Alright, so I'm finally back at the Kråkesen-Motorsen household
awaiting Antons birthday, and before moving on I have to remind
myself about when was the last time I was here... and that was
Chapter
16.1 - March 2023: part VI – Bjørn Yngves birthday.
So,
over a year agon on the sims timeline, and our timeline, and it was
also a birthday party.. for Antons older brother Bjørn Yngve. Also,
I can't jump into celebrating Antons birthday straight away.. there
are some.. technicalities regarding the process to deal with first
before the event can be allowed to happen. So this chapter will be
one where the family is just followed for a day in their life more or
less..
So its an early
morning in the Kråkesen-Motorsen household and the soon to be
birthday child is the first one awake and jolly in his crib..
Knut
wakes up at his usual hour before going to work at the town hall.
According to his wife Helene, he has the ambition to once become the
mayor of the town, and she loves telling everybody about it, but if
you would ask Knut he is mostly just there because it provides an
income for his family... though it does give him an opportunity to
exercise his logic to expose the fallacies of his fellow, but
opposing, politicians and making sure that his own politics are
consistent and sound, and his handiness makes sure that objects in
their home are never broken for to long..
He is also quite
experienced with the fishing rod, and, like his sister Ranveig, the
next thing on his agenda there is to catch a death fish.. which is
going to be a lot easier now that he, like everyone in this family
except his mother, has gone to see a doctor about their
condition...
Besides being excellent at logic and fixing broken household appliances Knuts ambition in life, atleast right now, is to be a family man. To provide for and take care of his kids and watch them grow up as best as they can. And soon it will be his big little son Antons birthday, and it's time to get him out of those diapers once and for all... and he'll be ready to start school with the other kids.
Knut is so happy to have two wondeful sons.. right?
Well, here is the oldest one who goes by the name of Bjørn Yngve.
Not feeling his greatest this morning, but he still does his best to
go downstairs and greet his father before having breakfast. His
difficult emotions this morning makes him want to skip school, and he
almost does later in the day, but a vigilant school inspector catches
him and sends him back to class. ;)
Then its the mother of the household, Helene, who wakes up last to greet her son this morning in due time before Knut and Bjørn Yngve have to leave for work and school. Helene has chosen a career that allows her to stay at home.
Helene is a more creative type of
person who dreams of mastering the skills of painting and writing.
When her sons where younger than they are now she tried her luck as
an author of science fiction and childrens books, but has since then
shifted to be a painter, still working from home.
After touching up her appearance in
the bathroom to make sure she looks her absolute best, she walks out
to her balcony to sell her latest painting. She is very happy and
excited when this gives her an increased standing and recognition
from the local chamber of commerce. It's important that the world
gets to know her name and that her paintings are seen as ample
decorations for the most well-furnished of homes, she wouldn't want
anything less...
Then it's time for some wholesome playtime with her son, before she takes him to visit one of her favourite locations..
-- Books and ice cream? --
It's not the school, not the park and not the town hall.. it's of course.. the library..
She feels she wants to improve her skills in cooking – to one day host the most excellent of candle light suppers that she's sure all her neighbours will absolutely love – and what better way to do that than to learn all about through reading literature.
Anton,
still young and carefree, has gone over to try and make acquaintances
with this elderly woman, Lucie Karlsen, but she doesn't know him well
enough she thinks to want to pick him up. She only gives him a pat on
the head and a friendly encouragement to play with the toys in the
childrens area while the adults do their boring adult stuff.
;)
--
Later some drama ensues at the library between an elderly couple – Monika and Vegard Morris-Nielsen – just in time for Helene to have acquired the right amount of knowledge about cooking for now. So she decides to put the book back in the shelf and pick up her son and head back home to a more peaceful environment where they can play alone..
Atleast for a while, because it doesn't take long for Anton to notice some jolly music playing from outside.. what could that be? Let's go out and see...
"Look at that, Anton! It's the ice cream
truck" she says, but Anton only grimaces thinking the ice cream
truck is a little scary looking... "There could be an evil, bad
man inside" he thinks, "an evil, bad man" and he
doesn't want anything to do with that...
So
Helene does the right thing and buys an ice cream from the "evil,
bad man" and tries to share it with Anton, but he refuses and
turns his back on her. He doesn't want anything from the scary truck
with the tinted windows, it feels unsafe, and he wishes to go back
inside..
A much better idea..
so Helene picks him up to carry him upstairs to show him the new
bookshelf she has bought in what will be his own bedroom once he has
had his birthday..
She wants to read him a book, but he shows no interest in it and would rather play with the toy building blocks instead...
"Alright son, I'll leave you to it. I'll be
downstairs playing some video games if you need me..."
******
In
this moment Bjørn Yngves schoolday is over and he received top
grades. Not skipping school paid off.... but no time for him to come
home and tell mom about it, because then its time for him to head to
work over at the day (and afternoon) spa...
His aunt Ranveig went to the grocery store and sold off the fish she had caught last time she went fishing with Oliver Freddy. That impressive shark that she thought wasn't all that impressive.. what would she do with it? Better just sell it to make some money.. to bad, because I'm sure Oliver Freddy would have loved to do some research on it.. ;)
Knut just returned home from work thinking about the lunch he had in the canteen at work..
His wife
is not very attentive at the moment anyway, being all caught up in
her video games, so he gets an idea to call his sister Ranveig to go
fishing, hoping to fish out of her if she's got any tips or tricks on
how to catch a deathfish.. or at the very least do some secret
observing of what she does and the techniques she use...
Young Anton is still upstairs playing with the building blocks, and is a little startled by the door bell as it rings.. who could it be?
Knut
opens the door to greet his sister Ranveig, and she immediately
begins to talk about fertilizer. Without revealing any secrets that
Knut would be interested in hearing she states the obvious that
various plants can be used as bait and that it's important to
fertilize them with good fertilizer to get better fruits and
vegetables and thus, better and more tempting bait for the
fish..
"Yeah, what else is new" he thinks, but does his best to appear as if she gave him some brilliant new insight before they walk towards to car to drive off to their chosen fishing spot. A paparazzi is left behind on the porch, eagerly taking notes.
"Local politician Knut sneaks out of the house and discusses fertilizer with his sister Ranveig on the front porch, before they drive off. What kind of mischief could they be up to? Why is he abandoning his wife? Is there trouble in the family?..."
No trouble in the family, they're just going fishing.. Since its raining Knut takes her down to the local fisherman huts where there is a possibility to seek shelter if need be..
..and Ranveig is not shy to take this opportunity. While Knut tries his look outside, she goes inside the hut behind him to sit on a comfortable couch watching kids cartoons on tv..
As much as she enjoys
fishing and wants to catch a deathfish herself, she's not gonna be
doing it out in the rain when there is a couch and a tv nearby... and
she wouldn't want Knut to learn any of her secrets anyway.. she
cannot allow herself to get beaten by a younger brother! That
wouldn't be right...
"That
fool" she thinks "knowing him, he would probably be
impressed by catching a simple jellyfish. Pah! That is nothing, I
caught a shark the other day. I'd like to see him do that and
maybe, maybe I'll be a little impressed..."
When Bjørn Yngve is finished with his shift, its time for the school ball. It has already begun so he is a little late when he calls his girlfriend Heidi to take her there as a date. However, she is of course, already there, so he kind of has to go alone...
At the fishermans
huts Knut just caught his biggest fish yet, a 38 kg perfect tuna.
Ranveig is still inside watching tv, not really caring to much about
his fishing..
..so he walks inside to strike up a conversation by telling a joke about collecting rocks, aiming to shift the conversation to fishing and hoping she will reveal some of her fishing secrets..
..but Ranveig is not up for it, and throws the ball back at him by turning the topic to his job and his political career..
..and that works the trick to get him rambling on about all kinds of political systems.. Ranveig is a bright woman, and as a journalist she has some interest in political systems, but her brothers ramblings can sometimes be incredibly boring..
..so she only listens with half an ear and tries to switch the topic over to cartoons by mentioning this caricature of a certain prominent political figure she saw lying around on the news desk the other day...
Then Ranveig was
saved by the bell before Knut got the idea to return to fishing for
information about fishing as Knuts phone rang and their mother Eirin
wanted to talk to him..
The conversation with his mom wasn't very
interesting either, and she knew that Knut would not be the one to
convince their mother to see a doctor.. Ranveig knew that if anyone
had to do it, it would have to be her.. again.. she still listened in
while pretending not to listen, just in case he actually did have the
courage to mention it to her..
"It was mom" he said when the conversation was
over. "She wanted to know how work went"
"Yeah, I
heard" Ranveig said with a great lack of enthusiasm "Did
she have anything else to say?"
"Not really.. it was
that, and the usual complaining about garden gnomes..."
"Figures.
And she's still not gonna do anything about it?" Ranveig asked,
though the answer was already given.
"We uh... we didn't get
into that..."
"Yeah, I knew you wouldn't... but I
don't really want this to contin-"
"I think I'll go try
my luck again with the fish" Knut interrupted as he hurried for
the door. "Maybe it bites more now that it's getting
dark."
..and just as he
did so, the tv broke which gave him a slight hope that she would join
him fishing.
..but no. There another hut right next to this one, and it also had a tv inside..so Ranveig did not stray from her initial plan, she rarely did, and went straight for the next cabin to continue watching tv..
Meanwhile at the school ball things had been
getting interesting for Bjørn Yngve.. you know its been a good night
if you can get into a couple of fights, get crowned the king of the
school ball and end the night by observing a three-eyed llama...! I'm
not sure how to explain that last one.. anyway, it looks like he had
a good night in spite of not getting to go with his girlfriend.. and
now it was time for him to head back home. ;)
At the fisherman huts Knut just caught his
biggest... uh.... "fish" yet... 87 kg of sea sludge..
disgrobol! But it looks like its alive... that does it with
the fishing for tonight, he thinks and heads back into the cabin to
spend some more time with his sister before calling it a
night..
He has given up on
extracting any secrets from her and lets her think that she is
successfully distracting him by continuing to talk about politics...
Back at the house young Anton is safely in bed sleeping (where he has been so for a while) and Bjørn-Yngve is home to talk to his mother about his day in school and all the crazy things that happened at the school ball (minus him instigating a couple of fights), but it seems a bit hard to get his mothers attention is she is still pretty preoccupied with playing computer games..
At the fisherman huts Knut has said good night to Ranveig and they are both heading home while Ranveig ponders why most of the conversations she has with her brothers feels more like a ping pong match than anything else...
When Knut comes back home Helene is still playing video games and Bjørn-Yngve appears to have given up on talking to his mother and doesn't appear to register his father coming in through the door either..
"Well... good night to you both, then..." Knut says before heading up the stairs to go to bed...
Then finally after a good while Helene puts down
the video game controller to start talking..
"Did you
know that my car has the best alarm system of all the cars on this
street? So if any car gets stolen, it's not going to be mine, even
though it is also the most expensive and luxurious of all the cars in
the area."
"Yeah, I'm sure all the neighbours are gonna be super jealous.." Bjørn-Yngve replied, nowhere near impressed "Anyway, whats for dinner tomorrow?"
"Well, it is Antons birthday" Helene answers with a flat tone, "so I thought we would all go and dine out at the Corsican Bistro – and pick something really expensive from the menu, but on second thought I think we'll have something at home since it won't be appropriate to only let him pick from the kids menu. He deserves the best, most luxurious food he can get, and I will make sure he gets it."
"That sounds cool mom, I'm sure he'll love i-"
"Also, I just bought him a really fancy bookshelf earlier. I couldn't wait so I already showed it to him while you were in school and we had such a good time with me reading for him up in his room, oh, he already loves it. The bookshelf I mean, but of course, he will love the food, too."
"And you
know this" Helene continues, "With all the money your
father will be making from his political career we are going to be
the wealthiest family on our street, and it should l- and we should
live like it too."
"And this is gonna make us all celebrities, right?" Bjørn-Yngve asked sarcastically.
"Oh, yes, indeed, but we already are. Haven't you noticed the paparazzi hanging around here 24/7?" Helene replied feeling proud. "It won't be long until he gets his name in the international press for his brilliant work, I can see it happening any time now."
"Oh yes, I am absolutely sure it will mom, it will be most excellent." Bjørn-Yngve said mimicking Helenes pseudo-upper class way of speaking before he continued with fake enthusiasm, "I can't wait for it to happen... anyway mom, I'm getting hungry so I'll just go into the kitchen and get a quick snack before going to bed..."
"Oh yes,
you are absolutely right. It has been quite a long day and it is
important for us all to be well rested before tomorrow. I will
immediately see myself to bed too. Good night, son."
"Yeah,
good night mom..."
Bjørn-Yngves notes:
Huh... talking to mom is like talking to a brick wall, except this brick wall can't stop bragging about itself and how its covered in gold, when everybody else can see that its nothing but an average brick wall.. like all the other brick walls.. and I know excactly like Antons birthday is gonna go. Its gonna be like mine.
Her, grandpa Egil and cousin Ingrid, they're gonna be walking around to everyone bragging about anything they can annoying everyone, dad is gonna start an argument with aunt Ranveig just because, uncle Eivind is gonna hide away from everyone, grandma Eirin is gonna show up in her swimwear and stand in a corner talking to herself, grandma Frida is gonna get drunk and I'll go to bed early because I can't stand it anymore... it's gonna be so much fun... just so.. much.. fun...
Good night...
Narrators notes:
Well, that was a pessimistic expectation for tomorrows party.. well, what he describes is a possibility, but I'm still gonna be hoping it will be an enjoyable one for everyone until we know better. ;)
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