Round 7 Part 3: Riedmayer Cove (2053 - 2057)

Jill Smith is 60 years old, Johnson Simpson is 57 years old, Agatha Riedmayer is 33 years old, and Andrew Riedmayer is 2 years old.

"Golden years"
narrated by Johnson Simpson

I never thought, thirty-some years ago, that this is where I'd end up, but life is pretty good. My "grandson," Andrew, turned five a while back.












Agatha is really good with him. Helps him with his homework and stuff, so he can get the best start in life possible.












We managed to get him into private school as well. Jill talked to the headmaster over coffee while I cooked dinner.











Then Agatha spent some time schmoozing him over drinks. I think she got a little tipsy, but apparently it worked since Andrew was accepted.












Now that he's in school all day, things are pretty quiet around here. Jill and I are both still working, though she's got enough time off to take up a pottery-making hobby.











I think she's continuing other hobbies as well, based on the little--and not-so-little--gifts that end up on our front porch. Either that, or Agatha is following in her mother's footsteps. As long as it's not affecting Andrew, I figure it's none of my business.

Week Six Part Three: Riedmayer Cove

Jill Smith: 53 years old. Aspiration: Romance. Lifetime want: Have 20 Simultaneous Lovers. Astrological sign: Libra.
Johnson Simpson: 50 years old. Aspiration: Fortune. Lifetime want: Become Chief of Staff. Astrological sign: Gemini.
Agatha Riedmayer: 26 years old. Aspiration: Romance. Lifetime want: Woohoo 20 Different Sims. Astrological sign: Sagittarius.
Gretchen Riedmayer: 23 years old. Aspiration: Fortune. Lifetime want: Become Space Pirate. Astrological sign: Aries.
Jacqueline Riedmayer: 23 years old. Aspiration: Fortune. Lifetime want: Become The Law. Astrological sign: Aquarius.

Agatha moved back here after college, not having any other plans. The only person missing compared to last week's portrait is Annie, whom we just visited at Dejackome Place. 

The family tree. Johnson had two daughters, Annie and Gretchen, with his late partner, Quinton Riedmayer. Jill had two daughters, Agatha and Jacqueline, with her late husband, Elwood Riedmayer. Elwood also had a daughter from his first marriage, Beata Riedmayer-Landgraab, who now has 7 children and about 16 grandchildren. (Grandchildren not pictured for the sake of space.)

"A New Generation"
narrated by Jill Smith

I suppose you know my whole backstory already, right? Great, let's cut to the chase. My soaps are on soon. Yeah, who'd have thought 30 years ago that Jill Smith would marry some old guy and then end up raising four kids with a gay man and then turn into a grandmother who watches soaps? Not me.

Where was I? Well, I'll start when Gretchen and Jackie left for college. They were getting near the maximum age for admittance, but they wanted to stay home and get as many AP credits as possible before they started on their higher education. They both ended up getting 5 scholarships. Gretchen got hers for good grades, good performance in her after school job, cooking skill, charisma skill, and logic skill.

Jacqueline got all the same except creativity skill instead of cooking skill. That girl looks just like me but she takes after Johnson, work work work all the time. (Come to think of it, her father was like that too, though he'd slowed down a lot by the time we married.) She'd be a real pretty girl if she took some care for her appearance.

Agatha, my other daughter, is the opposite. She looks like her father's side of the family but has a lot more of my personality. She's got an interesting face shape, but she knows how to cut her hair and dress to flatter her unique looks. She moved back here after college, since she didn't have any other plans and we have plenty of room in this drafty old mansion.

The three of us just kind of led parallel lives for a few years, working and socializing and doing whatever. Then one day we all sort of decided at once to go on vacation. We'd been working hard enough and had a good bit put away for a rainy day; why not splurge? So we left early one morning and flew to Twikii Island.

We saw all the usual sights. Agatha did her own kind of sightseeing besides. She seemed to hit it off with one of the natives. That grass skirt look doesn't do it for me, but she's entitled to her own opinion, I suppose.

I had the room next to her in the hotel, so I heard some things at night and when I'd go over to see her in the morning she'd be barely dressed. Maybe she was just sleeping like that to stay cool in the tropical heat, but I have a feeling there was more to it than that. I kind of subtly told her stories about how when I fell in love I let myself get swept off my feet and next thing I knew I was a widow with two tiny kids. I don't know if my little lecture got through to her at all. She's a grown woman and can make her own choices, but I just know she's not the type to want to be tied down for long.

That native fellow was standing around watching us when the taxi came to take us back to the airport. He looked kind of sad, seeing Agatha pick up her suitcase and walk away from him without a backward glance.

Well, it wasn't three months later that Agatha came to me and told me she was pregnant. I told her I'd support whatever choice she made, and she decided to keep it and raise it. I worry a little that she thinks that being a single mother is easy just because I did it with two, but I had lots of help and it was still the hardest thing I'd ever done, caring for her and Jacqueline when they were little.

Anyway, soon the whole family knew and accepted Agatha's baby wholeheartedly. I think Annie was the most excited; she was just three months farther along with her first child. (Ed. note: Pictured is actually Annie's second pregnancy, but pretend it's her pregnant with Rivka.) She and Agatha swapped stories about morning sickness and whatever else all the time.

Other days, though, you'd think Agatha didn't even know she was pregnant. She spent a lot of time out on the exercise equipment, trying to keep her figure. I worried sometimes she was going to overdo it and hurt herself, not to mention the baby. I am turning into a bit of a worrier now that I'm old, I guess.

One day a few weeks before the baby was due she and I were sitting down at the old chess table just talking about this and that, and I found myself asking if that native guy she'd been so taken with was the father. She said yes, but that she wasn't going to tell him about the baby because he was one of those family-oriented types who'd want to get married right off and make an "honest woman" out of her. But they wanted such different things out of life that she knew they'd be miserable married to each other.

One rainy day in January, Agatha felt her first labor pains right there at the chess table. I tried to help her as much as I could, but I don't know how much help I really was. Johnson ended up being a lot more useful, I'll wager, but then again he was working as a surgeon at Sim City General at the time, so he had at least a little relevant experience. I just birthed two babies, and I kind of tried to block out those memories.

Fortunately, Agatha didn't have too much trouble and before we knew it she was holding her son. Andrew Kimbrell Riedmayer, born January 14, 2051. He's mostly got Agatha's coloring, but then again his father had about the same coloring, that I recall. His eyes are dark blue instead of gray like Agatha's; I guess he got those from his father for sure.

 We all pitched in with the baby, feeding him, changing him, getting up with him when he cried in the night. Well, Johnson and I handled most of those night wake-ups. Agatha was working nights as some kind of phone psychic or something so she could be home with Andrew during the day when Johnson and I were at work. It wasn't so bad; now that I'm old I'm up half the night anyway.

Between the three of us, we actually managed to get everything done with a little time left over. One day I saw Johnson out on the front lawn with Korey, the guy who's the headmaster of the private school our girls attended.

Later on they took it to the bedroom. I never bothered to tell Johnson that I'd gotten some action with Korey years ago; it was a one-time fling and Johnson deserves to be happy. I don't think he's been with anyone since Quinton died all those years ago.

I had my lovers too during that time, but a lady never kisses and tells. *smile*

Andrew grew like a weed, as babies do. He's three years old now. I think he looks a lot like his mother did at that age, but maybe I'm just seeing what I want to see. Haven't got anything against his father, but from what I saw he was no looker, not compared to my Agatha.







Blast from the past: Agatha just before she grew up to child. Neither picture is good enough for you to really tell, but I like to imagine that Andrew has his mother's pointy nose at least. I will have to check when I next play this house.








Well, I guess I've got you all caught up, and just in time to watch The Pleasant Twins. I just love watching those girls slap each other silly. You can show yourself out, right? Mind you don't trip going down all those stairs.

Also during this week:

Johnson reached his LTW and TOC #1 just in the nick of time. His new LTW is to become a Business Tycoon, but there were no business jobs on the computer so he took a job as a Theorist in the Science track instead. 

Later on in the week, Agatha topped the paranormal track and immediately switched to being a Broadway Star in the Show Business track. Her LTW isn't career related, though, so she's a very unhappy Romance Sim at the moment, having only 2 of her desired 20 woohoo partners. Since she did her duty and produced a Riedmayer heir, she will get to focus more on her wants this coming round.

Jill is still putzing her way up the Law Enforcement career track. Meanwhile, she's up to 14 (of 20) lovers, but this screenshot from the beginning of the week is meant to highlight one of her lovers in particular.

I was surprised when I discovered this (having apparently not paid enough attention to Audrey's relationship panel after she moved in with Corbin), but it ended up providing an interesting twist to the story.

At one point Andrew got glitched--none of the adults could interact with him--which was particularly terrifying given that he's such an important baby. I minimized the game and did some frantic googling and then with fear and trepidation deleted him (using move_objects) and then reloaded the lot. He was happily lying on the ground next to the mailbox, and I sent Jill to fetch him. She could interact with him just fine, but then she had quite a time getting him back up to the house...it's a long walk and the ghosts scared her half a dozen times on the way. Poor Andrew.

Not much has changed in the house since Week 5. The DJ booth on the porch is a gift from one of Jill's lovers.

Johnson has the large red room to himself, while Jill and Agatha share the smaller pink room and Andrew sleeps in the hallway. I think I am going to majorly renovate this floor when I next play this house.

The attic now has musical instruments (bought to keep aspirations up, no doubt) and a Grim Reaper Phone in addition to Elwood and Jill's old bed. 

The greenhouse is finished and half of it has been turned into an indoor pool. There might be actual plants at some point, but then again maybe not.

Sim State University Class of 2046

Loosely based on what I've seen in places like Sullivan and Lakeside Heights. I just felt like pulling some of this out of the narrative posts and into this. Plus I am starting to get a teeny bit better at taking close-up shots of my Sims and wanted to show them off.

Gavin Dejackome
Major: Mathematics
GPA: 4.0
Honors: Zeta Zeta Epsilon Greek House member, Landgraab Society member, Big Sim on Campus award recipient
Plans: Gavin plans to reside in Prosperity Plains with his aunt, Melanie Tse, and his fiancee, Annie Riedmayer. He is looking for a job in the imports business.

Theresa Dejackome
Major: Art
GPA: 4.0
Honors: Zeta Zeta Epsilon Greek House member, Landgraab Society member, Big Sim on Campus award recipient
Plans: Theresa plans to reside in Prosperity Plains with her fiance, Malcolm Landgraab V, and his family. She hopes to have a career in architecture.

Malcolm Landgraab V
Major: Art
GPA: 4.0
Honors: Zeta Zeta Epsilon Greek House member, Landgraab Society member, Big Sim on Campus award recipient
Plans: Malcolm will reside in Prosperity Plains with his parents, local entrepreneurs Malcolm Landgraab IV and Beata Riedmayer-Landgraab, and with his fiancee, Theresa Dejackome. He hopes to work in the publishing industry and eventually start his own newspaper.

Ryker Owens
Major: Drama
GPA: 4.0
Honors: Zeta Zeta Epsilon Greek House member, Landgraab Society member, Big Sim on Campus award recipient
Plans: Ryker has received a land grant in Prosperity Plains and will be living alone. He is looking to get into the entertainment business.





Agatha Riedmayer
Major: Philosophy
GPA: 4.0
Honors: Zeta Zeta Epsilon Greek House member, Landgraab Society member, Big Sim on Campus award recipient
Plans: Agatha will be living in Prosperity Plains with her mother, Jill Smith, and uncle, Johnson Simpson. She is keeping her options open in terms of future employment.




Annie Riedmayer
Major: Psychology
GPA: 4.0
Honors: Zeta Zeta Epsilon Greek House member, Landgraab Society member, Big Sim on Campus award recipient
Plans: Annie plans to reside in Prosperity Plains with her fiance, Gavin Dejackome, and his family. She is seeking employment with the Sim City Police Department.

Week Five Part Thirteen: Sim State Dormitory + Zeta Zeta Epsilon Greek House

Annie Riedmayer: 18 years old. Aspiration: Popularity. Lifetime want: Become Captain Hero: Astrological sign: Aquarius.
Theresa Dejackome: 21 years old. Aspiration: Romance. Lifetime want: Become Celebrity Chef. Astrological sign: Libra.
Malcolm Landgraab V: 24 years old. Aspiration: Popularity. Lifetime want: Become Media Magnate. Astrological sign: Gemini
Gavin Dejackome: 21 years old. Aspiration: Knowledge. Lifetime want: Become Criminal Mastermind. Astrological sign: Cancer.
Agatha Riedmayer: 19 years old. Aspiration: Romance. Lifetime want: Woohoo 20 Different Sims. Astrological sign: Sagittarius.

Gavin is the last in my wave of Knowledge teens, as you can probably tell.

The Riedmayer family tree. I might have to start breaking it up into subfamilies. Anyway, Annie and Agatha are first cousins, and then Malcolm is Agatha's nephew (even though he's older than she is) and therefore Annie's first cousin once removed.

The Dejackome family tree is much more manageable. Gavin and Theresa were adopted by founder Rivka Dejackome and I pretend that they are twins. Their older sisters are recently married with young families.


Narrated by Gavin Dejackome

My sister Theresa and I ended up getting assigned to the same dorm as three other students from Prosperity Plains. I think the administration puts us all together on purpose. Anyway. As soon as we step out of the taxi Theresa and her boyfriend Mal--they dated in high school--were all over each other. I wouldn't mind that; some people are just into PDAs, but I'm pretty sure Theresa wasn't faithful to him and it bugged me that she was letting him think she wanted to be with him when she was with a bunch of other guys too.

The two other girls were Annie and Agatha Riedmayer. Annie told me that Agatha was her sister, but then later explained that they're first cousins but were raised together and think of themselves as sisters. Considering that I have an aunt who's not my aunt, I don't really care if she wants to say her cousin is her sister.

Annie was pretty sociable, taking the initiative to get to know all the rest of us. Theresa definitely encouraged me to spend time with Annie. I think she thought that if I got a girlfriend I would be less curious about her...extracurricular activities. Like a guy is ever going to stop looking out for his little sister. (She's only 5 minutes younger than I am, but that totally counts.) I did think Annie was quite nice, though.

At one point that first semester Theresa asked me to "help" with her term paper. And then she said she was going to the restroom and didn't come back for an hour. So I didn't help her the second semester.

Meanwhile, Annie was connecting with Ryker Owens, who was currently in charge of ZZE Greek House. Pretty soon all 5 of us were members of the Greek house.

Theresa also managed to make it into the Secret Society during her freshman year, which is a school record. Apparently she's really, really good at making connections with the other students.

I must admit, I'm not sure where Theresa ran off to all the time. I was perhaps getting a tiny bit distracted by Annie after all.

The next year, we all moved to the ZZE house. It was way better than living in the dorms. The food was better, there were state-of-the-art computers for everybody, all sorts of tools to help learn different skills...

There were even a bunch of clothes left over from previous residents. Nobody had had the money to go shopping, so they eagerly raided the dressers and took what they wanted.

Time passed pretty uneventfully. We learned things, we all got into the secret society, we all eventually made Big Sim on Campus.

About halfway through our time at college, Mal and Theresa got engaged. I worried that they were going to regret it.

Theresa claimed that she had told Mal about her other lovers, but I'm not sure I believe that. She also said that she wasn't with anyone else after she and Mal got engaged. From the way she talked after that, I worried that she had picked Mal over her other lovers because he was rich, not because she actually loved him.

Anyway. I suppose that might have put the idea in my head, because within a year I had asked Annie to do me the honor of becoming Mrs. Dejackome, and to my immense delight, she accepted. I was blissfully happy.

Both of my older sisters had recently given birth, so they were unable to come meet Annie, but Aunt Melanie came. She and Annie hit it off right away.

Theresa asked a guy named Douglas to join our Greek House near the end of our time at college. I wasn't going to ask, but she made a point anyway of telling me that she never slept with him. He seemed very academically minded, at any rate, so I rather liked him.

Douglas Long
S4 skin, black hair, green eyes
Aspiration: Knowledge
Lifetime want: Become Prestidigitator (of course)
Astrological sign: Sagittarius

Even though he was several years behind the rest of us, he joined our study sessions and was actually quite helpful.

Just before graduation we had a toga party to which we invited as many of our family and friends as could come.

Then came graduation. It was easy for the five of us from Prosperity Plains; we were all moving back with our families or our future in-laws.

Ryker was the last to leave the Greek house. He wanted to stay in the area, but didn't want to move in with any of his friends and burden them--I doubt he would have been a burden to anyone, but I can understand that desire to stand on one's own two feet. Fortunately, Ryker found out a few months after graduation that his application for his own plot of land in Prosperity Plains had been approved. All the rest of us pooled our money and gave him some things to help furnish his new home, since he wouldn't have a lot of money to start out with. Maybe that was wrong, considering how strongly he felt about independence, but we had all become such good friends in our time together that not helping each other out at least a little was unthinkable.

Notes:

1. I was going to post pictures of the Greek House, but now I think I will do a more detailed tour in a separate post. It has changed radically over the years, but at the same time it doesn't change in the same way as the other houses in the neighborhood. 

2. I never would have thought that I could do a college post with a first-person narrator, but I think it actually  worked. I think it's funny that Gavin is so very different from Corbin, who narrated the post before this one.

3. I glossed over a lot of Theresa's escapades in the narrative, so here's a recap: I decided that I was going to shoot for her impossible want (30 simultaneous lovers) before she hit the end of her sophomore year, so that I could change her aspiration and get the prosperity challenge points for TWO impossible wants. So I had her purchase the cheapest community lot in Bluewater, threw in a double bed, and had her start inviting over every single guy she knew. (I used the college directory and the "network" business perk to get her more acquaintances.) She did manage to hit 30 lovers in time to change her aspiration to Fortune (new LTW: Become City Planner). I am so never doing that again, though.

Poor Agatha got neglected as a result of my getting burned out with Theresa; she had an affair with a professor but otherwise didn't get to do anything Romance-y. 

4. Ryker got a lot of stuff because I wanted to keep GH funds below 20k. I think they only take away funds if there's less than 20k per resident, but I am a control freak so I keep it below 20k just in case. Ryker was the only one who wanted for anything, since everyone else really did move back to established houses.