An Appaloosa Plains Story - Part 6 - Spending time with Sylvia Spiotto

It's been six months since I visited this save file, so a little refresher is in order.

Sylvia Spiotto, an elder, lives in Hetty Lionheart's old house. She has a love of old Victorians, and set out to breathe some new life into it. Hetty was her friend and left the house to her on the condition she would live there and take care of Hetty's cats until all of them passed away.

Sylvia is socially awkward, clumsy, a snob, artistic, and a savvy sculptor. She has been spending a lot of her time working on her artistic and inventive endeavors and selling them either online (directly from her inventory) or at the consignment store. She's also working on her gardening skill, struggling to keep Hetty's small garden alive.

She lives with three cats - one of her own, and two of Hetty's. Minnie Spiotto is a yellow cat "married" to Mothball Lionheart. The odd man out is Muffin. Nobody seems to like Muffin, and Muffin doesn't like anyone either - especially the cats. Mothball also has a daughter (from a previous marriage I assume) named Maria Pinkerton. Muffin is enemies with Maria as well. This animosity among the cats causes Muffin to be very needy and unhappy. But we'll get to him a little later.

As for Sylvia, she has a boyfriend named Benjamin Schmidt, is friends with Kanoa Parrot, and is enemies with Brent Yee. The animosity with Brent Yee occurred when she met him outside the bookstore after going in and purchasing some recipes. She was cordial enough and introduced herself, but he mocked and insulted her, and she doesn't suffer fools gladly. They didn't come to blows but she declared him a nemesis. She gets along fine with his wife, however. Sadly, I didn't think to take any screenshots of this.

Sylvia's boyfriend Benjamin invited her to a party, so she went. It was a pretty mellow "old people" party, but it didn't stop Kanoa from dancing on the counters (in the background).

It looks like Kanoa has a fan.

For an old man, he's still pretty cool.

Poor Sylvia didn't enjoy the party much, however. She really had to pee, and this house only has one bathroom. She tried shooing this woman to the other room so she could do her business, but the woman just kept chatting away on the phone and ignored her!

Not only was poor Sylvia in dire need of the bathroom, but she was hangry! Therefore she blew her stack at the woman.

"What is your problem? There's no need to be rude!"

"Get out of this room, so I can avoid wetting myself! I'm an old woman, and my bladder isn't what it used to be!" Sylvia bellowed.

Luckily, Sylvia reached the toilet in time and didn't disgrace herself. Later the woman apologized for being so insensitive.

You'll see two dogs in the background of this picture and the snout of another in the lower right corner. Benjamin Schmidt has three dogs and Sylvia has three cats. Can this relationship work? I have my doubts. I'm not a big fan of Benjamin. He was less than understanding about the whole bathroom incident.

On top of that, I spotted him sparkin' another woman in plain sight of poor Sylvia who was either too engrossed in her book (in the background reading on the bench) or she isn't the jealous type.

She isn't without her own not-so-secret admirers. Kanoa has been suggesting they get together despite being married already, and Chuck Hobble has been sending her gifts in the mail and asking her to call him. After the fiasco at Benjamin's party and seeing him flirting with other women, Sylvia decided to ask Chuck to meet up with her at the festival. It doesn't hurt to keep your options open. Chuck is currently working as a cop.

She told him about Hetty and how she's fixed up Hetty's house and is taking care of the cats.

He told her how he still kept horses and still liked to ride now and then, but had given up the rodeo clown side hustle.

They both competed in the hot dog eating contest, but neither won. In fact Sylvia came in last. She was still trying to finish, but I finally made her give it up. And just in time too.

Another bite and she would have puked it back up. I think she did eventually purge herself awhile later.

"Ma'am, do you need medical assistance?" (She's fine, just bored to death by Cheyenne Fox.) She did seem to be having a less than stellar time, however.

On the other hand, Chuck seemed to be having a great time.

You've got to hand it to these older sims. They are awfully spry. I could never do these things.

After getting a little horse therapy, Sylvia was feeling better.

Chuck is married, so he's not really a suitable replacement for Benjamin. Besides, despite his flaws, Sylvia still seems to love Benjamin.

The next day Sylvia took some of her inventions and paintings to the consignment store.

Elias Adler, the consignment specialist was a very rude clerk. You just can't find good help anymore.

Sylvia tried to talk to him about her art and asked him if the consignment store accepted sculptures.

He apparently made some wise-ass remark.

"Excuse me! I'd like to speak with your supervisor!"

Apparently she wasn't the only one who complained about him, because the next time she went to the consignment store, he was no longer working there. In fact, NO ONE was working there. Good help is hard to find these days. She's been selling online lately. I hope we get a new clerk soon.

The fact that the store is officially closed hasn't stopped visitors. It looks like Cheyenne and Shawnee Fox are on a date.

The Riffins went so far as to bring their newborn with them and put her on the floor near Sylvia and went off to amuse themselves.

The baby's father was into his video games, and her mother was hiding out on the porch reading.

The nerve assuming Sylvia would babysit for them! She doesn't even know them!

It's not that Sylvia is against the younger generation. She's willing to help out where she can, like helping this young man with his schoolwork.

"If I don't bring my grades up, Dad will never let me get a car."

"I need to write an essay on Tale of Two Cities. Maybe I should have read the book first."

"Should definitely have read the book first. How can I start the introduction?"

"I have an idea. Why don't you say that Tale of Two Cities is to literature what the Mona Lisa is to painting?"

"Yeah, that just might work! Thanks!"

"Remember, when writing, don't just copy and paste from other sources. State your ideas, then present the evidence from the book that backs up your ideas. Don't just throw in quotes if it doesn't relate to a point you want to prove."

"That is the way they taught writing at the School of Peace and Love."

Sylvia loves to learn. She wants to take all kinds of classes and learn all kinds of skills. Sometimes I tell her no, but usually I let my sims do what they want to do. She wanted to learn the science skill, so she attended a science class. She learned that Chuck Hobbes' wife Racheal was also taking the class, so they practiced what they learned together after class.

Later Sylvia and a few other senior ladies got together at the karaoke bar for a rousing game of dominos.

Sylvia has a rather balanced life - a good mix of work and socializing with other townsfolk.

As I mentioned earlier, Muffin is a miserable cat who is short on friends and has his fill of enemies. He wanted to meet some new pets, so he headed down to the horse training grounds to see if he could meet some new potential friends.

"I don't get along well with other cats."

"Maybe you should try befriending insects. The fleas like you, so maybe the ants would too."

"I do NOT have fleas!"

"Oh yes you do! I can see them bouncing all over you, little cat!"

Meanwhile, Sylvia was home playing with her favorite cat Minnie.

"Where'd my kitty go? Where can she be?"

"Oh where can she be? I hope she's not lost!"

"Oh there you are!"

This town has a large cat park. I have never understood the concept of a cat park. I've heard of cat cafes and I can imagine a "cat park" with an abandoned building and overgrown foliage and rodent spawners where cat may go to hunt, but the idea of a cat park being like a dog park where you take your animal to play just doesn't make sense to me. So I decided to convert the cat park into a cat cafe with a large back area where cats can roam. Basically, I kept the same lot, deleted one of the buildings, and built the cafe.

Sylvia invited Racheal Hobbes out for coffee there, but ended up drinking her coffee by herself while Racheal had a water balloon fight in the parking lot.

I put one of the "cats welcome" gnomes at the front of the building. So far only one cat was spotted.

And he (or she) was a naughty kitty!

This lot is clear across town from the Spiotto house, so it's too impractical to bring Sylvia's cats here, but it seems to be one of Sylvia's favorite places.

Sylvia let a few days pass after Benjamin was so rude to her at his party before attempting to spend any more time with him. However, she eventually invited him out on a date. They started at the public pool, where it appeared to be senior swim day.

Next, they went to tour the art gallery for a little while before the movie they planned to see at the theater started.

Sylvia chatted him up, and they got flirty.

But Psycho Podiatrist was about to start, so they headed to the theater across the street. I never tried to go inside the theater rabbithole. It's pretty cool.

Poor Liana Romero was hanging around outside, grieving the loss of her beloved Quincy. Maybe they used to enjoy going to the movies together.

The next day, Sylvia decided to take some risks with her relationship with Benjamin. She invited him out to the cat cafe and asked if she could sketch him nude. He complied right there in front of the baristas!

"I see NOTHING! Nothing at all!"

As it turns out, after all that, Sylvia was only interested if drawing his hands. The whole exercise got them into a flirty mood.

I think it's a very bad idea, but Sylvia wanted to marry the bum. How is this going to work? You have such a nice set-up at your Victorian with all your hobby rooms the way you like them. You have three cats, and if he moves in with you, he's bringing along three large dogs to add to the chaos. If you move in with him, You won't have your hobby spaces, and will be breaking your promise to Hetty to live in the house and take care of her cats until all pass away. Oh well, I guess they'll figure it out somehow.

He said yes! I'm trying to think of a good place in this town for a wedding. I'm going to leave the story of these two here. Maybe we'll see them around town. Next up is my Tiny Town challenge, followed by Tailor Gwynne's story. (Both are set in this same save.)