Hello! Welcome to Chapter 59 of Already in Progress, the only story that starts in the middle!

If you’re looking for Plot, Characterization, Staging, or Recaps, you’re in the wrong place. If you’re looking for moderately humorous observational writing that chucks you right in the thick of things, with properly Dramatic, but also Frustratingly Incomplete spaces that have nothing to do with the main story, then make yourself comfortable! The feature you’ve been waiting for will begin after this brief message.

Today’s episode of Goldberg & Silent Lady is brought to you by “Splash!”: a swimming posebox by Live2Draw.

(in the rapid undertone used for the “small print” portion of all the best commercials) Posebox is available from Mod The Sims. Live2Draw is in no way aware of this endorsement.

And now let's return to our story: Already in Progress...

Skye’s luck was not in at the beginning of this rotation. For starters, it rained.

A lot.

And her best efforts at digging resulted in a bone. (Her worst efforts at digging resulted in… well, you can see what they resulted in.)

Skye’s luck picked up near the end of the second day, when her friend Tamara invited her our for burgers.

You may remember Tamara from earlier chapters. She now has her own spin-off (Sun, Moon, and Tamara), available at my LJ. [/shameless self-promotion]

While out and about, Skye took a good long look around at the many men who frequent the Burger Knight, and unequivocally said “Meh.”

But “Meh” or no “Meh,” Skye needs two babies, and she’s never going to get them if she insists on “meh”-ing every man with whom she has bolts. Two bolts, and Dawson Seiff here barely rates a “Meh”!

Well, there’s no arguing with two bolts, so Dawson Seiff it will be, whether they like it or not.

DAWSON SEIFF: Mmmpf. Your pffthbt hair is in my mouth.

SKYE: Okay, well… Goodnight.

DAWSON: Yeah… ‘Night.

GOLDBERGSo, you got a name?

SILENT LADY give him the same sort of look you'd give someone who asked if you needed to breathe for survival.

GOLDBERGWell, what is it?

SILENT LADY raises her eyebrows questioningly and gestures down the length of her throat and back up, hand curving around her chin to bring her finger level with her mouth, making a flinging gesture as if allowing all the nonexistent words to escape. Lowering her eyebrows, she snorts derisively before turning away.

At Leila and Abhijeet’s house, the “remake all the potions” project is coming along nicely. Leila helps with the potions in the wooden jars, while Abhijeet works on the more complicated ones.

Of course, both parties have day jobs, which take a lot out of a person.

Fortunately, Abhijeet has (re)learned how to make Gaudium potions, which have the same effect as the Energizer.

Confused? Don’t be.

Because I have a Mac, I can’t have Apartment Life. However, I still want to have magic and apartments and fun stuff like that. For magic I use the system created by Dumbeldore’s Army well before AL. That system includes potions and a wand, but no flying brooms or sparkles.

Not that Abhijeet would have sparkles anyway, since he’s a neutral brujo.

Lately, Leila’s had something on her mind.

LEILA: What would you say to a baby?

ABHIJEET (puzzled): How old? “Goo goo gaa gaa” works pretty well with really small ones.

LEILA: No, silly, what would you say to having one of our own?

ABHIJEET (pleased): You’re pregnant?

LEILA: No, but I’d like to be. Would you like me to be?

ABHIJEET: Yeah, I think I’d like that a lot. Give me some warning once you find out and I’ll add another room on somewhere. When did you want to get started?

LEILA: Oh, any old time is fine. There’s no rush.

LEILA: And even if we’re not successful right away, the fun is in the trying, right?

ABHIJEET: Mmmm-hmmm.

MURAKAME

It’s an honest-to-Hobbes locked room mystery! I didn’t think those existed outside of fiction.

GOLDBERG

I hate those. The authors always cheat. Is that a drop ceiling?

MURAKAME

Yeah, but they’ve only got those flimsy metal supports that can hold a pound, pound and a half

tops.

There was a burglary at the House of the Double A’s, and Amy reacted in the only appropriate way: by Smustling. (Ignore the pet food glitched to her hand -- it went away after a nice bath.)

OFFICER NIKKI JITMAKUSOL: Thank you for helping us catch the burglar, Mrs. Littledragon!AMY: Yep, sure.OFFICER NIKKI JITMAKUSOL: I’m glad to report that none of your property was damaged, and it will all be returned to you.AMY: Cool.OFFICER NIKKI JITMAKUSOL: There’s a reward for assisting with capture -- are you even listening?AMY: Nope.

Theodore very sensibly decided to try to get away from the burglar and the chaos, but was more than a little bit hampered by the fact that his cage is made of nice thick glass.

And Adam slept through the whole thing.

(whispers discreetly) I think he may be a little hard of hearing.

GOLDBERGYou don't talk much, do you? Got a reason for that?

SILENT LADY nods.

GOLDBERGAnd the reason is...?

SILENT LADY hands him a note.

GOLDBERG“Peter Hansen called. If you can be there by four, he can let you look at the blueprints." Oh, censor blur,

it’s already three thirty!

Jo and Phoenix aged up this rotation, and Jo got her first new hairstyle since she was a Teen. I think it suits her. Phoenix agrees.

JOSEPHINE: Don’t you need to go wait for the school bus, dear?

PENELOPE: Nah. It doesn’t come for another hour.

PHOENIX: You sure you don’t have something else to do, sweetie?

PENELOPE: Oh, is my playing that bad? I could watch TV.

PHOENIX: Something outside, is what I mean.

PENELOPE: Oh, ew! Yuck! Yuck! I’m going to go wait for the bus right now!

Penny stayed pretty busy with the fixer-upper car, working hard every day. Not quite hard enough to earn a scholarship, but certainly hard enough that I think that she’d have fixed up the junker from Free Time if I had Free Time with a junker to fix up.

So I decided to swap the fixer-upper car for the fixed-up version of the same car, and Penny got to take it for a spin on the last day of the rotation.

She enjoyed herself.

Incidentally, the interiors of the cars from VPN’s Garage (where I got this one) look 1,000% better than the interiors of the EAxis cars. Hardly a surprise, I suppose.

Penny did eventually head off to Uni, mostly because I want her to get her MRS and I like to play multiple Sims through Uni better than I like to play just one. (Penny’s second cousin Olga is also going to Uni.*)

She absolutely will be getting a makeover, I promise.

*Olga comes from Ruth’s (un)Officially Wacky Boolprop Challenge, available on my LJ.

And somehow, I don’t think Jo and Phoenix are going to have any problems with empty nest syndrome.

GOLDBERG

And then they could have (catches sight of SILENT LADY'S face) What? This would totally wo –

GOLDBERG loses his balance and slips, barely managing to catch himself on the top of the filing cabinets. He flails wildly to keep his feet from touching the floor.

GOLDBERG

See? It works!

The Miller household is ticking along very nicely. Frederic is now a restaurateur, and a fairly successful one. Now if only the job didn’t involve wearing a suit and tie…

Helen is doing well in school.

HELEN: An A+! An A+! Now you have to buy me Horizonedge, just like you promised!

Having the right motivation helps, of course.

And Isaac is a content homemaker. He’d much rather keep the house tidy, play video games, and talk on the phone than go to an office for the nine-to-five, Monday-through-Friday grind.

I don’t know about you, but I can sure see where he’s coming from.

GOLDBERG

She was right! I know how they did it!

At the beginning of the rotation, Saigon went to get a drink of water and found that sometimes bad things come out of wells.

SAIGON: Whaaaat?! But I didn’t even watch that tape!*

I am ashamed to report that I paid so little attention to Saigon that I don’t know how old she was when she died, let alone have anything to say for an obituary. I’m sorry, Saigon.

*This is a reference to The Ring, for my readers who don’t watch much horror.

The harvest started coming in at the end of the rotation, but not everything matured, so I won’t be opening the farm stand quite yet. I should be able to open it by the next rotation, though, no problem.

Nicholas and Draupadi both Grew Up this rotation -- Nicholas a bit before Draupadi, but both before the end of Day Three.

Nicholas is a Knowledge Sim who want to be a Mad Scientist. (I’ve been picturing him as a used car salesman, myself, but we’ll find a way to make this work.) Nicholas likes blondes and brunettes, as long as they don’t stink, and he has a slight preference for females. Draupadi is a Romance Sim who won’t roll a LTW until she wakes up in the morning of the next rotation. She likes athletic fellows who are good at cleaning, and she shares Nicholas’s aversion to stink.

Goowing up is generally a good thing, but it has caused a little trouble in this case.

CHANT: You really need to start being nicer to Draupadi.PHOEBE: Aye, nice to thy daughter, that thou dist bear without thy wife. Nay, without even asking thy wife -- for shame!CHANT: Nicholas wanted a sister the same age as himself. It was a perfectly logical solution. But we’re not talking about my daughter. We’re talking about you and the way you act towards Draupadi and Nicholas.PHOEBE: And what, pray tell, troubles thee about my treatment of Nicholas? He is  my dear, sweet boy and I love him fondly!CHANT: Yes, you do. You call him “thee” and quite frankly you spoil him rotten. But you call Draupadi “you.” PHOEBE: Aye, and?

CHANT: And I want you to call Draupadi “thee” too. She’s family.PHOEBE: Thy daughter is not family as my son is family. “Thee” is for those one is close to and --CHANT: Will you stop going on and on about my daughter?! Start calling Draupadi “thee” and stop being so corrupted snippy to her! (stomps off)PHOEBE (musingly, to herself): “Thee” is for those one is close to -- and those who are well below in rank. And it does no harm to be gracious to an inferior. Indeed, ‘tis the mark of a gentlewoman. (nods) Aye, husband, I think we may both be happy yet.

(If this scene sounds familiar, it’s because you read my Myshuno! entries last year.)

MURAKAME

But that means -- !

MURAKAME bolts for the door, nearly knocking GOLDBERG over.

MURAKAME

Ramirez! Silvertree! Back me up NOW!

We open on a sad note at Rose and Dmitri’s house: Tiger moved on to the Great Catnip Meadow In The Sky. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten how old he was, but he was loved for all the years he had.

But it wasn’t all death and gloom. As you may recall, Rose and Dmitri were expecting their third at the end of the last chapter, and Rose ended up in a particularly unflattering maternity outfit.

And roughly 74 hours after conception, Rose gave birth, right on time.

ROSE: Dmitri Leonidovich Andrews Shankel, get your pixels out of bed and help me NOW!

DMITRI (three-quarters asleep): yes dear…

I suspect that Dmitri is starting to question the wisdom of pursuing his engagement to and starting a family with a woman who has one Nice point.

Any second thoughts disappeared once the baby was born, though. This little guy is named Mikhail, although he’s going to be called Mickey. Doesn’t he just look like a Mickey to you?

Mickey is living proof that restoring recessives in CAS works (Dmitri’s grandfather was a redhead, and Rose is carrying a recessive red as well) and that using the Batbox prevents firstborn syndrome.

As soon as Mickey was born, Dmitri rolled up a Want for Ten Of These, Please. Rose rolled Wants to Call All My Sisters Individually And Complain About My Useless Husband.

There were two age transitions this rotation too. Rather than show you cheesy pictures of transitions into… unfortunate… outfits, I thought I’d show you this nice family portrait of all three boys all nicely made over.

Here you see Alexander (who grew up into an orange sweater vest and orange-and-brown board shorts) holding Mikhail, with Ivan (who grew up into the teal dragon outfit from Family Fun Stuff) next to him. Alexander is a Popularity Sim who is partial to alien girls who wear a little tasteful makeup, but only if they have jobs.

Following Mickey’s birth, things calmed down enough to allow Rose and Dmitri to get back to making stock for their flower shop. After much thought, I have decided that it will be called “Rose’s”. This is not a grammatical error, since Rose is the owner of the shop.

Well, Dmitri is, but what’s mine is yours and so on.

Now all I have to do is build the darn thing so they can rebuy it and start running it again.

MURAKAMEMy man! We could not have solved this without you, we

really couldn’t’ve.

GOLDBERGWell, it wasn’t just me. My new secretary helped.

Helped a lot, actually.

MURAKAMEYou still haven’t asked her her name? You are cold.

GOLDBERGNo, I -- Never mind.

For a family that places such a high value on education, the kids at the Wheeler household had a ridiculously high waxy yellow buildup of homework. With some intensive help Learning To Study, it all got cleared eventually, but not soon enough to stop a weekend’s worth of popups about Lavinia being in danger of removal by the Social Worker.

(A threat that is patently ridiculous, by the way, since the Social Worker doesn’t come for Teens.)

Lavinia is a Pleasure Sim who wants to be a Game Designer when she grows up. She likes boys who are fond of cleaning and cooking, but finds glasses to be a turnoff.

And if Lavinia is a Teen, that means that Trudy and Paul are Teens as well, since they are all three the same age.

Paul is a Popularity Sim who wants to be a Media Magnate someday. He likes girls who walk around in their underwear, although they can leave their hat on if they want to. He’s not a huge fan of brown hair, but all other colors are fine by him.

Trudy has one Nice point, and it’s coming out even more now that PMS is a factor. (That’s PMT for my British female readers. For my male readers -- if I have any -- don’t worry about it and just be glad you don’t get either.)

Trudy is a Fortune Sim who wants to be a Space Pirate. She also likes hats, if they’re worn by men who are soft and cuddly. But no makeup! Blech.

I don’t have a picture of Catherynne getting her Gold Toymaking badge, because I cheated her one. I am quite sure that before the rebuild she was within one toy of getting her Gold badge, since she’d been work all day every day for more than a week on it. When I rebuild, I played fair and gave her a Silver badge, but after six days of all day every day again, I got sick of waiting.

Once Catherynne got her Gold badge, she bought a community lot for roughly three minutes, and this is why: one sprinkler placed by the pool…

…and four Twirl, Spin, and Wobbles! placed by the swings. (If I could have spring riders, I would, but this is second best.)

When I built this lot, there were four beach umbrellas in those spots, to keep the footprint accurate. And where the sprinkler is stood a Huuuuuuuge Bill statue, again for the footprint.

These look much better.

Catherynne sold the lots back to the community after placing the items, and here is photographic proof that they still work on an unowned lot. See the grayed out buttons?

I am ridiculously pleased about this, since I build this lot to take a sprinkler and the wobble toys two or three real!years ago, and just never had a Sim get high enough in both money and toymaking to make the swaps.

GOLDBERGSo listen, I'm low on cash to pay you this week. You'll

take a check, yes?

SILENT LADY nods.

GOLDBERGGreat. (hands her the checkbook and a pen) So if you'd just write your name on the "Pay to" line for me...

SILENT LADY writes quickly and hands the checkbook back.

GOLDBERG"Bearer." Oh, you think you're so clever, don't you.

Hi Sally! What are you up to?

SALLY: Ordering pictures.

Pictures of what?

SALLY: Our trip.

Oh, you and Troy went somewhere?

SALLY: Yup!

SALLY (V.O.): We went on a second honeymoon! Or a first one, I suppose, since we didn’t go on a honeymoon after we were married the first time. We went back to Three Lakes, but we didn’t go camping this time -- we stayed in a proper hotel.

That sounds nice.

SALLY (V.O.): Oh,it was. We ordered room service, and went to a marvelous little spa with hot springs and a really great masseur.

Masseur?

SALLY (V.O.): That’s a man who gives massages. “Masseuse” is female.

SALLY (V.O.): And we went back and did some of the things we did last time. Do you want some advice?

Sure.

SALLY (V.O.): Don’t challenge a professional athlete to a log-rolling competition. It does not end well.

SALLY (V.O.): Fortunately, I still kick butt when it comes to axe-throwing.

SALLY (V.O.): We went on several tours, too.Troy was very enthusiastic, although personally I think that was more because the tour guide was younger and prettier than the tour guide last time. They were all good tours, though, even the one where the suitcase blew up after we threw it in the lake. (reminiscently) If I were still writing for the show, I’d put that in.

Wait, you don’t write Goldberg & Silent Lady anymore?SALLY: I haven’t done for years! There were only ever forty-eight episodes.But it’s still on TV!SALLY: Reruns. Star Trek only had seventy-nine episodes back in the 1960s,* but you can still watch episodes on TV today.** Same with Goldberg & Silent Lady. In fact, I think they’re going to be showing episode two of season one pretty soon on channel 6, and that one doesn’t get rebroadcast much.Really? Uh… I gotta go now. Talk to you later!

*True.**Possibly true -- I don’t have cable/satellite/fancy stuff like that.

This chapter’s cover picture was brought to you by joandsarah77, who made me a lovely lot containing four businesses, including the spa with the attractive employees featured on the front cover.

The spa has a special spot just for plantsims, which is something I would never have thought of, but which is pretty awesome. The lot is available on MTS, if anyone would like to snag it for their game.

Jo also made a matching lot by request and to order, which will be featured in the next update. The picture above is a little teaser of what it looks like. By the time the next chapter is out, that lot will undoubtedly also be up on MTS, so be sure to check out both!

The Goldberg and Silent Lady sections used a lot of custom content and poseboxes. All custom content is from Mod The Sims unless otherwise indicated. In addition to the items advertised at the beginning and content advertised in other episodes, I used:

“Timeless Office” set by jgwoods

Long drapes and recolors by KiaraRawks

“Hacked Coat Hook” by Mary-Lou and Numenor

“Custom Modeling Poses Hack V2 w/Facial Overlays” by decorgal21572

SimBlender by TwoJeffs, from Simbology

Checkbook by Paladin at Simwardrobe (Sims 2 > Objects> Other Objects)