1. Hello! Welcome back to Already in Progress! It’s been a while,
hasn’t it? I hope you enjoyed the special crossover college
chapters.
I am trying something a little bit different this time around: instead
of my usual transitions from household to household, there will be
scenes from the pilot episode of Sally’s TV show, Goldberg and
Silent Lady. Each clip will only be one slide, so I doubt you’ll be
able to follow the full plot. Please let me know if this type of
transition works or doesn’t work for you. If it doesn’t work, I will
not be offended -- I promise.

2. Today’s episode of Goldberg and Silent Lady is brought to you by
the Privacy Film created by mustluvcats. No, the windows aren’t
dirty! It’s privacy film!
(in one of those rapid undertones used for the “small print” in all
the best commercials) Available in three sizes and thirteen colors
from Mod The Sims. Basegame compatible. mustluvcats is in no
way aware of this endorsement.
And now, let’s rejoin our story… Already in Progress…

3. Appropriately enough, we start with Sally.
How’s it going, Sally?
SALLY: Great! I just finished the next episode. It was tough!
You don’t like the characters?
SALLY: No, I love them! But writer’s block can just show up, you
know? For no reason, it’s suddenly just really tough to get
anything down on paper. Or, you know, on the screen. I mean, it’s
so bad sometimes that cleaning the toilet sounds like a really
attractive alternative.
Ouch. That’s bad.

4. SALLY (V.O): Yeah, and then real life keeps interfering. We had a
burglar.
Oh no! Was anybody hurt?
SALLY (V.O.): No, nobody was hurt. And the cop who came was
kind of cute. Not that I pay attention to things like that now that
I’m married, of course. But there were the insurance forms to fill
out and the locks to replace and all those practical things.
Did you have to go to court, too?

5. SALLY (V.O.): No, the burglar got away. I feel really bad for the
poor policeman -- that can’t look very good at his performance
review. I’m glad Tamara slept through the whole thing, though.
And then there was Troy being an idiot.
Being an idiot?

6. SALLY (V.O.): He tried to fix the trash compactor by himself. I
told him not to. I said “You don’t have enough Mechanical points
-- don’t be fooling around with electricity like that.” “I’ll call a
repairman,” I said. But noooo, he had to try and fix it himself.
(confidingly) I think it has something to do with having a Y
chromosome.
Probably.
SALLY (V.O.): Anyway, I’m just glad Don Platz, our cleaning
guy, knows first aid.

7. SALLY (V.O.): But he still wouldn’t go to the hospital or anything
afterwards.
Why not?
SALLY (V.O.): Corrupted files if I know. Anyway, that’s why this
episode took so long to write.
I see. Well, I’m glad everyone’s okay now, and I’ll leave you to it.
I’ll be sure to watch the premier, too!
SALLY (V.O.): Thanks! Let me know what you think.
Will do!

8. GOLDBERG flings open the door, revealing SILENT LADY
with her hand raised to knock.
GOLDBERG
What do you want?
SILENT LADY holds up the newspaper, folded to the
Help Wanted section with an ad circled in red.
GOLDBERG
Unless you can find me everything on the Thompson
case, go away. I got too much to do and a nasty
headache coming.

9. As you may recall, when we last left The House of the Double A’s,
Amy was heavily pregnant. She is not pregnant anymore.
And look! This picture does NOT take place in the bathroom!
(happy dance)

10. The little fellow has his father’s coloring, and the skintone of both
parents. It’s a bit early to tell about the rest of it.
I did seriously consider naming him something that begins with an
A, so that this would be The House of the Triple A’s, but in the end
I decided to name him Bryan instead.

11. I believe I mentioned last time that for a Family Sim, Adam didn’t
seem to care much about getting engaged. That is still true.
However, one night after giving his son a cuddle and tucking him
in, Adam suddenly and definitively rolled the Want to Get Married.
Not to anybody in particular, but I had someone in mind for him.

12. What? You were expecting someone else?
Adam Santander is now Adam Littledragon. (“Santander” is the
cooler name, but I didn’t get them married before Bryan was born,
and he was a Littledragon, so I decided to give the parents the same
name.)

13. Attempting to allow Bryan to Grow Up normally led to much
stompy-waving and a game crash, so when I reloaded I had Amy
bring him to the cake nice and early. If I had to guess, I’d say that
the problem was that Adam was the designated Help With Birthday
parent, but he was in too poor a mood to do his duty. Everything
seems to be fixed now, though.
Plus, this way Bryan got to be Best Man at his parent’s wedding.
He already had the tux and everything!

14. GOLDBERG looks up as SILENT LADY puts a some papers
on his desk.
GOLDBERG
What’s this?
SILENT LADY holds out her closed right hand, palm
down. GOLDBERG automatically holds out his hand.
SILENT LADY drops two aspirin into it.
GOLDBERG
You found the Thompson case?
SILENT LADY places a fresh mug of coffee on the desk
and leaves.

15. Skye is a very happy little girl, and a very lucky one, too. There’s
always someone around to give her a bath.

16. Or a bottle.
I’m sure you remember big brother Cecil’s outfit, right? Yes, he was
on a study abroad trip, but it didn’t last forever, and he couldn’t not
visit on this special occasion.
Okay, that was a double negative. You understood, though, right?

17. The special occasion was a triple birthday, and as you can see, the
clothing choices were as… creative… as usual.

18. Here you see everyone after their looks had been fixed.
Albert is actually in a good mood here; it’s just that the downward
trend of his mouth gets more pronounced every age transition. All
the children have inherited it, but at least Jo has those beautiful
eyes to offset it.

19. And although it may seem like it happened suddenly from my
summary, it was actually a normal length of time before the new
grads moved back home.
All of them.
BUTTERCUP: Jo, this young man seems pleasant enough, and
he’s certainly good with Skye, but -- who is he, exactly?
JOSEPHINE: Oh. Um. (mumbles) Phoenix is my fiancé.
BUTTERCUP: I see. And when were you planning to tell us about
him?
JOSEPHINE: Before the ceremony! …Probably.

20. GOLDBERG
What are you doing up there? Get your coat. I need
you to take notes.

21. Somewhere along the line, both Frederic and Celeste seem to have
acquired people who have an unhealthy fascination with them.
Coming home with them every day, calling them up and inviting
them to Go On Outings despite such invitations never being
accepted…
FREDERIC: Pong, I’m trying to read the paper here.
…Ignoring pesky little things like closed doors…

22. Happily, these unfortunate individuals can still contribute to
society, or at least to the part of it that doesn’t want to spend the
entire afternoon gardening to get ready for Eddie’s birthday party.

23. The party was well-attended, and everyone had a good time.
DANTE (fondly): It seems like only yesterday I was teaching you
to dance. Do you remember that?
EDGAR: I remember standing on your feet and trying not to fall
off. It was a lot of fun. Why did we stop?
DANTE: You got too heavy. But you’re still a good dancer.
CHARLOTTE: You two are sooooo soppy. But happy birthday,
Eddie! (throws one arm around his neck and gives him a sloppy
kiss on the cheek) You’re my favorite little brother. And you know
how you can tell? (conspiratorially) I wore a dress to your party!

24. Although somebody apparently told somebody else a bad joke
right before the party timer ran out, because the end result was a
Disaster.
CELESTE: You just had to Influence your sister to entertain
Albert, didn’t you?
EDGAR: But she’s funny! And I’ve retold her jokes to Albert and
he’s laughed like crazy!
CELESTE: But you don’t use the hand gestures, do you? Or the
dirty words? And you leave out any ethnic references that happen
to come up?
EDGAR: Well, yeah. …Okay, I see your point.

25. VIVIENNE
Oh, please, Mr. Goldberg! You have to help me. You
have no idea how difficult it is for a woman alone.
GOLDBERG
I --
VIVIENNE
I can be... very... grateful, Mr. Goldberg.
SILENT LADY
(coughs discreetly)

26. Descartes absolutely reeks of Awesome, and had a full
complement of all needed skills, so I fully expected him to get a
promotion on the very first day of the rotation.
Alas, he literally reeks of Awesome, and that’s actually a liability
when you’re attempting to sneak into a spaceship hangar. I mean,
if I can tell that he reeks of Awesome, then anybody else can too,
since I don’t have a very good nose. Unfortunately, the guard on
duty did.
Descartes got demoted.

27. Abbey Grew Up Well that same night, so I suppose it all evens out
in the end.

28. Descartes and Abbey spent a quiet couple of days generally being
adorable and (in Descartes’ case) climbing right back up the career
ladder.

29. On the last day of the rotation, Anastasia and Rebecca moved back
from Uni. Rebecca promptly invited Pong Dennis to move in --
even before changing out of her transition outfit.
He said yes.
That’s how you know it’s love, folks.

30. I did send Pong to plan all his outfits -- I had spent quite a bit of
time shopping for him. However, as it turned out, he picked the
exact perfect outfit for himself in every category except Swimwear.
(I have my doubts as to whether even Descartes could pull off that
brown-and-orange Speedo.)
Pong is clearly going to fit right in to this family.

31. You may think an update this short is cheating a family made of so
much Awesome. And if this was all there was going to be, you’d
be right. However, I am pleased to announce that the entire
Tsvirkunov family is going to get their own spinoff: 100 Days of
Awesome!
Look for it in the “Other Challenge Stories” forum on Boolprop
sometime in the next month. (I don’t want to promise any sooner
than that because, as the poet once pointed out, “The best-laid
plans o’ mice an’ men/Gang aft agley.”)

32. GOLDBERG
So tell me: How do you feel about doing something
that might -- technically -- be considered not
entirely one hundred percent legal?
SILENT LADY grins.

33. I must say, I enjoy playing the Couderc-Shankel household. Not
only is everybody happy, but I get beautiful shots like this!

34. Well, everybody is mostly happy, anyway.
OAKAPPLE: Oliver, I am… so very… sorry. I thought… it was
a… good joke.
OLIVER: You know I don’t like dirty jokes. And that one was not
only dirty, it was racist. And your French is horrible.
OAKAPPLE: I know. I… know. Can you… ever forgive me?
That one dirty joke caused twangy falling-out-of-crush sound
effects and flamey thought balloons.

35. Fortunately, Oliver is the one with the Nice point, and he tends to
forgive Oakapple pretty quickly.

36. Keeping the inventory of the farm stand up is well worth the effort,
and everyone pitches in enthusiastically… but sometimes there are
unintended consequences.

37. Like our Family Sim here getting jealous.
FAMILY SIM: Of course you want to have lots of fruit! Your
fruits are your babies! You want lots and lots of them! I know I
do…
STRAWBERRY PLANT:
FAMILY SIM: Because I can’t afford a good Matchmaker date,
and I’m too busy to meet people otherwise. And nobody’s going to
stop by a house with penguin piddle on the sidewalk. (mutters)
Oooooh, I could strangle that little waterfowl…!
STRAWBERRY PLANT:
FAMILY SIM: Now that’s a good idea! Why didn’t I think of that?

38. Which is how Chant joined the household.
I didn’t know that plantbabies sort of faded into existence, but
apparently they do. Chant is complete clone of his mother (and
therefore his grandfather) in personality and skill points, and pretty
well a clone of his mother in looks. I figure that makes him fairly
precocious.
By the way, Chant is named for Christopher Chant from Diana
Wynne Jones’s The Lives of Christopher Chant, but don’t ask me
why I was thinking of it when I named him.

39. The little guy is very popular, especially with Oliver.
OLIVER: Hey Chant, what’s your mother’s name?
CHANT: Mommy.
OLIVER: Funny. Who’s the lady in the yellow shirt?
CHANT: Auntie.
OLIVER: Do you know who I am?
CHANT: Granddaddy Oliver. You’re Granddaddy Oakapple’s
husband. (with mild concern) You should be playing with blocks
too if you forget things a lot. Mommy says you can get old timer’s
if you don’t keep your mind active. (turning back to the blocks) I
don’t know what that is but it sounds bad.

40. GOLDBERG
This isn’t going to work. I need a --
SILENT LADY hands him a screwdriver.
GOLDBERG
Is there anything you’re not prepared for?
SILENT LADY shrugs.

41. Now that Charlotte is an old lady, she takes lots of baths. One in
the morning. One when she gets home from work. (Well, she’s an
athlete, so that might actually make sense.) One right before bed.
In and out of the bath, in and out. I don’t get it.

42. The business is doing pretty well, though. You may recognize this
fellow as Troy’s doppelganger. His name is Weldon Dai, and now
he doesn’t freak me out every time I see him.
Really -- I thought that something had gone wrong and that Troy
had been glitched back down to a college student whenever
Weldon would walk by.

43. The employees are mostly working out. Lily Gothier here is
amazing at selling. She could sell ice to a penguin, as they say.
LILY: And over here, we have clothes!
HAPLESS CUSTOMER: Clothes? Really?
LILY: Yes! Clothes! And if you put them on, you won’t be naked!
You might even be warmer in the winter! And, if you get the right
outfit, people will tell you that you look nice!
HAPLESS CUSTOMER: Squeeeeee!
LILY: So, how many pieces of clothing can I interest you in?
HAPLESS CUSTOMER: (hands over his credit card eagerly) My
credit limit is $5,000.00. How much will that get me?

44. Unfortunately, the stylist is not very good. This is her typical
result, although sometimes she changes it up by smearing red
lipstick over the lower half of the client’s face.
After this little incident, Louise fired her.

45. I had no idea that fired Sims cried as they left.
I felt like a real schmuck.
Louise hired her back, and we’ll try her at sales, or at something
else that doesn’t involve scissors or a makeup palette.

46. There were only two more events of note with Charlie and Louise.
First, Venus the pug died.
Venus was adopted to take care of that “Puppy!” Want that Sims
roll all the time, and a doofier Doofus you could not hope to find.
She was well into Adulthood before I managed to get her trained to
pee outside. But she was sweet, and her family will miss her.
Rest in peace, Venus.

47. Second, Louise became an Elder.
Since she owns a clothing store and salon, there’s really no excuse
for the transition look.

48. MURAKAME
But how did you know it was Vivienne?
GOLDBERG
Bubbe and Zayde didn’t raise no fools. Any attractive
woman who hits on me is drunk, crazy, or up to
something.

49. I believe I may have mentioned that happy families don’t provide
much material. This is still true. So instead, I offer a look at one
typical day for the Miller household.
At 6:30 am, Dante is usually making coffee, while Cathrynne tidies
up after the cats. Dante occasionally has a Danish with his coffee,
while Cathrynne takes a bath and has some cereal.
Sam doesn’t get up that early.

50. By 8:30 am, Cathrynne is on the way to school. Dante has cleaned
up breakfast and moved on to larger household tasks: paying the
bills, perhaps, or cleaning the cathouse.
I mean, cleaning the “pet house where the cats sleep when they
want to sleep outside.” A “cathouse” is something entirely
different.
This is generally about the time that Sam gets up.

51. By 9:30 am, Dante is off to work, and Sam has eased into the day
enough to be ready for a nice bath.
Dante is a Horoscope Writer yet again, but this time I’m almost
positive he was demoted due to a bad chance card. Of course,
given that the next level up is Sports Writer, and that Don here has
nine Nice points, I’d be willing to bet that he messed up on
purpose.
You’ll also notice that Sam is wearing braids here. Somehow I
managed to mess up her hairstyle earlier: she normally wears her
hair braided to sleep, workout, or swim. That’s how she gets the
waves in it -- her hair is naturally straight as a board.

52. While both Don and Cathrynne like cleaning just as much as
Harkon and Nirel did, they aren’t home during the day, and they’re
often tired when they get home. Since this family is swimming in
money, it made sense to have Sam hire a maid, a gardener, and a
repairman. They all showed up right away, and good thing too! I
had no idea the piano was busted.
The house is unfinished because I’m playing a little middle-of-
nowhere handicap with them, not because they can’t afford to do
the place up nice.

53. Hiring some help gave Sam lots more time for things she enjoys
more, like shopping or playing with the cats.

54. Or hitting bricks with hammers and then painting goofy faces on
them. It’s her new hobby.
Everybody needs a hobby.
And this picture is all by itself because when I tried to open it in
my image manipulation program, it came up as multicolored static.
I hope that’s an isolated incident, and not a sign that I need a new
computer. Hobbes is only six, darn it!

55. After school, Cathrynne plays with the cats for a bit, and then goes
off to do her homework. By the time she’s started on the
homework, Don’s home, and he usually lies down for a nap.
SAMANTHA: Don, don’t! You’ll break your camera!
DANTE: Oh, right.
After homework, Cathrynne usually cleans out and refills the cat
dishes before dinner. However, on this particular day, Sam decides
to show just why shopping is so important.
Remember, only you can prevent fashion disasters!

56. Sam puts on the nicest outfit in her wardrobe, and one that really
looks quite nice, both on her and in general. She isn’t all that
thrilled.
DANTE: What’s wrong with the dress, Sam? I think it’s very
pretty. Very flattering.
SAMANTHA: Yeah, but there’s an old lady wearing it.

57. In the evening, after homework is finished, Cathrynne gets to
experiment with hitting bricks with a hammer to see if it’s really as
much fun as Sam says.

58. While Don shows Sam just how much he likes her new look.
Not that they really need a reason for this kind of thing, but by the
same token, there’s no such thing as a bad excuse.

59. GOLDBERG
Hey! Where are you going? I was going to pay you
eighty gold a month!
SILENT LADY stops, but doesn’t turn.
GOLDBERG
Okay, eighty-five. And dental! Come on, I need you!
SILENT LADY turns, impassive. Then she smiles and
holds out her hand. GOLDBERG crosses quickly to shake
it, and we fade to credits.

60. When I opened this house, Leonid had lost his nifty outfit.
Apparently that new hack I got that lets it be an Outwear option
removes it from the Everyday list. But what was more worrying
was that Dmitri wanted to play with the cat.
I couldn’t find the cat.
I hit Pause to look. Not on the icons at the side. Not anywhere I
could see. People still had Wants for her and relationships with her,
but she was nowhere. I decided to pop open the neighborhood
screen again and see if she showed up in the family picture, which
was when I saw that I couldn’t save the game. I was pretty
panicked, I can tell you.

61. When I hit Pause again to let the game run, all was made clear.
Eika is chasing the mousie for all eternity now.
In my defense, this is a very difficult corner of the house to see
under normal circumstances.
Rest in peace, Eika.

62. Everyone reacted appropriately, Wants rerolled, relationship panels
straightened themselves out, and the Save option came back, so I
concluded that I’d simply managed to hit Pause at exactly the
wrong time.
What a relief!

63. Later that same day, there was another age transition.
TIRTHA: Cornrows? My son grew up into cornrows?
ABHIJEET: You know, technically, he’s not your son.
TIRTHA: Oh, don’t be ridiculous!
ABHIJEET: (shrugs) I’m just saying.
TRIXIE (entering the room): Cornrows? My son grew up into
cornrows? With cargo pants? (to Dmitri, with concern) Are you
feeling all right, sweetie?

64. Now that Dmirti is at that age, Leonid decided it was time to have
The Talk with him.
LEONID: Dmitri, you are young man now, and is roughly ninety
percent chance you are noticing young ladies, yes?
DMITRI: Da-ad! Do we have to do this? I already know about
woohoo.
LEONID (dismissively): Nyet, is not about woohoo. Is about
marriage. You are engaged to wery nice girl named Rose Shankel.
So do not be dating other girls, yes?

65. DMITRI: I’m engaged?
LEONID: I understand is wery pretty girl. Wery sweet.
DMITRI: But what if I don’t like her? Or she doesn’t like me?
LEONID: Oh, if marriage does not go through is heavy forfeit. But
how is she not liking fine young man like you, solnyshko?
DMITRI: Da-ad! I’m fourteen!

66. Ariadene, meanwhile, wasn’t having any problems with parental
interference. In fact, life is very good indeed: Pong Grundstrom
allowed himself to be persuaded to help out with her First Kiss.
And her second. And her fifteenth.
They kind of lost track after that.
Which seems like a good note to end on, no?

67. The penguin really did piddle on the sidewalk deliberately and
repeatedly, leading our Family Sim to roll the Want to see its
ghost. Since that is a Very Bad Thing, I was all set to rebuild, but
joandsarah77 helped me figure out how to regenerate my game
files, and that let me figure out that the problem was in my
Downloads folder. I eventually identified the conflicting hack
using the 50-50 method and pulled it.
A big thank you to joandarah77 for saving my game!

68. Solnyshko is Russian for “sunshine,” and is a term of endearment
for a spouse, small child, or even a pet. However, it is rarely used
for boys over the age of ten because they strenuously object to
being called something so girly. Vocabulary and usage is courtesy
of my Russian consultant, Yousei, who writes I’ll Be There For
You (available on Boolprop). A big thank you to Yousei for the
help!
And a big thank you to you for reading! Don’t forget to give me
feedback on the transition pieces, and until next time, Happy
Simming!

69. The Goldberg and Silent Lady sections used a lot of custom content and
poseboxes. All custom content is from Mod the Sims unless otherwise
indicated. In addition to the privacy film advertised at the beginning, I used:
“Timeless Office” set by jgwoods
“Umbrella and Studio Light Set” - Maxis items unlocked by Numenor
Long drapes and recolors by KiaraRawks
“Documents of Importance” by jon119
“Hacked Coat Hook” by Mary-Lou and Numenor
“Freeze!” police posebox and gun recolors by live2draw; original guns are
Locoroco’s “Lara Guns,” but I don’t know where they are from as they were
included with live2draw’s package
Fox ears and tail by Atreya
“Custom Modeling Poses Hack V2 w/Facial Overlays” by decorgal21572
Multiple game animation boxes by Jaydee from www.jd-movies.com