All About Neil

Don't think that I've abandoned you guys, but we've been pretty busy around here. For starters, Neil moved in.

Neil Patric Miraj Plumb, of course, is my nephew, the son of my brother Noah and his wife, Sadie. His mother is of Pakistani origin, and I probably know more about her heritage than she does. Her grandfather, Iqbal Alvi, immigrated from Pakistan after the Great War. What I found interesting was that he came from Pakistan just before my grandfather, Nigel Plumb, left England and arrived in Sunset Valley. What I also found interesting, from looking at the archives in the library, is that Iqbal Alvi and Nigel Plumb were neighbors on the other side of town, even though they never met!

I wasn't quite sure how Neil would take living with us Anglo-Saxon bluebloods, given his mixed heritage. He has the Pakistani blood on his mother's side, and on his father's side there's Italian, French, English, Irish, Welsh, and no telling what else. He's a true mutt.

Anyway, before I went into this digression, we've discovered that Neil is an odd fellow. Really, he is. He opted to run all the way to the military quarters on the other side of town instead of taking one of the four vehicles on the property. Why? He wanted to take handiness classes there. Apparently he's an adept with tools. Dad said Noah was like that, too, and he wondered where they got it from because it certainly did not come from him, lol.

We also think Neil has his mom's OCD trait because he checks the stoves about four times a day, he makes all the beds at least twice, he brushes his teeth until they bleed, and he scrubs the dishes at least twice even though the maid comes in and puts them in the dishwasher.

I overheard Neil and Bassy going over algebra very late at night -- and of course, given that they're teenage boys, they go over a lot of, well, other, things too. "Hey, how you like the house?" I heard Bassy ask.

"It's all right, I guess," Neil heaved a sigh. "Why can't I figure this stuff out?"

Blast from the Past

So, last night dad and I were talking. About a lot of things. About my book (which is still flying of the shelves, btw), about Neil possibly coming to live with us, about his musical influences growing up.

Of course, during these chats you usually find out things you wouldn't ordinarily. My dad mentioned a long-dead rock star called Mick Lassiter.

Apparently, when dad was growing up, Mick Lassiter was the biggest star in the land. Everyone wanted to be him, everyone wanted to be friends with him, everyone wanted to be around him. Of course dad, as a little boy, was one of those people.
Mick Lassiter wrote and performed nearly every hit song that was on the radio. His concerts were standing-room-only and sold out months in advance. Every musical commentator in Simland has compared dad's style to his, even though they worked in different genres.

So it turned out that one of grandma's friends, Madison VanWatson, was married to him. Naturally, as she and grandma ran in the same social circles, Madison wanted to share her good fortune with them. So one Sunday she offered grandma 2 front-row tickets to see Mick perform at what was then called the Wilsonoff Community Theater.
According to grandma's journal (which I consulted later), she was trying to decide between taking her boyfriend at the time (Orlando Paine) and my dad, who was still a young boy. When grandma took Orlando, Dad was really upset. So somehow he got to the theater and sneaked backstage where Mick was getting ready to perform -- and was caught. But dad got what he wanted in the end -- one moment with his idol -- and it changed the course of Sunset Valley history.

"I ran as fast as I could, as far away from the theater as I could," dad recalled. "I wanted to get back home before mom did."
After grandma got back, she gave him a sound tongue lashing. But it didn't matter.
Dad never saw Mick Lassiter again, but he still listened to his music. Mick sent dad an autographed copy of his record, a record, by the way, he still has.

Lazy Sunday part 2

Other than that it was a pretty lazy Sunday around here. "You going to work out?" Mom asked.
"Nah, I'm going to the pool."

See, this is what Bassy ended up doing at the neighborhood pool. I don't think he swam for five minutes, lol.

Not too far from where Bassy was doing his best walrus imitation, dad was, well, being dad. He's still the most famous man in Sunset. And still capable of making women weak in the knees. I've heard he's never turned down an autograph.

Meanwhile, across the street from that signing, I was in the park bungling a batch of hot-dogs at the neighborhood cookout. I'm still not sure what made me go...

Lazy Sunday

My brother has always liked hanging out in my room.

I don't quite know how to explain it -- even when we were in the old house, he liked hanging out in there, doing his homework and whatever.

So this morning he woke up and turned on the TV and he was watching some sci-fi about a mad scientist building an army of servo robots who attacked him. The background music was, how do I describe it, futuristically haunting and chilling.

"Hey," I told him, "you know dad composed the soundtrack of that movie huh?"

"Cool, I didn't know that," he replied, looking at me.

The conversation then turned to Neil. I told him I'd gone over there and seen to him. "How would you like it," I asked him, "if Neil came to live with us for awhile?"

Bassy shot a look at me I cannot quite explain.

"It'll only be till he picks up his grades."

Bassy was all TOO happy about this. You see, Neil is technically his nephew, but in reality it's closer than that, more like his brother. Neil is actually 4 simdays older than he is but you'd never know it.

Intervention

Last evening, I came face to face with my wild, out of control teenage nephew, who, by the way, is even worse off than Noah let on.

Neil had changed into his workout clothes. "I'm going to exercise," he told me.

"No," I told him, "you are going to stand right here and listen to me until I tell you to move. Do you understand?"

He smacked his lips and protested as much as he could, but in the end he did what I said.

"Neil, I got a look at your report card. You're failing! I guess you are failing, if you don't even go to school."

"What are you talking about?"

"Neil, you know DAMNED well what I'm talking about! How are you gonna pass your classes if you blow 'em off?"

"Bassy told ya, didn't he? I knew it!"

"Bassy didn't HAVE to tell me. You forget, I went to that school. You forget, I still have contacts over there. So both you and Bassy can try to lie to me, but you won't get away with it."

"Who you think you are? You ain't my mama."

"You're right, Neil. I'm not your mother. But you can be DAMNED sure I'm not going to let you slide into the depths."

Neil is so bad off that my dad (who, by the way, is worried sick about him) is considering desperate, desperate action. He's considering taking temporary custody of him and straightening him out while he has him. I'm not sure dad is thinking clearly, and I'm not sure he's the one to straighten Neil out. He needs a strict military-style boot camp type thing.

So I put his ass thru a mini boot camp of my own. Since he was getting ready to work out anyway, I worked his ass out till he dropped.

Finding Sir Edward

Following mom's enormous bombshell, I went to my computer and searched for anything I could find about Sir Edward Bellingham. He is my maternal grandfather after all. And all I had of him was that one picture and the one story mom told.

I found some old articles online about his disappearance, but nothing about anything he wrote or archeological discoveries he made.

The mystery that is my mother's family just got deeper.

Mom and me

Before we moved in to the new house, Mom and I needed to clear the air on some things. Truthfully, we've needed to clear the air for a long time.

"How are the renovations coming along?" she asked me over her famous pancakes.

"Pretty good, I guess."

"What about the adoption, have you heard yet?"

"Not really. These things take time."

"You know, Savannah, this is the longest period you've been home since you started your job."

I let out a deep breath. I didn't want to hear THIS from her again.

"I mean, you've barely paused for air since all this started. I'm not even sure why you felt the need to travel in the first place. You have everything you need right here at home."

My mother just doesn't get it. Sure, I went and found those relics, but I found something else too. I found myself. This is who I am. I'm not destined to lead the life of a socialite, which frankly bores me. Getting dressed up only to stand around and sip wine and gossip is not my style.

"You're my baby girl, my youngest daughter. Savannah, don't you realize that you are a part of me? You came out of me."

"So you wanted me to be like you, is that it? Well you got the physical part down. Other than my coloring we're basically twins."

"I would never have done half the things you have, period."

"Was it because you didn't have the guts?"

Mom took a deep breath. "I'm still getting used to the fact that you make your living digging in dusty tombs. It's not what I wanted but it's what you want and I have to deal with that. You think I liked the fact that my little daughter was sneaking off to go to the cemetery? You used to come home with your face all scratched up, you had all kinds of uncut gemstones, space rocks -- it shouldn't have been a shock to me that you do what you do now. You know, my father, he did what you do."

"Your father?"

"Sir Edward Bellingham. He was an archaeologist, sort of, except he wasn't a professional. He did it more as a hobby. He collected all sorts of gemstones and rocks and artwork. He was a journalist, normally, but he traveled often for his job. He was knighted by the Queen of England, then he left the country soon after that and met my mother. He was on one of his digs when he disappeared when I was a small child. They never found his body or his plane. All I heard about from my mother after that was how I caused him to leave her. In truth, my father was a restless spirit. Just like you."