The Patel Family: Week 5

Click here if you want to (re-)read Week 4.

Only one or two posts back, we have seen Parvati Patel at university. That chapter ended with her having successfully finished her Junior Year and starting her Senior Year. Now we are going to spend a week at the home of her family.
       

Ramir and Ana Patel, the way they were when they first moved to New Maximiliania.
      

Ramir now - he is 58 and has reached Permanent Platinum when he became a Rock God at the end of the last round.
      

Ramir and Ana have had two more children after Parvati: the twins Param...
       

...and Padma.
Nobody in this household has undergone one of the many weird changes of lifetime wants i've experienced throughout the neighbourhood. Padma still wants to woohoo with 20 different Sims, her brother still aspires to having 5 top level businesses, and their mother Ana still dreams of six grandchildren.
       

Monday passes by so uneventfully that we can fast-forward straight into Tuesday. A Snow Day is announced, much to the twins' delight!
      

Instead of going to school, they have fun with their father's Rock Hammer...
      

...eat Grilled Cheese for lunch... (look at the dreamy expression in Padma's eyes, thinking of her first kiss!)
      

...and generally just fool around and do teenagey things all day.
      

Ana manages to paint a master piece, which gives her a nice aspiration boost. It is by no means certain that she will live long enough to see those six grandchildren; therefore, I am trying to fulfill as many of her daily wishes as possible.
       

Like many children, Padma tries to talk her Mom into getting a cat or a dog.
       

On Wednesday, Parvati pays a Christmas visit from university. "You look well, dear," is Ana's way of hinting at Parvati's weight gain.
       

When the twins come home from school, Isabella Indie is with them. She is Mitch Indie's half-Alien daughter; her father married Jill Smith and sadly died. Now, Isabella lives with her stepmother Jill and her "uncle" Johnny, Jill's brother, at the original Smith family home.
      

Parvati joins her younger siblings in their room while they are doing their homework. "My, have my little brother and sister grown!" she thinks.
      

"Especially my little brother!" she observes as Isabella gives Param a backrub on her own accord :-)
      

On Thursday, Ramir proves to be a rather reasonable Sim. Remember, I do not control him since he's on PermaPlat. He cleans the bathtub...
      

...serves and eats breakfast... (although his table manners leave much to be desired!)
       

...and even cleans the kitchen counter afterwards.
       

Today, Wilma Williamson and Graham Grunt get off the schoolbus with the twins.
      

Half-siblings Wilma and Graham (they have different human fathers but the same Alien father) do not get along at all. Ana does not like their constant bickering one bit; her own children never behave like that!
       

She asks her daughter to say good-bye to Graham, and this is how she does it! (No hearts were flying, and there is only one bolt between them, which is why I am not going to do anything about their friendship.)
      

On Friday, all four Patels have breakfast together.
       

Callum Capp comes home from school with Param.
      

He clearly finds his class mate's sister very attractive - and it looks as if his feelings are returned :-)
       

The two of them start some autonomous flirting next to the model railway in the back garden. When I check Callum in Padma's relationship panel, I find three bolts there!
       

On Saturday, Ramir and Ana get up early - and, for a change, at the same time.
      

It is an important day for the family: Param purchases his first business!
       

While waiting for the taxi to take them there, Ramir adds a mountain to his model railway.
      

Param's first of hopefully five successful businesses is the Cratus Gym, a Maxis-made community lot that came into our games with the "Free Time" expansion pack.
      

His first customer is Jennifer Burb.
      

To celebrate the opening day, Ana makes hot dogs for guests and family alike.
       

Padma likes the floor-length mirror in the ballet corner! "Does my bum look big in this?"
      

Param has invited Isabella, whom he considers "sort of" his girlfriend, to the opening. He tells her to bring along her stepmother and her uncle, if she likes.
       

Later, he works out a bit himself, making sure he has a clear view of his customers in the swimming pool area from his exercise bike.
      

On Sunday, only the twins go to work at the gym - there is not much to do, and so Ana and Ramir can stay home; Ramir will be playing a concert in the evening anyway.
Yesterday, Ana made hot dogs; today, Padma tries to do the same, but she does not quite understand how to operate the grill and sets it on fire.
       

Instead of helping, the customers all run from the gym. Her brother comes to the rescue, but soon catches fire himself.
       

"What have I done! Oh, what have I done!" Padma does not even see the Grim Reaper approaching her brother.
       

When she turns round to look for him, she finds him gone, and in her distress, walks right into the flames herself. David Ottomas is not successful in his attempt to rescue the girl.
       

Soon, Mr. Reaper appears again (strangely enough, wearing a flowery garland this time). Padma dies only an hour or so after her twin brother. The teenagers were 9 days from growing up.
       

What happens next is something I have never observed in my game before: Padma's ghost closes the business and walks around the lot, as if making all customers leave. The taxi appears without anybody having called for it, the ghost gets in, and the game switches back to the Patel's home lot.
      

There, Ana has asked Parvati to come. Now her firstborn is the only child she has, and all her hopes rest on her now.
       

Ramir's way of dealing with the loss of his two younger children is to rest on his son's bed, staring into space, below the deed to Cratus Gym and the first Simoleon Param had earned there and was so proud of. He is now 65, Ana is 63.

Will Parvati fulfill her mother's dream of six grandchildren? Are her parents going to live long enough to see it? Is Callum Capp going to find himself another three-bolt-love?