Hello hello! Welcome back to Ruth’s (un)Officially Wacky Boolprop Challenge! The votes are in, and our heiress is Casilda. While I can’t promise that I’ll be using her Plot, I hope you’ll enjoy the results anyway.

That’s not the most exciting part of the chapter, of course. Can you guess what is?

I could just tell you, but letting you guess is much more fun.

See that big empty spot on the street there? That’s where the school bus was, until nine a.m.

Olga still missed it.

That doesn’t mean that she gets a free day off, though. Not when you have a) a grandfather who still wouldn’t mind being Education Minister and b) a magic bookshelf. The Skill of the Day was Mechanical, and Olga gained ten points.

Oddly enough, the marathon study session didn’t tank any of her motives. Now if only I could figure out why not…

Due to the galloping incompetence of someone whose initials may or may not be e.i., there were some fairly serious bills on the lot at the start of the rotation.

Fortunately, Glen was on top of things, and put rather a lot of envelopes out for the mail carrier.

With checks in them, of course. There’s no point otherwise.

It’s not as though the family doesn’t have any money. Olga is fond of playing the Official Gamer Career Reward, which pays out $5 every five game minutes.

And the business is making money hand over fist. In fact…

The reporter came around yet again, and this time she actually went to talk to Adam.

REPORTER: Mr. Shankel, I just wanted to let you know that I’ve been keeping an eye on your business for a while now, and I think you deserve the Best of the Best Award! Congratulations!

OLD ADAM: Thank you. We try to please our clientele. However, I must confess that I am not sure why you felt you needed to follow me into the, ah, necessary to tell me the news.

REPORTER: Well, it’s the only place on the lot that has any privacy. You see, Mr. Shankel, you’re a very good-looking man…

OLD ADAM: Madam, I think you forget yourself! I am a married man -- and happily so!

REPORTER: Oh. Sorry. I’ll, uh, just go now…

OLD ADAM: Yes, I think that would be best.

Using FatD’s UpShift and snapobjectstogrid false, I put the Best of the Best Award on the front of the Bandatron, where I think it looks very nice, don’t you?

Certainly the customers think so… although they’ve never really needed much encouragement to buy tickets.

Lisa is not having a lot of luck in the reward-poaching business just now. To be fair, it’s a lot harder when you only need one career reward. She spends a lot of time cleaning, repairing things, and not going to work in the jobs that I keep forgetting to have her quit.

Myrna has taken up baking again. She is skilling as slowly in Cooking as Olga skilled quickly in Mechanical. (If that sentence made any sense…)

I find it amusing that the pie Myrna has made matches her dress.

Maybe that’s just me, though.

Glen has been plugging away at the robot bench for a good long while, still without a Gold badge. He has, however, lost enough aspiration that he wasn’t able to use the Energizer before stargazing with the expensive telescope.

I don’t know why he thought I would care that he had to go potty.

I mean, the aliens didn’t care, so why should I?

This would be the point in the proceedings where I did some shrieking, and some joyous swearing, and possibly also the happy dance although I am not admitting to anything.

LISA: Frammit, Glen! When I said if you wanted more babies, you could have them yourself, I didn’t think you’d take me up on it!

While obtaining the spawnlet might have been traumatic, Glen couldn’t be happier about the result.

GLEN: It kicked! Lisa, girls, come feel! It kicked!

He had no morning sickness, and his motives didn’t drain as rapidly as they do with most pregnancies. Let’s hope that keeps up, yes?

I’m sure that Family Sim Glen is extra glad of a new baby now that his girls are growing up. After some coaxing, Casilda aged up -- as it turns out, babies really don’t want to Grow Up when they are tired and in need of a new diaper. Even though I’d just given her a clean diaper moments before the aging-up time!

Casilda looks an awful lot like her father, although the eye orbits don’t seem to look quite right to me. A little too high, perhaps, or too far back? We’ll just have to see how she comes out once she hits Uni, really…

Pitti-Sing has aged up as well, and she is now following the “kinda-sorta-Japanese” theme suggested by her name. The outfit is a harajuku outfit from the EA store, and the hair is an anime hair, and that’s about as Japanese as I can get right now. Old Adam’s “Victorian” and Lisa’s “soubrette” themes were no more carefully researched and no more carefully fleshed out.

Although technically a clone of Olga, Pitti-Sing doesn’t act like it. If I can’t find her, she’s either tub pirating or jumping on somebody’s bed.

Olga, on the other hand, is looking through the telescope or burping into the microphone of the teleprompter.

The telescope replaced the pinball machine as her favorite activity after Glen’s abduction. I wonder if the two things are related at all?

Myrna is a competent painter -- witness her completion of the latest family portrait -- but it’s not her favorite activity. That would be spending time with her granddaughters.

And if her granddaughters are not available, then it’s baking. Because even if you skill slowly, you’ll get there eventually, and the results of trying are half the fun.

Unless they burn, I suppose.

Glen and Adam are not as finicky as I am, though.

GLEN: I am excited about the baby, but… it won’t be a true Shankel, not like the girls. It will only be my child, not Lisa’s. I’m introducing a cuckoo into the nest.OLD ADAM: Don’t be ridiculous! I myself would gladly have welcomed an alien child when I was your age, and so would my dear Myrna. But if it troubles you so, think no more of it: your child shall marry Leila’s eldest.GLEN: Leila’s expecting?OLD ADAM: Not so far as I am aware. Arranging an engagement now is simply efficient. Both your child and hers shall be born with their futures assured.

LISA: Poppa, what’s this Glen’s telling me about you arranging a marriage between his baby and Leila’s? Leila’s not even pregnant! And if she were, she’d be fired.OLD ADAM: I am aware. However, undoubtedly at some point in her life, Leila will have a child, and that child can marry Glen’s child.LISA: But what if she doesn’t?OLD ADAM: I have given that some thought, and I have concluded that by the time it becomes clear that Leila will not bear any children, Glen will likely be reconciled to the idea of his own child as a true Shankel. Indeed, you and I and the girls must do all in our power to bring about such an outcome.

LISA: Or what if she does have a child, but the gender preferences are wrong?

OLD ADAM: They will have plenty of time to negotiate a happy relationship based on mutual trust and regard. The person is more important than the gender, I should think.

LISA: Poppa! You mean you’d have been happy to marry some… some random guy if Grandma picked him out for you?!

OLD ADAM: I very much doubt that I could have been happy with anyone other than your dearest Mama. However, if she had happened to have been born male, then I should not have hesitated for a moment.

At Adam’s sister’s house, Jo and Phoenix are still a happy couple, although I have no photographic proof of that this rotation. The two kids left at home are busily making friends. In Skye’s case, this is her last rotation at home, since she will be off to Uni next time around.

Does Penelope’s friend look familiar to anyone?

Skye picked up tai chi from her Far Eastern friend, and I am deliberately spreading it to as many Sims as possible. Albert has mastered it by now, and earns Body points from doing it, but Buttercup and Penelope aren’t quite there yet.

At the Couderc house, Phoebe hasn’t yet managed to get her Gold gardening badge (that last badge in any track takes ages!), but at least Nicholas has Grown Up Well. He’s definitely Chant’s son, isn’t he? Just look at those ears! Such a cutie-pie! (pinches cheeks)

Of course, Phoebe’s not the only sibling with a child who aged up: Alexander Shankel also turned Toddler. Now that he’s old enough to get his father’s eyes (via cc contacts), he has them. And I think that flannel shirt looks just darling on him.

Which brings us up to date with all the happenings for this family.

Until next time, Happy Simming!

Notes, disclaimers, and other trivia

This chapter’s title comes from HMS Pinafore. I’ve been waiting for an abduction forever, and just before starting to play this rotation, I decided that if I got an abduction-with-pregnancy I would use that song for the chapter title. Lo and behold, it happened that same game-night! If I’d known it was that easy to make it happen, I’d’ve decided on a chapter title years ago!