Narrators notes:
It's an early morning in Sunset Valley, and I return to the house of Ranveig Motorsen and her children, to find her oldest son Oliver Freddy asleep and dreaming about scientific experiments.. A new year has begun, and soon it's time for him and his girlfriend to go back to to university for their 4th semester. I sit back and wait for the family to wake up, when I all of a sudden receive a message about a house in the New Town Area becoming vacant.
I locate the house, and it is the house of Amena Alnuman, like I expected. I knew from last year that she had plans to find a better location after she got custody of her nephew George, preferrably a place with two bedrooms, but I wasn't expecting her to move out this soon, and certainly not this early in the morning, before sunrise, even... This does take me by surprise, because there really aren't any decent vacant homes in town.. well, if you would ask me..
George leaves the house soon after, and I follow them to see where they are heading..
She doesn't get on her bike, or get into a car or taxi, but instead just walks along the same road. She looks like she's in a hurry, as she doesn't even stop to wait for George, so he has to run to catch up.
"Wait up, auntie! Wait for me!"
She walks on until she reaches the house of the latest newcomer in town, Hans Ivar Nylenna that moved in just last summer, before she does a sharp turn to the right and begins running. That's when I kind of understand where she is headed.. The house that she now leaves behind, along with several similar looking houses on this street, are cheap houses build by the local municipality in the 1970s to serve as simple starter homes for young adults moving out of home for the first time. They were never meant to be homes to start families or live with children, hence they only have one bedroom.
Some years later, in the early 2000s, an investor and millionaire from the country capital of Wad Nahadau had bought the area on the hillside just below these buildings, where he built a park of mobile homes, as he said, "to further the idea of cheap housing for young adults looking for their first home", but success was varied. A few young adults, and even some small families moved in, but throughout most of the years since then, several of these homes have been empty. And it was to one of these homes that Amena was heading.
They were newer, but the standard wasn't much better than what she had. You could almost say it was worse as they were pretty small, the furniture was cheap and the colour choices.. well..., but they had one thing the 1970s homes didn't. Two seperate beds, one for her, and one for her George.
It wasn't perfect, by any means, but it would have to do for now, until she could scrape together enough cash to finally build or buy a proper house. She would most likely need to have one built, as there were no empty houses in town apart from these cheap ones, but on the upside, this also meant that she would be able to decide more or less excactly how she wanted it.
I leave Amena and George behind for now, to return to the Motorsen familys home and wait for someone to wake up. Oliver Freddy and his half-brother Robert Bråge wake up first to go down stairs for a quick breakfast. Oliver Freddy plays the part of the responsible older brother and encourages Robert to do well in school.
"Who knows, you could be a rocket scientist one day!" he said, trying to encourage him further. Oliver Freddy is taking after his aunt Monica, who works as a scientist at the Landgraab Industries Science Facility. His decision to go to university to study science came when she offered him a summer job at the science facility, but he didn't want to leave without his girlfriend, Inge Reppe, so after a bit of discussing he managed to convince her to join him.
"What if I just want to build houses instead?" Robert asked, thinking rockets sounded a little to complicated. "Then I wouldn't need to go to school, because school is boring."
"That's not really how it works, I'm afraid" Oliver Freddy told him. "Even for building houses, it's very useful to understand mathematics, and especially things like geometry and trigonometry.."
"What? You mean triangles and angles and things like that?" Robert looked at his brother, a little surprised.
"Precisely" Oliver Freddy said "Houses are full of them! There are angles and triangles all over the place.."
"You're really weird sometimes, you know that?" Robert said pushing his chair from the table with a scraping sound. "I'll go outside."
"Different. Not weird." Oliver Freddy mumbled to himself, before finishing his last bit of cereal and walking out the back door to say good morning to the butterflies his mother kept out in the garden..
It's an early morning in Sunset Valley, and I return to the house of Ranveig Motorsen and her children, to find her oldest son Oliver Freddy asleep and dreaming about scientific experiments.. A new year has begun, and soon it's time for him and his girlfriend to go back to to university for their 4th semester. I sit back and wait for the family to wake up, when I all of a sudden receive a message about a house in the New Town Area becoming vacant.
I locate the house, and it is the house of Amena Alnuman, like I expected. I knew from last year that she had plans to find a better location after she got custody of her nephew George, preferrably a place with two bedrooms, but I wasn't expecting her to move out this soon, and certainly not this early in the morning, before sunrise, even... This does take me by surprise, because there really aren't any decent vacant homes in town.. well, if you would ask me..
George leaves the house soon after, and I follow them to see where they are heading..
She doesn't get on her bike, or get into a car or taxi, but instead just walks along the same road. She looks like she's in a hurry, as she doesn't even stop to wait for George, so he has to run to catch up.
"Wait up, auntie! Wait for me!"
She walks on until she reaches the house of the latest newcomer in town, Hans Ivar Nylenna that moved in just last summer, before she does a sharp turn to the right and begins running. That's when I kind of understand where she is headed.. The house that she now leaves behind, along with several similar looking houses on this street, are cheap houses build by the local municipality in the 1970s to serve as simple starter homes for young adults moving out of home for the first time. They were never meant to be homes to start families or live with children, hence they only have one bedroom.
Some years later, in the early 2000s, an investor and millionaire from the country capital of Wad Nahadau had bought the area on the hillside just below these buildings, where he built a park of mobile homes, as he said, "to further the idea of cheap housing for young adults looking for their first home", but success was varied. A few young adults, and even some small families moved in, but throughout most of the years since then, several of these homes have been empty. And it was to one of these homes that Amena was heading.
They were newer, but the standard wasn't much better than what she had. You could almost say it was worse as they were pretty small, the furniture was cheap and the colour choices.. well..., but they had one thing the 1970s homes didn't. Two seperate beds, one for her, and one for her George.
It wasn't perfect, by any means, but it would have to do for now, until she could scrape together enough cash to finally build or buy a proper house. She would most likely need to have one built, as there were no empty houses in town apart from these cheap ones, but on the upside, this also meant that she would be able to decide more or less excactly how she wanted it.
I leave Amena and George behind for now, to return to the Motorsen familys home and wait for someone to wake up. Oliver Freddy and his half-brother Robert Bråge wake up first to go down stairs for a quick breakfast. Oliver Freddy plays the part of the responsible older brother and encourages Robert to do well in school.
"Who knows, you could be a rocket scientist one day!" he said, trying to encourage him further. Oliver Freddy is taking after his aunt Monica, who works as a scientist at the Landgraab Industries Science Facility. His decision to go to university to study science came when she offered him a summer job at the science facility, but he didn't want to leave without his girlfriend, Inge Reppe, so after a bit of discussing he managed to convince her to join him.
"What if I just want to build houses instead?" Robert asked, thinking rockets sounded a little to complicated. "Then I wouldn't need to go to school, because school is boring."
"That's not really how it works, I'm afraid" Oliver Freddy told him. "Even for building houses, it's very useful to understand mathematics, and especially things like geometry and trigonometry.."
"What? You mean triangles and angles and things like that?" Robert looked at his brother, a little surprised.
"Precisely" Oliver Freddy said "Houses are full of them! There are angles and triangles all over the place.."
"You're really weird sometimes, you know that?" Robert said pushing his chair from the table with a scraping sound. "I'll go outside."
"Different. Not weird." Oliver Freddy mumbled to himself, before finishing his last bit of cereal and walking out the back door to say good morning to the butterflies his mother kept out in the garden..
The table with the butterflies had been there ever since Oliver Freddy was just a child, and when he would ask his mom where she had gotten them from, she would always tell him stories, such as how she bought them from a travelling butterfly salesman with a suitcase, red tie and a top hat.. Oliver Freddy of course never believed in those silly stories, as he had both heard and seen her sneak out at night to go root through the neighbours trash... It's not like Ranveig ever really enjoyed being nose down in a dumpster, but working as a journalist, she only did what she had to do put food on the table..
Ranveigs notes:
Brahms - Waltz in A-flat major Op. 39 no. 15
Demented version inside spoiler...
You know that feeling in the morning when you wake up with a dry mouth and you just know you've got the breath of a dragon? Yeah, that's what it felt like for me this morning, so I knew I had to brush the teeth immediately as I got up. I didn't want to use the bathroom sink because.. sometimes mirrors just creep me out. If you know what it's like to have mirrors talk to you, sometimes even make faces at you, you would know what I'm talking about.. Not every day is like that, but this was gonna be one of those days, where I just had to avoid mirrors at all costs..
Public bathrooms are the worst.. a total nightmare sometimes, with an entire row of them, all harassing me and telling me to do things.. Sometimes I snap at them and shout back... and don't get me started on the pictures and their ugly voices... all I want is peace, and to be left alone..
Oliver Freddy was sitting on a bench outside reading a book as I went to the fridge to get the ingredients for my breakfast, and I could see from the plates on the table that Robert was up as well, and if it wasn't for them.. my sons, they are the reason why I'm still keeping it all together,somehow..
Oliver Freddys notes:
Before we had to go to back to university, I called Inge over for a short visit. I really hope that she and mom can get along. I know mom only means well, she's just worried, though sometimes it does come out a little wrong.
She said she would be over in an instant, and she actually meant it. I thought girls would always take their time, so I sat down to play a game of chess with Robert. I didn't even get to move the first piece, before I heard her call out good morning. Well, I should have expected her to not take to long. She's always been a pretty down to earth girl, and that's something I really like about her.
"I don't wanna be here for your yucky girl stuff" Robert murmured when he heard her coming. "I'm going back inside to see what mom is up to." He turned on his heel and darted inside, almost running into Inge on the way.
"Whoa, why the rush?" she asked him, but he didn't even look at her before running inside.
"Oh, he's at that age.. you know, he's still in his 'no girls allowed' stage.. if he's anything like his father, just give him a year, or maybe even just a few months..."
"I see..." Inge said as she sat down by the chess table. ".. and you? Did you also hate girls when you were a kid?"
"Me? No, not really.. I never saw it quite like that.. Girls then were kids, just like any other kid. I don't know why, but I never went through that stage. I would often hang out at Ingrids house and we would throw ball together.." I said "..but we've never been anything but good friends. Her parents got such a nice house by the beachfront, you know."
"So you would hang out there only for the house then?" Inge tried to tease me.
"No no, I would never do that... we were actually good friends, too..."
"I was just kidding. I knew you were friends, because I.." Inge began, but stopped as if she just realized she was about to share something best kept to herself. Not that it would have mattered much, because I sort of knew. Looking back at it now, what could be explained to be just innocent coincidences back then, probably weren't.
"It's alright, we were only teenagers then anyway" I said "..but you know, there's one thing I've been thing I've been thinking about since grandmas christmas party..."
"Yeah..?" she answered, doing her best to look like she was surprised by the question, but it wasn't to hard to tell she had been thinking about it, too.
Inges notes:
I was really excited to go back for another semester at university, so I was already set to go when Oliver called and invited me over to his house. Or his mothers house. His brother Robert didn't appear to keen on seeing me, because he ran indoors pretty much as soon as I arrived. I didn't mind to much, he's just a kid, and Oliver explained it was probably just a phase he is going through anyway. It was a little embarassing how I pretty much admitted spying on him when we were still in school. I had noticed him almost right away on my first day of school after we moved to Sunset Valley, but was disappointed when I saw him frequently hanging out with this other girl. I'm not proud of it, but I would often stalk him and I even followed him as he visited her house.. I guess he must have figured it out, because he said he was cool with it, but I still felt shameful.
Anyway.. I guess he wanted to make sure things were alright between me and his mom, because it did get a little weird at the christmas party.. I.. I have never been questioned like that before. It was pretty uncomfortable how she kept pressuring me about future plans. It really did throw me off a bit. I don't know what's.. what's her problem. I tried to understand it, but I'm not sure if I did?
Watcher knows why, but I didn't want it to look like I had been thinking about it too, so I pretended to not know what he was talking about at first when he asked about it.
"You know how my mom kept almost interrogating you about the future.. about our plans to get married, have children and all that.."
"Oh, yeah, that.." I said "..well, it's alright. I wasn't to bothered by it.." This was a lie, of course. I was a little bothered by it, because I felt it was.. a little to soon then to discuss this so openly with his mom. I've had thoughts about it. Plenty of thoughts, you know. Of getting married, settling down, buying a nice house, having kids, but.. I've never taken the steps to discuss it with him to much yet. So far, our plan is to focus on getting through university, and then we'll see..
"Still, I apologize for moms behaviour" he continued. "She means well, you know, it's just how she is sometimes, being very concerned and wanting things settled."
"Oh, it's alright, I understand." I said. "Parents will always be parents. My mom always warns me about the parties. If only she knew."
"Yeah, some things we probably shouldn't tell them, but.. I've been thinking..that when we're done, we move back here.. we buy a house, and you know, maybe have a family of our own..?" he said carefully to, I suppose, test my response as if he feared I would turn it down. Of course I wouldn't. Really, having kids and a family of my own is something I have wanted since junior high.
Since before my parents decided to move out of the city to a smaller town. Dad wanted more space to have his own garden (and to not have neighbours so close by...). Mom just wanted a slower pace and better opportunities to go fishing, and I had no problem moving, because I wasn't making any friends at school there anyway... I don't know what I did wrong, but I was always the one everyone thought they could bully every chance they got...
So.. but, anyway, Oliver finally bringing up our future family life was really the best thing I could hear him say.
I know excactly what I want our house to be, a beautiful victorian style house, light blue with white details. Three storys tall with two living rooms, a dining room and a basement for additional recreational rooms as well as a laundry room. And of course the most lovely garden with daisies and dandelions, a huge playground for all of our kids and a pond with a fountain and water lillies... all this on top of the hill with the best view of our town, Sunset Valley.. well, I also know we would never afford something like that straight away, but eventually.. that is my dream...
..and when we get to that point, there will be no partying and no juice drinking! Especially not around the kids! I love my mom and all, but I don't want to be like her on one important area..
Oliver agreed with me on the last point, of course we wouldn't do that around the kids, but I could tell he was sweating a bit when I told him my visions for our future home..
Oliver Freddys notes:
Inge sure has made her plans for our future, and though it sounds nice, I think we're gonna have to be a little more pragmatic and take things one step at a time. I felt I couldn't promise her all that, so I only told her that we'd go back to university and finish our degrees before settling down here, get a job and start our careers (in science for me, and art for her) and then we would see..
She said she understood, and that she wouldn't expect to have everything immediately and that it would take time, but that it still was a dream she had that one day, we would be a happy family living just like that..
We appeared to agree for now, so I thought it was time to invite her inside to say bye to mom one last time, before we had to go.
I just had to stop on the way to do an inkblot test on her.. maybe I could uncover some of her motivations and try to figure out why family was so important for her. She seemed quite eager then, because with every inkblot I showed, her answers became increasingly romantic in nature..
She wasn't to sure about going inside, and I in part got the impression she wanted to stall time when she asked to hold hands.. but there was no way I was leaving for university without a proper goodbye to mom and my brother.
Inges notes:
I had hoped he wouldn't invite me inside, and that we could just go. I didn't really want to meet his mom, but he insisted we go inside, so well, I had to comply.. It's a horrible thought, I know, but for a while there I started to picture what it would be like if his mom was.. well.. I started to picture what she would be like if she was a ghost.. I didn't want her to start questioning me again, like she did at the christmas party..
When we got inside she didn't greet me, as I expected, instead she wanted to take a photo with Oliver as once last thing before he left. While they did so I tried to sneak past them to go upstairs to watch the cooking channel on tv while doing my best to keep a serious face, but it was just to hard to keep the laughter in.. I don't know what it was, maybe she just came back from the swimming pool and didn't bother changing, but yeah, she was wearing a swimsuit again..
Of course, after a while when it was time to leave they both came upstairs looking for me, and Oliver wasn't very happy I had tried to sneak away from hanging out with his mom. Maybe that was rude of me, but I really didn't want her to start questioning me again.. I wanted to just get out of there quickly, to leave this cuckoo's nest and get back to university with him..
Narrators notes:
I suppose love makes blind as Inge seemed to find it very funny that Ranveig was wearing a swimsuit, completely ignoring that her boyfriend was doing just the same..
Ranveigs notes:
There he goes again, my sweet beloved son and his girlfriend... You know, I've gotten used to being a walking laughing stock over the years, so I just ignored her.. I did think about apologizing for my behaviour at the christmas party, but she disappeared up the stairs before I got a chance to.. and as soon as she was back downstairs and started laughing at me, well, I felt we were even, so I just didn't bother.. It still hurts a bit every time I get laughed at, though...
Oliver Freddys notes:
I can't wait to get back to university to continue my science experiements...
Robert Bråge (running): Hey! Hey, wait up! I didn't know you were leaving... so soon...
Robert Bråges notes:
Bye bye brother.. see you again in summer...then we'll go fishing together.. you know I didn't really mean it when I said you were weird...
Narrators notes:
Yep, see you again in summer, because now the van leaves to take them further north and closer to the mountains where their university is.. to be covered in another chapter, because we are not leaving Sunset Valley just yet. ;)
Robert Bråges notes:
Maybe I won't be a rocket scientist, but I'm sure I could be some kind of scientist. If I can find a rock, I could always ask my aunt if we can do some experiments on it. I'm sure that would make Oliver proud. Then I would be a rock scientist!
"You know how to search for things mom? When you were out looking through trash cans, did you find any rocks?"
I asked mom where I could go to search for rocks, but I don't think she liked my question, because she just sat there staring at my video game. Sometimes mom is a little weird too..
Maybe if I asked her something else she would talk to me..
"Mom? Do you know anything about building houses? Oliver says I need to learn geometry to build houses, but do I really have to?"
I guess not, now she just keeps looking at the walls again.. sometimes I wish I could live with dad instead...
"..mom?"
"Whatever mom, I'll go to the park..."
Ranveigs notes:
It happened to me again after Oliver and Inge left. We walked back inside to play some video games when they started talking to me. I could hear somewhere that Robert tried to say something, but through all the noise, I couldn't make out what it was. I tried to silence the voices, but I just couldn't.. it just takes so much energy. I think he said something about going to the park before leaving. I wanted to tell him to be home before dark. It felt like I was talking, but I don't know if I actually did. It was still so noisy around me, I found it really hard to focus..
I have been thinking more and more to go see a doctor about it, but I just don't want mom to find out. Mom always wanted, and still want, to keep this a secret, because she's afraid it's going to bring shame to the family... but I can't.. I don't understand why she doesn't see it.. that we're already the weird family of Sunset Valley... how everyone laughs at us and talks about us when we're not there. Maybe I should...
I'll uh... I'll do it later... I'll just.. upgrade this computer first.. Being focused on something actually helps me to keep them away..
Robert Bråges notes:
I don't think the park is the best place to search for rocks, so I went fishing instead. I actually caught a few, even if I didn't use bait. I really like fishing, it reminds me of the first time I met my dad. He loves fishing, just like I do. It was in the middle of winter, and it was snow there, so we couldn't go fishing though, but we could do many other things like building igloos and having snowball fights! I really liked the snow, it was so cool! I wish we could get snow in Sunset Valley, too..
I wanted to go skating on a lake, but we can't do that here, so I had to go with the second best thing. On the skating rink I met Olivers sister Margrethe, and we did a few rounds, before playing tag. I know she's a girl, but she is sometimes fun to hang out with.
Narrators notes:
The father that Robert talks about is Gaute that lives in Sprottenham and is married to Leya. Gaute has always been a very outdoorsy man, ever since he grew up in the town of Dole Plains up by the Appaloosian mountains..
The visit he talks about where he is one they did in December 2020 that I just so happen to have a video of..
And well.. speaking of outdoor activities and fishing. While Margrethe and Robert is in the park playing tag, I get a notification that Bjørn-Yngve (Roberts cousin) just increased his skill in fishing to level 5. I click it to find him fishing with his mom Helene by the waterfall.
I find this very cute, that she has autonomously taken her son out to go fishing like that. Way to go!
Ranveigs notes:
Fixing and upgrading things in the home is one of the few things that makes me feel relaxed. I suppose it's the sense of accomplishment that does it. I felt good and full of energy, so I wanted to to the gym to work out, but of course, after I had put on my rain coat to go there, and I managed to forget for a while why I had put it on...
I knew I had put it on because I felt good and wanted to go somewhere.. and then I remembered that Robert had said he went to the park, so I decided to go there to see if he was still there, and maybe we could have some fun together.
Once I got to the park, my mood changed again, and I just wanted to go back home to upgrade more things.. the fact that it started to rain as well wasn't really helping. I'm not the biggest fan of spending time outside unless I'm having one of my good days and the sun is shining, but as soon as it starts to rain, I'm heading back home!
Roberts notes:
Ugh! Rain! That's the only thing we get in Sunset Valley during winter! People had already started to flee the park and it looked like a real storm was coming. I said "See you later!" to Margrethe before I hopped on my bike to get home before it got to bad.
When I got home I found mom with her head down in the trash can again.. I said "Hi mom!" as I walked past her.. I don't think she noticed it was me, because when she pulled her head up, she got that wild panicky looking face again... I can't wait to get old enough to decide for myself where I want to live.. then I'm going to move to where dad lives...
It's hard, because I really do like mom. When she's not weird, she is very good to me. She always helps me with homework, and she really makes the best food. I just don't like it when she gets so weird..
Before going to bed, I wanted to start writing a science fiction novel, so I started up the computer. I think mom must have upgraded it in some way, because it started up way faster than usual (our computer has always been very slow, but not today.) I had watched this tv show just the other day about old steam trains, and I wondered what it would be like if there existed a portal that allowed them to travel through time. I knew the name of my novel already, I was going to call it "A train through time", but I think I would have the trains be a little more modern, like those high speed bullet trains. I think they would have to be that fast, or even faster, to break the time barrier.
Narrators notes:
I then make the switch to the household of Amena and George, because they are the ones I want to follow for a while now to make sure that Amena can earn the money she needs to buy them a new and better home (my sims aren't making money when they are inactives). George is busy being a good boy doing his homework, and Amena has taken up a side hustle of entertaining people at "The Prison Warden" pub, so she is already doing her best to fulfill her goal...
I didn't know she had a piano or any interest or skill in music, but when you have a goal in mind, you gotta do what you gotta do.. I like what I'm seeing though, and I applaud her for taking initiative. ;)
Audience left to right: VJ Alvi, Beau Andrews, Deng Osman.
Now that Ranveig and Robert are no longer the active household, I check up on them to see if they have gone to bed, but it seems Ranveig has taken Robert to go fishing behind the science centre. Of course, Ranveig knows that Robert really loves the outdoors and fishing, so she probably means well, but it's a bit of an odd time to go fishing this late, maybe? And besides, Robert didn't seem to interested. For once, he would actually want to go back inside to continue his writing.. they both go home and go to bed shortly thereafter, so that one visit was kind of pointless. :P
After she finished playing, Amena wants to stay behind at the pub to have a few drinks. However, since she has to go to work tomorrow morning and she has her nephew at home to look after, I speak to her through her conscience to make sure she goes home to see to it that he goes to bed and to get some sleep herself..
Good night. ;)
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