C'est La Vie

Sims Madness & Melodrama!

Ah, love. And flamingos.

At long last, Evangeline Zimmerman’s seemingly endless search for true love appeared to be at an end. It wasn’t long before Quentin Aldrich had moved into the little purple house on Pinochle Point and the two could play in the sprinkler and make silly faces at one another to their hearts’ content. Although Quentin went through the obligatory weirdness phase during his first few weeks with the Zimmerman clan (I would too, if I had that many rules to suddenly memorize and live by), he fit in very well, and everyone was soon used to having him around. Quentin was an extremely easygoing person, which I suppose was fortunate in terms of adapting to his new environment. The only time anyone saw him get extremely emotional about something was when A) They were talking about Evangeline or B) The conversation was about sports. Quentin was not the star athlete of the Sunset Valley minor league baseball team for nothing. He was in it to WIN IT. Soon his pervasive dedication to fitness had spread to the entire family. Since he could get them all in for free, the Zimmermans began attending all of his home games and cheered their faces off, win or lose. Yes, Quentin was there to stay, and not only did he plan to stay…he planned to marry Evangeline, too. None of this #1 Best Friends business that he had heard about. He didn’t care if he, Quentin Aldrich, would have to take the Zimmerman last name instead of the other way around.

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Sigh. Bistro dining was meant for two, not one.

Evangeline was spiraling into despair. After months and months of running into men on purpose, the sparks had yet to fly and she had yet to find Mr. Right. It was getting to be frightfully frustrating for her, especially since she was a Hopeless Romantic. She had many dreams, such as becoming an International Super Spy (cleansing the world of Homewreckers through espionage and multiple costume changes…HOW COULD THIS NOT BE AWESOME), and she had many hobbies, such as her burgeoning garden and growing collection of fish…but these things were nothing when compared to her dream of finding someone to love. She walked around the neighborhood every day, looking for a guy she hadn’t met yet, but it was beginning to seem like a lost cause. Ultimately, she’d end up sitting all by herself somewhere, lamenting cruel fate and wishing life wasn’t so unfair. At last, after another fruitless quest in search of her true love, Evangeline sank into a chair at the bistro and decided that maybe it was time for her to give up. The very next morning, she showed up at the local police station and got herself a job. It was only one small step towards becoming an International Super Spy, but whatever. Suppressing dejected sighs, Evangeline began to work her way up the ladder, staring out the window every day in the secret hope that the right guy would show up anyway. She didn’t care if he came in handcuffs or arrived in uniform…as long as he arrived.

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Evangeline may be out fishing, but the Hand of Justice is ALWAYS Vigilant.

Evangeline liked nothing better than fishing the day away. She had maintained many hobbies since childhood, and still kept up with all of them now that she was grown. Her garden had expanded to an entire row and one apple tree, and the family would have had two hundred fishbowls full of Evangeline’s daily catch if Arabella hadn’t limited her to just keeping one bowl beside her bed. (Thor, Odin and Freya continued to thrive in their three bowls upstairs.) Since the family only consumed grilled cheese sandwiches and the occasional juice box, Evangeline resorted to using the fish she caught as fertilizer for her garden, and it worked out extremely well. This is not to say that Evangeline had abandoned her campaign to keep Mortimer Goth away from her sister-in-law, Bella. She was always watching for him, that insidious lurker, and if she was at home there was no chance that the man could get anywhere near. Mortimer did find ways to see Bella, though, despite Evangeline’s strict visitation policy. Arabella, who had no idea about the love triangle going on in her own home, didn’t know better than to keep Mortimer out. And Conrad was really much too engrossed in the realm of scientific discovery to realize that his wife was drifting away from him. Felix often despaired of his Aunt Eva for going out so often, he hated Mortimer and was slowly beginning to loathe his own mother as well. But you have known Evangeline (and her twin, Dahlia) for long enough now to know that she was much too independent to be cooped up in the house all day. Unlike her mother, she had ever so many things to do around Sunset Valley, and it helped that she wasn’t having to stay home and raise 4 children all at once.

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He's supposed to be "consoling" her.

Seeing Mortimer again was the equivalent of getting a bucket of freezing water in the face… or at least, that’s how Bella felt when he turned up at the Zimmerman home out of the blue. She listened in silence as Mortimer spilled the beans to Arabella over a grilled cheese sandwich, concerned that the entire room might be able to hear her heart trying to pound right out of her chest. Apparently, Mortimer’s aged mother Cornelia had finally passed on just a few days before, and now he found himself utterly lost. He had been living in the home Cornelia had purchased for them both when the divorce was made final, years and years ago, but he didn’t want to be there thinking of his mother’s ghost walking around muttering bitterly to herself. Nor did he want to inherit the legacy Gunther had left him in his will: Goth Manor, the gigantic ancestral home of the Goth Family since time immemorial. Arabella shook her head sadly, despite the fact that she had never met Cornelia; Gunther had left the woman in order to be Arabella’s #1 Best Friend, and the two had never reconciled. Nor had Arabella ever apologized to Cornelia, largely because she didn’t see why she had to apologize when she hadn’t ever ASKED Gunther to leave his wife. He had done so voluntarily. So, whatever. Anyway, Mortimer had come seeking Arabella, who was the only “mother” he had left. He had no other family except his grouchy, perpetually grieving Aunt Agnes Crumplebottom and he could only handle so much of her. Arabella, ever hospitable, immediately told Mortimer he was welcome at their home whenever he wanted to visit. After all, he was her pseudo stepson and his father would have wanted him to come to the only family he had left in the world. After this little chat, Mortimer got up to leave, but not before consoling Bella on the loss of her father, Simis. They talked a while about losing their parents and how long it had been since they had last seen each other. Then, Mortimer departed to meet with Cornelia’s lawyers about what to do with her estate. Bella watched him go just as Conrad came home from work, knowing that nothing could ever be the same now…

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The screaming of infants is music to Bentley's ears.

The Zimmerman home was packed to the very rafters, now that two new babies had been born. Felix and Geneva shared a purple-bedecked nursery (and Conrad’s ratty old teddy bear, Denby) that was frequently filled with the sound of wailing. While most new mothers hardly get any sleep for the first few months after giving birth, both Arabella and Bella got quite a lot of rest. This was due to the presence of Bentley, the world’s most efficient and eager nursemaid. As long as he was awake and ambling around the house, the entire family could rest at ease knowing that his 6th sense for the needs of infants could be trusted without question. (The problem was when Bentley decided to go to bed, because then other members of the family actually had to get up and do something about the babies.) In fact, Bentley had a huge problem with anybody else going into the nursery and attempting to administer to Felix and Geneva. He was constantly complaining that they were all just getting in his way. Arabella wasn’t very surprised, seeing as she had already relied on Bentley to take care of the twins when they were born, but Bella was a bit taken aback by her brother-in-law’s zeal for changing diapers and mixing up formula. She let him do his thing, though, since she wanted more than anything to become a World-Renowned Surgeon, and this wasn’t going to happen unless she finished up maternity leave and went back to work.

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