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The Gaitanos: Life in a Puddle - An ISBI-Challenge in Strangetown PART 4

PART 1   PART 2   PART 3

The next day, we were invited to a birthday party at the Grunt house, Buck was celebrating. Tank brought a friend from college, his new "housemate", but if you ask me, there was more to it than just friendship.

His "friend" Frances seems interested in not only Tank, but also Tank´s brother Buck. I am not sure what to think of it, but well, it is none of my business, anyway.

It was a nice break of routine. "The General", as he likes to call himself, was in good spirits, and I am glad to see he is slowly recovering from his mental breakdown.

There was a minor incident though as the party progressed. I was just admiring the moon when Buzz suddenly approached me rather flirtatiously.

 

I was quite upset and told him in no uncertain terms that I am a married man and not up to any kind of romantic interaction with anybody else than Gabriel, who sadly could not make it to the party.

He wandered off. Later, I found him chatting with this Frances guy. If you ask me, "the General" seems really desperate to find somebody, but I am not sure if he is aware Frances is interested in his sons, too.

                                                                                ***

Speaking of Gabriel, we are still getting along well.

As do the kids.

And then my special day came. The syndicate had sent me this "costume". Don´t even ask. They demanded that I should put it on and meet them at the headquarter. Really, I am getting too old for this kind of sillyness, but what could I do?

Finally, finally I received the promotion to become head of Strangetown´s notorious underworld. Now I am the villain of villains, the trickster of tricksters, the ... ah, I am too old for that, too. I guess I will just retire soon.

                                                                          ***

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Deirdre seems to get along well with Vidcund.

They share a love for chess.

"Gabriel, is there anything in particular you want?"
 "No, I just love to stand here for hours and look at you." He is just so sweet.
  When I got up the next morning, Vidcund and Deirdre were still deeply involved in their game.

Amadeo is more of a playful guy.

***

Author´s notes

Again, things were running smoothly, maybe except poor Buzz Grunt hitting on Tadzio. I was curious how Tadzio as a Romance sim would react, and was proud to see he refused the approach (glad I finally fiddled enough with ACR´s settings to make it work, although some Sims just fight it with tooth and nail. I was happy Tadzio was not among them.)

Frances is giving me a headache with his affection for the whole Grunt family. Tank moved in with him and developed an instant crush, but so far nothing has happened besides a first kiss and flirting when they are somewhere else. 

The Gaitanos: Life in a Puddle - An ISBI-Challenge in Strangetown PART 3

PART 1   PART 2


The years just flew by. I continued to climb the ladder in the syndicate, and my spare time I spent with friends and family.

Vidcund was around often, and we had lots of fun together. Well, most of the time.

Deirdre grew up into a beautiful young woman. If I may say so, she is a spitting image of myself.

Everything went rather smoothly, apart from the occasional kitchen fires. I don´t know what it is with Strangetown and stoves, but the disproportionate amount of burnt omelettes and pancakes was a bit worrying.

I noticed something else that was weird. While we continued to live our lives, everyone else around us seemed to age much more slowly. When it was time to celebrate my 60th birthday, it became really obvious. All my friends didn´t look any different compared to the day I first met them.

When I mentioned it to Vidcund, he mumbled something about his aliens again. Sheesh.

I had invited all my friends, the Curious brothers, Loki Beaker, the Grunts and of course my family. I wasn´t aware that there were some long-standing disputes between the families, so before the party had even started, Loki attacked Vidcund out of the blue.

I did not want to get involved in this quarrel, and had to say goodby to Loki. It is unfortunate that he doesn´t get along well with others, but I still consider him as a friend, even if he is a little rough around the edges sometimes.

Yeah, and then the dreaded moment came. Take one last look at my stunning appearance.

An invisble force came and whirled me around, and all of a sudden, I was old!

We had a great party, though, and I consider myself fortunate to have these friends around me.

It was a rough start here in Strangetown at first, but now I can really say I have settled down. I am blessed with a wonderful husband and two lovely children. What more could a heart desire?

  


 

***

CONTINUE TO PART 4

Author´s notes

Not much to say here. This ISBI challenge is going surprisingly well. No aspiration failures, no piles of ashes - it was a rather calm and fun time.
 

Strangetown Randomness

While playing the The Gaitano ISBI challenge, I of course came in contact with the other citizens of Strangetown. Vidcund was part of the welcome wagon, Pascal waddled around on the community lots, so I finally went to the households, to give the poor Simmies there a makeover. After a while, I thought Pascal should at least have his baby.

The first household were the Curiouses, since they had developed some friendships with the Gaitanos.

Vidcund and Pascal Curious

Pascal Curious and Baby Phobos

Vidcund Curious

Lazlo Curious

The only one who stayed in his profession was Vidcund. Pascal wants to be a celebrity chef, but could not find a job for ages, so he is still working as a scientist. Lazlo became an adventurer.

I eventually became more interested in this family and the others; some very entertaining developments ensued, which I will hopefully put up in the future.

Next were the Grunts, I had already shipped Tank and Ripp off to college months ago.

I was touched by General Buzz Grunt´s wish to find a friend when I started the household.

I went for a rather bold makeover:

General Buzz had a nervous breakdown (probably a delayed reaction from Lyla leaving/learning of her death, probably burn-out or mid-life crisis, or all of the above), had to be hospitalized for several months, received intense medical and psychotherapeutic care and is slowly recovering. He realized he has been in the closet his whole life, and is slowly coming out of it.

He is working hard on establishing a good relationship with Buck, but progress is only made very very slowly.

Attempts to speak with Ripp on the phone are a complete failure. They just don´t seem to find any kind of topic they could speak about.

When I sent Buzz out for the first time to make new friends, this Sim came along. I thought: What the heck??, then realized it was Ripp. I had deleted some custom content, and this was the hilarious result.

Of course, his father was upset.

Buzz: "Ripp??"

Ripp: "Oh, hi Dad."

Buzz: "Ripp?? What the hell ..."


Ripp: "..."

Buzz: "I can´t believe you are running around in public, looking like this!"

Ripp: "You are the right person to tell me this, yes?"

Buzz: "How dare you ... !"

Ripp: "Just leave me alone." (Walks away.)

The Unsavory Charlatan aka The Great Zampano made a cameo appearance, too. He is Tadzio Gaitano´s secret admirer.

 Poor Buzz. Seeing Ripp like this nearly caused a relapse.

Buzz on one of his better days:



Both are trying very hard to make the relationship work, but the house and the whole atmosphere is very depressing. Before his breakdown, Buzz devoted more and more time to secure the house and turn it into some kind of bunker, most likely out of fear of an alien invasion.

 

At least Buzz can tolerate now that Buck wants to grow his hair.

The Bunker - Dining

The Bunker - Living

During the renovation, I ran out of money, which probably is a good thing, because the place is really depressing.

The Gaitanos: Life in a Puddle - An ISBI-Challenge in Strangetown PART 2

PART 1

The days passed by quickly. Gabriel gradually got accustomed to live with me, although he never spoke much of his feelings, and sadly, I was too busy being pregnant to spend much time with him.

One afternoon, I had just invited the Curiouses over for a little chit-chat, I went into labor. Well, now I know it was the baby, but at that moment, I just felt an incredible pain.

As glad as I was to have company, none of my friends was particularly helpful. But before we could get into the car and drive to the hospital, the pains suddenly ended, and a baby appeared out of thin air.

"Wow, that must be the teleport I told you about," Vidcund exclaimed exitedly.

I didn´t care about any teleporters, I was just too overwhelmed to hold my baby in my arms for the first time.

We named him Amadeo, "God´s love". It was Gabriel´s idea, and I liked it.

I hate to say it, but Gabriel was oddly detached. He fed the baby, but never cuddled with it. Not to mention the diaper changes. It was a true horror for me. Despite that, we were still very much in love with each other.

Vidcund became a real close friend, too. He often stayed overnight, and I did not mind him sleeping  next to me.

It was nice to have company while I stayed home with Amadeo and Gabriel went to work.

 "I really like it when you tie back your hair like this, Vid."

"Oh, really?" Vidcund blushed, which made him even more adorable.

To say it was difficult to stay faithful to Gabriel would probably be a huge understatement.

I even asked him out on a date, once. We had a lot of fun. I could sense he would have gone farther, but I really wanted to make it work out with Gabriel, after having blown up so many relationships in the past.

So, when the urge to flirt with him and hug him became nearly unbearable, I ended the date, and we parted as friends.

He sent me a love letter, though.

 
 


I thought that was really cute. I also appreciated the gift he gave me afterwards, a vase.

I still bumped into The Great Zampano when I went out, but he still refused to talk with me.

I can´t exactly say when the changes in Gabriel started. One night, he came home being frozen blue.

Luckily, I had a remedy for this.

But I felt helpless when he started worrying, which became more frequent.

He kept feeding Amadeo, but he still never cuddled with him. I don´t even want to mention the diapers.

 
 

It was all up to me to take care of the baby, and I soon felt very burned out.

But despite all that, we got along quite well.

 Then it was time for our sweet baby to grow up.

He developed an intense relationship with the toilet.

Gabriel´s behavior became more and more erratic. One day, I found him passed out on the floor. Needless to say, I was very worried.

 Others noticed it, too.

Then I recognized the symptoms.

"Gabe, are you pregnant???"

"What? Wait .... uaaaargh ...." (Gabriel throws up).

My poor sweatheart!! I wish I could have stayed home, but I had slowly, but surely climbed the career ladder in the "syndicate", and was given more responsibilites as time went by.

I was glad that Lazlo and I got along really well, and he often dropped by our house and at least played a bit with Amadeo ...

... who otherwise spent most of his time playing in the toilet and the resulting puddles.



Gabriel became a complete mess. It was heart-wrenching.

One morning, it was particularly bad. I came home from a difficult job, tired and exhausted, only to witness how Gabriel refused to take care of  Amadeo.

The kitchen was a complete mess, Amadeo´s diapers hadn´t been changed for hours, there were stinking dishes everywhere. Even the dishwasher was broken.



Gabriel had the nerve to complain about me smelling.

I only had a few hours before I had to get back to work, so I just sat down with a coffee, while Gabriel thankfully got his act together again and cleaned up the worst mess.

I had just put Amadeo in the tub, when I heard screams from downstairs.

Gabriel went into labor!

And gave birth to our beautiful daughter Deirdre!

I tried to take care of our children as best as I could, but sometimes I was just too tired from work.

And sometimes I even lost my temper, although usually I am a really calm person.

The maid we had hired a while ago was no great help, either. I can´t for the life of me understand why she dropped a ton of garbage on the kitchen floor. I am glad Gabriel told her in clear and firm words that this behavior is anything else but appropriate.

I had been given more and more responsibility in my job, with odd working hours, so I had to give in into inevitable and hire a nanny. And I could not stop Gabriel from going back to his piano tuning job, either.

Then disaster struck. I was running an errand at a bank when it was robbed. Thankfully, the police caught the robbers, but for reasons totally beyond me, they thought I had something to do with the with the whole thing!

It cost me an arm and a leg to hire a lawyer who quickly got me out of jail, but our money was gone. Gabriel was very upset about the whole issue.

I missed Amadeo´s birthday, which made me very sad.

He still loves puddles very much.

I am thankful though that sometimes he is able to channel this love into more constructive ways.

I was very happy when I finally came home to my family.

Amadeo: "Dad, where have you been, and why do you wear these clothes?"
Tadzio:  "That is a little difficult to explain ... I will tell you when you are older, ok?"
Amadeo: "Ok".

Gabriel kept complaining about my job, and it took a lot of slowdancing and smooth talking to soften his disposition.

Tadzio: "Do you want to wohoo?"
Gabriel: "I love how subtle you always are ..."



We still had to take care of baby Deirdre, so we often had to get up in the middle of the night.


Guess who´s turn it was to change the diapers?

 I became friends with Lazlo, who was a great help when it came to Deirdre.

Deirdre grew up in no time.

Life was rather quiet for a change. Gabriel was feeling a lot better since he worked again. He even played with the kids, which surprised and pleased me.

I was glad too when Amadeo at least once in a while didn´t create a huge mess in the bathroom.

Those moments were rare, though.

But then again, Gabriel was able to teach him the virtue of tidyness.

Alas, he wasn´t always successful.

Gabriel had always been rather reserved and tense, and I was happy to see he loosened up a bit over the years. One night, I even caught him dancing!

Deirdre was a quiet and nice child. She spent most of her time with the logic toy, and enjoyed it considerably.

Even the kids got along well with each other.



Once in a while, we invited friends over. I never really warmed up with Pascal, though, he was quite different from his brothers Vidcund and Lazlo. He used to stay by himself, and didn´t talk very much.

The years flew just past. It was Deirdres turn to grow up.

I took every opportunity I had to spend some quality time with Gabriel. He called this our "dates".

I knew I would probably regret it later, but on one of our dates I asked him if he wanted to marry me. I know, I know, this was really a little overdue, after being together for nearly 15 years, but between work and raising two kids, it never seemed to be the right moment.

Gabriel was overjoyed.

Of course, as soon as the ring was on my finger (believe it or not, this time I bought them), I felt bad.

To my huge surprise, Gabriel told me he had been waiting for this moment all these years.

"I love you!"

I was stunned. He had never said this to me before.

"But ... but why did you never say anything? And how come you spent a good deal of your life with me, and didn´t even love me?" I was dumbfounded.

"It doesn´t matter anymore. We are married now."

And then he kissed me with a passion I had never experienced with him before. Still waters run deep ...

 Amadeo brought a friend home from school, Buck Grunt.

 We had a little party, and then Amadeo grew up into a teenager.

The time to hand over the torch comes closer.

CONTINUE TO PART 3

***

Author´s notes 2

Changing the Diapers: That was the WORST. Every single time Tadzio had to do it, he lost a good deal of his aspiration points. Up to this day, I never had a single grown-up in the household do it, except for the nanny. I was wondering if the CC changing table was bugged, but no, no autonomous diaper changing even with the Maxis one. I can´t understand why this is not an autonomous action like bottle-feeding.

Regarding teaching the toddler skills, Tadzio made a heroic attempt to go for it, but failed miserably. I realized that Romance Sims are just not meant to do it. With huge effort, he at least managed to potty train the two toddlers, but that was it.

Gabriel went to work regularly, except on two occasions, but since he accumulated enough vacation days, that was not a problem.

The kids developed a strange rhythm: They usually stayed up all night, painted, danced, then dragged themselves to school and fell into bed immediately after they came home. They often preferred the sofa, though, which took forever to restore their energy, It seemed as though beds that were bought after they grew up were somehow not recognized as beds.

The worst days were during Gabriel´s pregnancy. Green fumes everywhere. Thankfully, after Deirdre was born, things became relatively normal again.

What really stunned me was Gabriel´s falling in love on one of their home dates - after they had had countless wohoos, raised two kids with each other, everything. Wow, that really was a surprise.