people's sakes. They become tentative friends anyways.

Then have to get their homework done. Her older sister Goneril is not looking forward to sharing the table when she needs to get her trig knocked out. She does everything she can to make the kids quiet while she chips away at it.

I used the massive quantity of paintings the Sparrows made in an alt save to decorate the place;

...Showing them here as we won't be using this museum too much after all.

Having learned that doing homework outside of the house is tedious and distracting, he ends up finishing the assignment early the next morning after breakfast. Homework should be attacked as if the party hadn't been split early on, the DM isn't writing you into every dead end, and there are fifteen life potions in your bag of infinity.

...Can anyone tell I've never played that game, yet?

Jyo stops by to see Christian and ends up playing a few rounds of street ball with her before ever going in to see her brother or greet her new nephew.

Which is fine as Jet takes forever to start a new chapter and right now he focusing too hard to notice where his wife went.

Everything in his possession and décor is arguably super-retro.

There's that great pool on the second floor of his condo. Tiles inlaid with gold and lapis are everywhere creating a dark and luxurious space. The water seems far deeper than it actually is.

The private dining hall feels secluded in a jungle of ferns like a hidden Mayan temple.

Jarvis looks like he butt-scooted his way all the way over from Sims 2, for some reason. These are definitely Christian's eyes.

“Uh! Uh!” The child chants, reaching for her.

Jyo doesn't miss the days when Caz was this small, but it's hard to know that so much time has already gone by. Her life has changed so much, and the children growing up now will have such different stories to tell, one day. She wonders in rare moments where all is quiet, what it's going to be like as they all get older. She doesn't intend to run from the next things that rise up to surprise her.

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Leila is amazing. She has never done a bad doggy thing in her entire doggy life. At least, not in the house.

The museum from this update is actually the 'Now & Then century manor from the store, all I did was add some art, really and make it an art museum. I thought it would be far more useful than it was. Probably should have kept it in the game, but I wasn't very patient with it ultimately.