The Activities of Life
Things didn't stay quiet for long. After all, cosmic objects flying around ended up dropping into Riverview, causing a fair-sized explosion landing right in the middle of a demonstration. That didn't make for a very comfortable situation for the protestors.
It never really is fun to be the target of a five ton celestial object that crashes down right in your midst as you're going along doing your daily business. Imagine how suprised you'd feel if you ended up having such an object land right in your midst.
Caitlin got up the next morning and cooked breakfast for everyone.
Through diligence and hard work, even though she was in the teaching career, she ended up mastering the cooking skill. It would stand her in good stead, when she was able to cook virtually any base recipe with the exception of having to go to the bookstore to get recipe books so that she would be able to cook other menu items. It also allowed her to be able to pull the items out of the oven without burning them as she was skilled enough to know when those items were done. Aidan and Caitlin enjoyed chatting about things while eating breakfast and Masayoshi also ate since they had to head in to school and work respectively very shortly.
It was unusual to have a farm in the middle of the basement...but Haruo and River did. The manure was used for the indoor garden. It was a win-win situation, they could stay warm while milking the cow and harvesting the eggs and well as feeding the cows and chickens. Why not: winter was a chill -16, even though it was starting to warm up and turn into spring. Thankfully the cold winter was over and the weather was now over freezing at 4 degrees celcius. It's Canada; we use the metric system.
The grow-rugs had to be useful for something, right?
The renovated house looked far different than the one that they moved into and it was fully spring by the time that the renovations ceased and they were able to live in the house in peace and quiet. It was a picturesque home and they were able to enjoy the yard as opposed to barely having one in the other yard. They filled in the pond and redug it, making sure that all the fish were moved along with the re-siting of the pond. Also the kids got an outdoor "football" (soccer to you Americans) net so their kids would have something to do.
Also they got a treehouse to play in too which overlooked the pond. After all a well-occupied kid is one that stays out of trouble. Give them something to do and they'll stay out of trouble.
Haruo when he was done fishing, which was something that he was enjoying doing now that the pond had unfrozen to the point where the fish were active again and the water had warmed up to the point where the fish weren't in torpor. The two double-fountains, one large and one small, kept the water circulating too. Each day the daytime average temperature was rising and it helped that he could continue to pursue fishing as a hobby albeit self-employment. The novelty of being a 5-star chef had worn off and the sheer drudgery of the work had taken its toll. So it was just fun to be able to call his boss and tell him to take his job and shove it(and having the finances to be able to do so) pretty much was the icing on the cake.
When Haruo was done telling his boss where to go and how to get there, he spent some time fulfilling a wish to utilize the training dummy which he hadn't touched for several months. And then he started cutting gemstones. He had a lot of them in his inventory that he had to go through, but he would do them a little at a time. He hadn't been getting much of a reception from the Apothecary when it came to handing off his cut and polished gemstones for consignment. So far in three days he hadn't heard anything from the apothecary and Haruo was starting to wonder if the apothecary was pocketing the gemstones and feeding him a line (But Haruo is not Evil_Haruo in this story-line) and he decided that he would just feed the apothecary low-end jewels to see if what he was suspecting was true before he took action to get the police in on it.
River took the opportunity that evening to sell two of her paintings; one large and one medium paintings that in total brought in a fair amount of money into the household, more than enough to be able to pay the tax-bill without having to do too much worrying.
When their children came home, it was first crack the books and do their homework. River and Haruo were both stringent on that. Adhering to that strict rule and getting the best marks, even if they didn't feel like they were doing much other than learning by rote and regurgitating the lesson, it meant that they would have a leg up in a higher institution should they choose to go to university. When their kids were done, they ate dinner and headed upstairs to bed after having a little free after-school time to do what they wanted to do. Sometimes school is sheer drudgery but instilling hard work-ethic was important to do at this age.
After all when they got out into the real world, the realization that they needed to adhere to social norms and part of that was the ethic of working for a living: the more education that they had, the easier it would go for them. But River and Haruo knew too that the world was changing and that they would have to change with it. Be open to change Each successive generation would have their own pitfalls that they would have to negotiate.
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