Homecoming Day

The next stop on the book tour itinerary is my birthplace and hometown, Sunset Valley. 
Though I've lived practically everywhere on the Sim map, I still consider Sunset Valley my home, even though my brother and my kids don't see it that way.
 
Sunset Valley is where I was born and raised.  Even though I no longer live or work there it is still my home.  My father was born here, my brother and I were raised here, I graduated from the Community School for the Gifted, I got married here, and three of my children were also born here.  (The younger two, Skylar and Sawyer, were born in Hidden Springs.)

It'll be good to see some of the old haunts.  Especially the bookstore, where I'll be spending most of my time.

Before I left Hidden Springs, I gave a deposition to the magistrate there.  The deposition regarded Bassy's daughter, Kaydence, and requests that Madison's parental rights be revoked.  When I gave the deposition, I made it clear to Bassy that I wasn't doing it to help him.  He's beyond my help.  I was doing it on behalf of Kaydence, who is totally innocent and had nothing to do with the situation her parents put her in. 

Speaking of Hidden Springs...

Before I left there, I laid eyes on Kyra Foster's son, Aaron, for the first time.  And it was completely accidental.
I had dropped AJ off at the airport in Riverview because Hidden Springs doesn't have an airport.  He was on his way to basic training (why he wants to go to flight school after what he went through in boot camp, I'll never know, but it's his life and I'll support him in whatever)
There was this young teenage boy there holding a baby. 

I'd recognize those cheeks anywhere, and I could pick them out in a police lineup. 

They belong to my brother.  And he needs to step up to the plate.

And another thing.  This Alex thing has me majorly uneasy.  First of all... it bothers me that, from everything I've heard about what happened that night, she basically threw herself at him.  If girls are willing to go to those kind of lengths, even princesses, on account of my son, then I wonder what this Sim world is coming to.

So, I told you guys that my son, AJ, met this girl Alex at the funeral dinner for Prince Renauld at the royal palace here in Hidden Springs. 

A part of me is still wondering what the heck he was doing there in the first place, but whatever. 
(Prince Renauld, Queen Catarina's husband, died suddenly in his bedroom.  The palace doctors tried to revive him, to no avail.)

His Alex is, in fact, Princess Alexandra Vanderburg, daughter of the aforementioned Prince Renauld and Queen Catarina Vanderburg.  She has a twin sister named Anastasia.

Now, a part of me is tickled pink that a princess is head over feet over my son.  But a bigger part of me wants him to run the other way.  Like I said the other day, though, it's his call, not mine. 

Have to say, on the surface she sounds like someone after my own heart. She has got to have some kind of gumption, though, willfully disobeying the royal family by enlisting in the military and enrolling in flight school. Have to admit I can't wait till Queen Catarina finds out. I'll be grabbing my popcorn.

Although part of me suspects that the only reason that Alex is in flight school is because of AJ.

Andy and I have told our children time and again, that as long as they're happy, then we're happy. We even told them, if they want to be thieves, my goodness, be the best damn thieves you could be.

It's the same approach my dad took with Bassy and me.

He never forced us into the music business, even though he was in it and that's what he wanted to do.

My mother, on the other hand, gave us bunches of lessons. Bassy is a classically trained pianist, yet he chose acting. Mom tried to give me piano lessons but I refused.

I'm tickled to death that my son is in flight school. It seems like he is finding a purpose and a meaning to his life.

He gets excited talking about spacecraft, about the different controls and such. He doesn't want to admit he is a sci-fi geek but he is.

We've kept up his appointments with his therapists twice a week, and he's taking an elixir once a day.  Andy and I realize that he has MY high strung makeup instead of his calmer temperament.  He's naturally shy, and he got into a lot of trouble as a teen because he idolized his big brother and wanted to be like him. 

I have to admit, this Alex situation has me more than a little uneasy. 

Bassy

I know I unloaded on Queen Catarina and Prince Renauld and AJ and that girl, Princess Alex, in my last entry, and to be honest Queen Catarina created a good chunk of that situation with her daughters, but my baby brother, Sebastian Ryan Plumb, deserves special mention.
He deserves his own entry. 
I love Bassy to death, but frankly, he has utterly screwed up, and I'm not sure if he's got his head screwed on straight.
I'm not sure if he ever did.

First of all, my job since he was born has been to protect him.  That's my job as a big sister.  But there comes a point where I can't protect him anymore.  And I certainly can't protect him from himself. 

Let me see if I can summarize my brother's love life.
Back home in Sunset Valley, he dated his childhood friend, Daisy Patricia Ramsey, the daughter of my parents' good friends Cole and Ariana Ramsey, who were the grandchildren of Gage Briody and Dave Ramsey.
We hired this photographer, Joyce Ward, to take pictures of our family.  Joyce and Bassy played this cat and mouse game of flirting, etc.  Joyce claimed Bassy got her pregnant.  I insisted on a DNA test, and the child was proven not to be my brother's. 
When he graduated high school he went to Bridgeport and met this girl, Kyra Foster.  They fell madly in love.  Problem is, he forgot to tell Kyra about Daisy and Daisy about Kyra.
But the tabloids did.  And nobody was happy. 
So Kyra, in an attempt to try to get him back, goes to the tabloids about their relationship and spills that she is pregnant.
Bassy gets his handlers to write up a statement denying that he even slept with her. 
And this cat and mouse game continues until he meets this girl Madison at this nightclub in Hidden Springs.  He and Madison start dating, Madison releases a hit record and becomes a recording star, Bassy knocks Madison up and she gets pregnant with their daughter, Kaydence. 
Oh, btw, three different magazines publish photos of Madison gettin' it on with random men, and Bassy breaks up with her and heads to Hidden Springs, where a magazine snaps a photo of him at a party with...drum roll please...

Francisca Vanderburg.

Yes, that one.  The one who ran away from the castle all those years ago.

I'm already retching.

Both their handlers completely deny it ever happened.  Francisca even goes as far as to deny even knowing my brother.

I think she is lying.  I think she is in CHA (cover her ass) mode.   

How'd I do?  Did I leave anything out? 

The whole thing is enough to make your head spin.  Seriously.  He's catching up to my dad in the broken hearts department. 

I always explained to Bassy, if he made the babies, he needed to take care of them. 

He completely denies Kyra Foster's baby but acknowledges the child he made with Madison. 

Now, I'm here in Hidden Springs doing promo work for my book.  And of course I hear stuff. 

I advised Bassy over the phone that he needed to, as soon as possible, lock up parental rights to Kady, and if all possible, deny Madison visitation rights.  I also advised him that he needed to find Kyra Foster, settle the DNA question, and do what he had to do for that kid if in fact the child was indeed his. 

I even suggested that I could take Kady for awhile until all this blew over.  She'd have access to her cousins AJ and Sage and Sierra and especially Skylar, who would probably make a great playmate. 

Bassy needs to grow a pair.  And grow up. 

Psychic and not so psychic advice

Hello everyone!  Sorry I haven't written, been busy!
I'm in Hidden Springs now doing promotional work for my new book, Alys in Wonderland.  I'm due to return to Moonlight Falls to speak at the supernatural convention, and then my agent is sending me on a book tour. 

 

Before I left Moonlight Falls, however, I had a few words for this 'psychic advisor' of Sierra's. 

"Would you like a reading?" she asked in what sounded like a standard, rehearsed greeting.

"No," I said firmly.  "I've called about my daughter."

"I have plenty of clients, who is your daughter?"

"Sierra Plumb Cheesman."

"The little girl with the mohawk?"

"That's the one."

"That one, she's smart as a whip.  Doesn't really know it yet."

"Well, I wish you'd stop taking all her money and taking advantage of her."

"I'm not taking advantage of anyone.  I provide a service to people.  My readings are only for guidance purposes.  People are not to follow them to the absolute letter.  And I tell them that as soon as they walk in."

"Well, in my opinion you're a charlatan and an entertainer.  You're taking all my daughter's money, taking advantage of her, and filling her head with foolishness.  She may act tough but she is an impressionable young girl."

Immediately after getting off the phone with her, I warned Sierra not to go to see her again.  But I know she won't listen. 

 

Then my son, AJ, called me, wanting advice.
He'd met this girl at Prince Renauld's funeral dinner at the Vanderburg Palace, named Alex.  A part of me is wondering what he was doing at the palace in the first place, but anyway.  I'm thinking it's one of the Vanderburg twins, named Alexandra and Anastasia.  I know they had been sent away to Smuggsworth, and the last time I had seen them was at Crown Prince Sebastian's wedding. 
I also know that when they became YA's their father, Queen Catarina's husband Prince Renauld, gifted them with a shitload of plastic surgery and they signed on to do this reality TV show, and Queen Catarina was not happy about any of that. 
How do I know all this? 
Hey, I have 2 teen daughters.  And my other daughter calls them all the time about this stuff.
My opinion, plastic surgery is not one of the things I'd give my kids for their YA birthday... but that's just me. 
And seriously, if these girls went from this:

 

To this:

They certainly had serious, serious work done. 

 

Anyway, AJ also told me Alex was on the list of new cadets for Hidden Springs' military, undergoing basic training and then going to flight school.
Now, if she is in fact one of the Vanderburg twins, as I suspect she is, I know this is going to be a problem.  Because knowing Queen Catarina as well as I do now, she has very traditional views on women.  Even though she and I are friends, we have clashed on a couple of occasions about my adventuring and writing career.  Her ideas on the role of women are outdated, and honestly, they're a bit hypocritical considering she herself is a sitting monarch. 

In fact, I'm currently investigating a possible genetic link between Queen Catarina and Alys de Montfort, the medieval queen who was the subject of the book I'm currently promoting, through Queen Catarina's mother, Queen Eloise.  The link is not through Catarina's father Rudolph's Vanderburg line, but through Queen Eloise's family in Champs Les Sims and Tredony.  Alys de Montfort was of Tredonian origin. 

Anyway, back to AJ.  He said that he was assigned to 'mentor' Alex in her military training.  And he wanted some advice on how to proceed. 
Now, my son is a youth counselor there at the military complex.  Next to the complex is Fort Starch Military Academy, where he and Sety did their stint. 

I'm going to be quite honest.  I don't want AJ within 10 feet of that girl.

But, it's not my call to make.  It's his. 

I advised him to keep their relationship professional only, and then let it proceed at its own pace, if it proceeds.  But like I told him, it's his life, and his decision to make.  If he wants to get involved with her on a basis other than professional, I just want him to be careful. 

On the road

I'm writing from my hotel room, as I'm at the supernatural convention, where I'm to give the keynote address.  I have no idea what I'm going to say, and I haven't even started on my speech.  Right after the convention, my agent is sending me on a six-city book tour, with stops in Bridgeport, Barnacle Bay, and Twinbrook, among others. 

It's funny, but I miss my kids already.  And Andy too.

 

We've been married twenty-seven simyears, and have five kids to show for it.  And yet, he still makes me laugh.  It's funny though, back in school we couldn't stand each other.  I haven't told the kids THAT yet.  I bet they get a kick out of that.

Speaking of the kids... finding out your 12 year old daughter is dabbling in wiccanism is one thing.  Finding out she also has a psychic advisor is a bit of a shock.  You can't make this stuff up.   Then again, nothing Sierra does surprises me anymore.

First night we got to Moonlight Falls, she came in at 3 am after going into the catacombs.  Not only is this script so familiar to me but I know how it ends. In fact I think she's gone even further than I did.  I don't want to see her going down that road, that's what scares me.    

I also suspect she's dabbling in alchemy too.  The other day I saw her at Aleister's while I was getting a book.  Who knows what she was buying... and was that a werewolf?