Brianna Gets Slandered and a Paparazzi Pays The Price

All was quiet at home and the Watcher, being bored, wandered down to the graveyard. And...lo, who should appear but Fiona McIrish-Chikamori, Toshiyuki was nowhere to be found. I guess the afterlife appealed to him and he spent most of his time "resting in repose". It never failed that there were townies who always wanted to trespass on the Chikamori family grave-yard and it appeared that there were two of them that night.

Haruo giving his dad a reprieve went to finish off the gardening.

...then had some fun with Lord Vladimir's Magic Kettle conjuring up lots of new gemstones to cut.

...while others in the family ate breakfast.

The conjuring kettle kept Haruo occupied for hours.

It was a fine snowy day...

...at least it was, until Brianna caught wind that there was a rather malicious rumor going around about her. She, taking after her daddy, wouldn't stand for that and marched straight down to city-hall and proceeded to sue the living excrement out of the perpetrator. The Watcher wonders if there is a way to financially bankrupt said false-accuser.

Of course...the paparazzi who slandered Brianna showed up...and the Watcher decided that retribution was the best course of action. Nothing like a few well-timed meteor strikes to insure that the sim responsible paid for her transgressions.

It was a pretty good solid hit on City Hall's front grounds and the resultant carnage left the paparazzi feeling well good and toasted. A coup de grace so to speak. Sayonara to the paparazzi sim...who realized all too soon that she was meeting the Reaper.

Pleading for her life, she begged the Reaper to give her another chance. But Grim wasn't having any of it. "Should have taken up knitting...might have been a better pursuit..." he intoned sonorously.

Brianna's heart nearly jumped into her throat as she saw Grim standing there, silent, as she exited the city hall but he only nodded to her congenially (at least she thought so because she couldn't see or didn't want to see his face under that hood) as she passed by him enroute to heading home. Well, doesn't that make for a wonderful sight for sore eyes. I think it would probably scare the pee out of anyone.

Aidan's and Alanna's Graduation

River and Haruo decided to make dinner that night...utilizing the new teppanyaki grill and well...things went quite well.

Of course there were the usual telemarketing calls which had to be avoided or given such a frosty reception that they, it was hoped, wouldn't call there again. A futile hope though. Telemarketers were like cockroaches and taxes; even a nuclear bomb wouldn't kill 'em off.

Haruo's dad, Yasunobu, played the piano and then was chatted to by Greta.

Morning came around and well, that was graduation.

Everyone piled into several vehicles and headed down to City Hall for yet another long and laborious graduation ceremony.

After all, both Aidan and Alanna were graduating today.

Which meant that they had to sit through an extra-long graduation ceremony due to two classes graduating...at the same time. But after all that, they were done and ready to take on the whole world. Everyone else went home except for Haruo, River and Yasunobu who went to Hogan's Diner to discuss certain matters, namely, the fact that Yasunobu was getting to the age where he needed to do less in the garden and to hand over the bulk of the gardening tasks to Haruo.

...and Yasunobu promptly got in a fight with Charles the Evil Chicken.

Wonder if Charles would taste good as a Chicken Teppanyaki...naw...he's too old and tough.