Purrycat Sims

Dear Diary,
I think that’s how you’re supposed to start these things. Katie has been at me for ages to start a diary and since she usually gets her way eventually, here I am. It feels like life has just been going so damn fast lately, ever since my wedding; maybe just writing everything down will help me straighten it all out in my head.

I’m writing this from the new second floor of my house. When Tamara fell pregnant I figured it’d be a good idea to expand a little. I grew up in this house so I know firsthand what it’s like being a teenager in such a small place. The new floor is pretty much just a big storage area and workspace for me right now but I’ve got plans to split it up into rooms for however many kids we have.

The first thing that happened after the wedding was Dad’s death. Amanda, my half-sister, called me while I was on my funeral to break the news to me. His second wife, Cara, had also died just a few days before him, and Amanda felt that the death of her mother was the final straw for Dad.

Dad and Cara hadn’t been enjoying their old age and she felt there was something bothering them. She’d really noticed it when she got back from college; odd behaviour, avoiding questions, and taking sleeping pills at night. Amanda thought it was related to a ghost she said was haunting the house but that’s Amanda for you. She’s not happy unless she can link whatever she’s talking about to the paranormal.

My baby sister is married now and living just a few streets away. Amanda’s pretty close to running that hospital she works in too. Her husband, Stephan Gothier, gave up his job delivering groceries has taken up inventing. He’s pretty good at it too: we’re working on a new robot design together. I thought I wouldn’t be able to top myself with the SentryBot 3000 but we’re definitely close to something that’s going to be a real money-maker!

Amanda and Stephan recently had two twin boys, Derek and Damian, who are pretty near impossible to tell apart. They’re cute kids but I don’t envy my sister the trouble she’s going to have with those two when they get older. They already get into mischief every chance they get! I’m getting ahead of myself though.

At about the same time I was finding out about Dad passing away, Tamara began to feel sick. At first we thought it was just a stomach bug until she saw the doctor when we got back who informed us that we were expecting our first child. Our first child, as it turns out, but not my first child.

After the funerals and settling in back home with a not only new but pregnant wife, I dropped by to visit Katie. I was still feeling bad about our fight, even though we had made up at the wedding, so I figured a peace offering, in the form of a birthday present for Alex, might help get things back to the way they were between us. When I went over there I still had plans for beating up the guy responsible for getting her pregnant, but now that I know it was actually me I suppose I should probably give up the boxing lessons.

For now Alex remains Katie and my little secret. I don’t know what to say to Tamara, and anyway, it all happened before we met. It would be far too hard to explain, especially since I have trouble explaining it to myself. I’ve been visiting Alex as much as I can as “Uncle Timothy”, but it’s not the same as being a real Dad to him. I don’t know what else I can do though.

Not long after meeting Alex for the first time I got to meet my daughter, Margaret, and I fell for her straight away.

Margaret’s grown up a lot since then, and is looking more like her mother every time I see her. She’s a beautiful little girl with her mother’s eyes, hair and, thankfully, her nose.

Margaret loves playing with this dollhouse we got her for her birthday. Her favourite thing about it though is the chocolate centred dolls!

I’ve taught her how to walk, talk and even potty-trained her myself. I can’t be a great dad for Alex but I’ll be there for Margaret no matter what; teaching her things, beating off boys with a bat when she gets older, all of that great dad stuff.

Poor Tam fell pregnant again after Margaret’s last birthday and has been kind of busy, sleeping, eating, and sleeping ever since.

The pregnancy has been pretty rough on her this time around and man, is she moody about it. The plus side of her crankiness is that a) I’ve gotten pretty good at ducking flying objects now, and b) all the time I’ve been getting to work on my robots. It just seems safer to hide out up here for a while and keep out of her way until it’s all over.

Mum and Dixon are doing great. Mum scored herself a book deal for her biography so she retired to have more time to finish it.

Dixon still spends a lot of his days reading and just spending time with his daughter, Katherine (my other half-sister), who’s only gotten smarter as she’s gotten older. They spend a lot of nights sitting up reading books and arguing over them apparently. We figured she’d want to become a scientist or a doctor like Amanda but so far she’s dead set on cooking. Obviously she’s only gotten stranger as she’s gotten older as well.

Katherine always looked a little odd as a child but she’s definitely growing into her features now. From what I hear she’s already broken a lot of boy’s hearts by turning down date after date.

Mum thinks Katherine’s got her heart set on Arcadia’s son, Paul McCarthy. They’ve been best friends since they were babies but Katherine’s going to have her work cut out for her getting Paul to date her. He’s a nice enough kid, but ever since he became old enough to notice girls he’s had a different girlfriend every week. Still, I’m not all that worried about Katherine. She is something of a genius after all; it might take awhile but I’d say Paul is as good as hers.

The one everybody is worried about is Katherine’s twin brother, Thomas. The poor kid’s always been a little overlooked thanks to his sister’s genius (not that Thomas is dumb, he’s just not up to his sister’s IQ), and it looks like it’s been bothering him more lately. To make things worse he’s been seeing a girl who’s a bad influence on him – the pair have been skipping school and running off to cause havoc around the town, only to get dragged back home by the police. It’s all been pretty embarrassing for Mum and Dixon since Mum’s pretty famous after all, and Dixon used to be a Private Investigator. We’ve all tried talking to him but I don’t think it did much good.
(Bonus Movie: Thomas Hill’s Day Off)

One final thing before I finish up: Alex had another birthday yesterday. Not a bad looking kid huh?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 10th, 2006 at 9:57 pm and is filed under Lonely River. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.