We Will Never Forget our Lily Frogs
And We Still Love our Petable Turtles

Shouting into the Wind -- Almost the end of the Petable Turtles.
Illicit Grief and Real Loss -- Now the frogs are in trouble as well. This hurts!
All I Want -- What do I want out of Second Life? Losing breedables, fully or partially means I really have to think about meaning.
Our Frogs are Really Going to Die! The end was almost upon us.
Dragoness Rage was Here -- There is no one to rescue and resurrect our Lily Frogs.

Eileen H. Kramer and Iyoba BatOni -- January 1, 2014

How the Bard Got to Richmond Elemntary

If you want to know how William Shakespeare entered the hallowed halls of Richmond Elementary, the short answer is the school serves pre-K through seventh grade. Shaka is a seventh grader, and middle schoolers sometimes read Shakespeare.

The long answer is that taking care of two avatarot, one of whom is an adolescent, is by its nature a tricky proposition. Iyoba, the original "Li'l fat girl" is now the oldest, despite her somewhat cutesy style. She's been my conscience in Second Life for years. She still sticks with that role. Shaka on the other hand.... I'll get to her.

Fortunately, both avatarot enjoy "good hair days" and have been having plenty of them. Shaka dyed her new, French, braid pink in the Sheridan College Sandbox and Iyoba received a gamin bob at the Little Hotel in the Sky (It's down this week.) on LEA5. Then there was the nearly 200 prim hair piece I started on Imagination Island and finished in Sandbox ABC.

Beyond that though, living in Second Life as an intelligent, articulate, and often angry and sad twelve-year-old, is a lot harder than as a middle aged lady who is always up for adventure and who has more moral sense than I do most days of the week, which is just fine. Iyoba loves music. Iyoba loves dancing. Iyoba collects DJ groups. There is always somewhere for Iyoba to go including Flash Night Club which recently got its own sim and a redesign that makes it a beautiful place worth landmarking remembering.

In theory, Shaka, ought to be as easy to please. She after all loves music, and had an absolute blast despite her lack of funds buying and trying dances at Abraminations, but when it comes to clubs something happens. I'm not sure what it is. She doesn't get shy. Any fat kid who walks around less than fashionably and who has stood up to judges and social workers and the police -- yes the police -- is pretty much fearless about sticking up for herself.

I can blame Shaka's earlye experience with a failed adoption interview and running into one security orb too many in the Warwick Archipelago. This surprised even me. One would think that any family role play worth its salt would include kids cutting through each others' yards. Those security orbs traumitized Shaka, and left her very circumspect about private property. She's also afraid of being kicked out of clubs.

But that was not why Shaka was less than thrilled with her foray onto Dance Island. No one gave her any trouble there. She danced Gangham Style which she loves. The music was great.

Shaka probably could have even relaxed like Iyoba (in other pictures of course...) if she had found a chair near the edge of the dance floor. No one would have bothered her, but this was not a good day for Shaka. She was confused and unhappy. "I NEED A HOME!" the young avie told me in no uncertain terms. She was sick of spending five days a week at the Little Hotel on LEA5 and two days a week in Ms. Jody's House on Penn State Upward Bound Math and Science. She's afraid Ms. Jody will catch on and throw her out.

She was also less than happy with Richmond Elementary which does not have the classes she wants when she is around for them, or ever most of the time. She suggested that I buy her a sculpty animal. I will not buy breedables because...well look at the top of this blog if you want to know, and rent her a stall in the stable on Narragansett. She could put a bed in there and a desk and have her animal, and her own place, and people would come to the stable and she would meet them. And of course "I'll rock those stuffed shirts' worlds being a ward of the state that lives in a stable. What do you think?"

I had to put down my parental foot which was attached to my hand that clutches the purse strings until my knuckles are as white as bone. "Shaka," I pointed out. "The stable wants 400L a month, and your school fees are 250L. That's outrageous." In fact it is a ripoff. But that is another story. I told Shaka to save up her lindens for the sculptie animal and give Richmond Elementary a chance since we had paid a whole month's tuition there. Shaka took my words to heart and immediately reminded me how Iyoba wastes all our funds on the Beggars' Army. Iyoba gets 300L a week and more than half of it goes.... Let's just say I had a talk wtih Iyoba.

Meanwhile, Shaka and I set out in search of a better home. We traveled to Hanako Land and to Nagisa Edogawa in search of the lost subway.

We found that the trains still ran but most of their stops were gone. This is the rear view from a subway car. The walk around Hanako Land was just a bonus, but we found more than trains on Nagisa Edogawa. There was a swimming pool, an onsen (a Japanese steam bath), lots of nature trails.

But the best thing about Nagisa Edogawa from Shaka's point of view were the swings and see-saw which were large enough to hold older children or adults. Shaka is the age where she doesn't really have to sneak into the playground. She is of the age where packs of girls take over the equipment like invading tribes. She is of the age where Caucasian girls sing.... I'm not sure what African American girls sing but I'm sure they have their songs. And yes, this story should have ended happily with a landmark. We were all ready for a return visit to explore more, when we learned that Nagisa Edogawa was gone! Cue up "There are Places I Remember." Now Shaka can sing that song too.

So with my reputation as a stupid, tightwadded, case worker or One Who Thinks She Knows in the toilet bowl, and rightfully so, I forced an unhappy, nearly broke, Shaka to part with ten lindens so she could texture her very own independent learning hud named Golden Vistas of Knowledge. It leads to web sites where the avie can read or practice subjects that interest her. One of those subjects is of course Shakespeare.

Shaka wants to read Richard III because he was the King whose body was found in a parking lot. Remember twelve-year-olds are not completely brain dead, and Shaka certainly isn't. With her Golden Vistas of Knowledge HUD, any time is class time, and it's the subjects she wants. She can hang out at school any time, even when there are no classes. It is too bad the school is such a dreary place, but someone does not have pleasant memories of school, and Second Life is a hot bed for nostalgia. Not all nostalgia is positive. Some of us are bent on rewriting our pasts or presents because either of those... Well you can use your imagination.

Eileen H. Kramer with help from both Iyoba BatOni and Shaka Prynne -- March 25, 2014

There is no "Love as Something New"

For some reason, I usually sing rather than cry when something good, bad, or just plain evocative happens in Second Life. Last night was no exception. Mirai is gone. You can see more pictures of Mirai in the post below becaue Iyoba and I were there on Friday, and you can see even more of them here. Note: the picture above was taken outside the Arare Cafe, which these days sits empty (Not a big deal since Japan is fourteen hours ahead of the East Coast) on Akiba, and is still one of my favorite places to go, even if only Miz Cat is home.

Mirai was no ordinary sim. It was where I stripped off Yonatanne Xaron's premade shape and gave her her own skin and unique look. This was before Yonatanne Xaron became Shaka Prynne, plucky, tired, semi-homeless, ward of New York State, and former resident of Jefferson County, close to the Motherland but always in exile. This was where it started for her. I photographed her on these steps before taking her back into the basement changing rooms of the castle to apply her new skin and eyes. There is a reason I won't let Shaka have a makeover. You see it on this screen.

Mirai was on the 2013 Do it Better List. It just missed the list this year. Before and even after I learned about the Cyclone on Soho New York, the Dead Coaster was still one of my refuges, one of the places Iyoba took me when I was out of sorts and needed to heal. We'd ride that thing until I got sick, as we did Friday. Too bad we did not know it was our last ride.

I feel bad Shaka will never ride the Dead Coaster or the Peacock Ferris Wheel. There is still a sandbox on Primary, for however long that island survives. Much of the Mag SL Archipelago, which is now down to four islands, is in sorry shape with lots of empty space. They could probably rent the land to Westerners since it has no zoning and interesting neighbors, and for all its build is relatively low lag.

And here is Iyoba after being shot out of a cannon. Behind her is the express pipe that leads back to the lower level that stood behind Mirai castle. The lower level was where you found one of Second Life's best amusement parks.

Of course for Shaka's sake and our own, we had to look elsewhere for a sanctuary with plenty of passive motion and a good stomach turning ride or a slow ride with a view, and a ride in either case where the cars didn't stall or fall off the tracks. I also wanted to find out if the subway on the MagSL Archipelago was a victim of hard times. We headed to Nippori and there found no subway but did find an easy-to-use, narrow gague, train that makes a surprisingly long run thanks to many twists and turns. It's not the Cyclone on Soho New York, but in many ways it is a lot nicer than many larger Second Life railroads. The Japanese have a knack for creating good, slow rides. What can try my patience on a ferris wheel, works perfectly on a train. Then beside the tracks, Iyoba and I noticed posters that turned out to be intellibooks or something similar.

We walked beside the tracks, turned pages, and took photos. Here is a picture of the Peacock Ferris Wheel. It takes forever, but it lives up to its name or its color, or rather it once did. This of course is where I started to sing:

There are places I remember
All my life,
But some have changed.
Some forever,
not for better.
Some are gone,
And some remain.
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends,
I still can recall.
Some are dead and some are living.
In my life...
I've loved them all.
-- The Beatles "In my Life"

Of course the second verse doesn't apply at all to my situation or to Iyoba's or Shaka's. New love and new places are slow in coming. That is why it is good to have places to come home to in Second Life, because the future is always uncertain.

Now I know for certain, that St. Michael's/St. Michel's Orphanage will never accept Shaka. They did not ding her. I would have understood. She's not beautiful by Second Life's restrictive, fashionista standards. She's long past the cute stage except in a lumpy, adolescent way, and she also has a complicated legal situation that would make her hard to adopt. And on top of all this, she made a home invasion of the orphanage after its office disappeared. This was what she found in the waiting room. It looks like someone was having a fight with the furniture.

The office looked somewhat better, in a superficial way. Of course someone had left two baby toys and a top-secret envelope on the desk. The teleporter was broken. Shaka, being a kid had some fun because nobody was looking. The security warning inspired a laugh. We both knew no one was home, so no one was going to be harmed by our presence. This is fairly typical for a Second Life home invasion. Any avie with a sense of adventure does one sooner or later.

More disturbing, and something I only noticed when getting these pictures ready to blog, was that the book shelves in the office were empty. In a way this was a relief. Second Life is full of fake book images that do nothing but decorate. There are some books that give notecards and links to online books. This office had niether of those, showing that the staff was less than well educated or intellectually curious. I'm not sure why I am picking up on that now.

Shaka immediately picked up on some serious health and safety violations. St. Michael's takes child avies from zero to seventeen. What happens when they turn eighteen and age out is something no one likes to think about. Apparently the staff don't like thinking about house fires and hope that if they don't think of them they will go away if they leave out a burning candle, even though there are small children present and clumsy bigger kids. How do you say "tragedy waiting to happen?"

And Shaka took one look at this toast and asked me: "Who would eat this nasty shit!" I don't usually cuss on this blog, but Shaka was entitled to that description. She wasn't going to "stay" anywhere that served mouldy toast. I wondered who bribed the health inspectors on Coventry, RI. There was no way St. Michael's could pass inspection.

Then there were the sleeping quarters. There was no one home, so Shaka disturbed no one camming and sitting her way into the sanctum. She was surprised by the lack of privacy. Both sexes share a huge open space with no partitions and no doors that can be locked to protect valuables. There are no closets or wardrobes with doors, no chests for clothes, you get the idea. Many of the beds looked unoccupied, but what kid would live in a place like this. Shaka had said truthfully that though she might want to read in bed, she would not mind head counts and signing in and out. That was courtesy. Having next to no privacy at age twelve was another matter as is sharing your space both with kids who are nearly adults and with kids who are almost babies.

Clearly St. Michael's wasn't going to be the place for Shaka. This left me worried because Shaka had bared her whole soul and divulged her whole past on an application to another avie who will remain forever a stranger.Right now I hope Dr. Goode, the orphanage owner, will forget about Shaka. I tried to assure Shaka that this probably would happen, but Shaka is now gun shy about telling her back story. I am curious how this lecture hall where Shaka took the mike, was used. And yes, it is a was; for St. Michel's/St. Michael's Orphanage has vanished. When Shaka went back to check the place out one more time to get its SLURL, she found an empty lot at 18 Maple Lane Coventry, RI. Dr. Goode has Shaka's back story, but it's just a note card in inventory. There will be no mouldy toast, squealing babies keeping her awake at night, or nasty neighbors with security orbs as a regular feature in her future. I'm relieved, though a part of me and Shaka as well feels cheated, and yes, Iyoba and I are licking our wounds over Mirai. Shaka, mercifully, knows the place of her first birth is gone, but she will not miss it in the same way Iyoba and I will. She is lucky that way.

Eileen H. Kramer with lots of help from both Iyoba BatOni and Shaka Prynne

What do you Do when your Avatarot are Broke?

When your avie is broke, she can go skydiving. It especially helps to forget an altitude setting when you teleport, and...don't forget your parachute! But seriously, let's define broke, because right now and until some time tonight, both my avatarot are without sufficient funds to do what they usually do. Now, Second Life is NOT a money sink for me, even with ongoing committments. $10.00 buys 2500 Lindens which pays for one month's land rent or a lot of zwicky food or two hundred and fifty texture uploads or sixteen full price dances (Yes, Shaka!) or plenty of DJ tips. That means money in Second Life tends to last a long time, but money also can run out for any number of reasons.

In this case, the perfect storm of spending hit both avies. Never take a juvenile or adolescent avie to Abraminations. Dances are money well spent, but Lindens burnt a hole in Shaka's pocket, when it came to buying dances. She has a wonderful Beyonce dance. We do have to go to Dance Island soon. It's free and G-rated and should be young avie friendly.

Time is always in short supply, but St. Michel's Orphanage doesn't charge for room and board. Applications were free...but of course Shaka's application had to go down a black hole. Fortunately we found Richmond Elementary School which will take Shaka as one of the oldest students for....250L a month. It looks like the classes actually happen...but. There is always a "but" tution was 250L a month and Shaka had 230L in her purse. Ooops...

Fortunately, at least from Shaka's viewpoint, she had plenty of Lindens to upload clothes, and she'd need winter shirts and thigh-highs because there is still snow on the ground at Olrich Shores. I made this t-shirt for Shaka before she knew she'd be going to school in a winter climate. Oh well...

Fortunately, I have plenty of turtle neck textures ready to go for a young avie with money to burn. Here Shaka models her first turtle neck in the sandbox on Hobo Island where we stopped at the texture repository to pick up some free textures to make thigh highs. In Second Life, avatarot can't wear pantyhose or tights (There's no layer for them) so it's thigh highs instead. Now Shaka would be good and warm at her new school, once she has tuition money.

Now you are probably wondering why Iyoba doesn't give some of her Lindens (Of course she has more of them. She has the main account. Uh...the main account pays the rent and handles the major expenses.) to Shaka. Well, Iyoba could not give what she did not have.

A few days ago, Salaud and his beggars' army came around. In real life Salaud would be totally obnoxious. Iyoba and I are both angry at him for the way he enslaves his alts. I treat Shaka like the princess of the realm, but Salaud sends his alties out to beg. Now Salaud is good for entertainment. He has a way of cadging something for nothing when the begging doesn't get him enough Lindens. In short, he is to Iyoba what dances at Abraminations are to Shaka. Fortunately, Iyoba paid the land rent first. Then she gave most of what was left to Salaud, and now she has twenty Lindens in her purse. That won't buy you fair on the MARTA bus or a soda at Quick-Trip or even a Recession Buster at Walgreens. That's Iyoba relaxing at The Mother N----R high above the Gambier Islands. She's the second person of color to enjoy this fine cafe's amenities.

It certainly won't pay Shaka's school fees. Second Life can be so Nineteenth Century sometimes. Fortunately, Iyoba can find things to do. She worked on some chairs that came out badly. She can't texture them yet. She spent a lot of time watching the zwickies and kolis which relaxes us both. Here is a picture of busy, little Protea, our impulsively, hatched out zwicky girl. She is sitting out this week's mating. The male zwickies are currently all pregnant or they were last night.

And this is Soyala again. Thank goodness for Koli moments! For a while Iyoba and I were both sure, that Shaka would get a place in St. Michel's Orphanage, but as the days have dragged on, and Shaka's follow up note goes unanswered...this second rejection hurts a lot less than the previous one.

There is still an orphanage building on Coventry RI. The gate is open, but be careful about straying into yards, even those of even public institutions on the Giano Estates Archipelago. Kids can be kids, and adults like to take shortcuts, but cutting through other residents' yards is a no-no. Ask Shaka who got bounced back to an infohub for walking on the grass. Of course every time we have seen it, the orphanage has been empty.

And now the office has gone missing. If you click the image of Shaka drinking mystery brew near the orphanage office, you will see the corner of Gambier Islands as it used to be. Click the image of blue stores for how it appears today. This happened early this week, Sunday or Monday. Shaka left a follow-up note, but she does not have much hope. She wants to crash the orphanage, but a home invasion is going to trash her chance of ever residing there. Iyoba has chairs to work on. There is still a lot you can do when you are broke. The avatarot may as well stick to more constructive pursuits.

Eileen H. Kramer with help from Iyoba BatOni and Shaka Prynne -- March 11, 2014

The First Tears

In six years I have never cried over Second Life. I have been irritated and angry. I have missed friends. I have nearly wept for my turtles and frogs. I have panicked, but none of my two avies, neither Iyoba nor Shaka have ever been involved in the kind of drama that brings tears. That had to change.

Of course a week ago, Shaka was a bit lonely but otherwise fine. She had enough moves. She had a new shirt as planned. She even had hair that I was making for her with free sculpties on the island of LEA 5 which has a sandbox.

Throughout the week we visited the 7-12 high school, Willowdale High and learned by watching the place and checking the schedule that classes offered just didn't happen, and that they charged 200L a month. I have a rule I live by in Second Life, "no nothing for something." Paying 200L for classes that would not make was like paying for admission to a club and finding no music stream. Someone was making good money somewhat honestly, but we were not going to be his or her customers. The Office at St. Michel's Orphanage was our next stop. They don't charge to house orphans, and Shaka is a ward of New York State.

Then it was off to fill out the application which is long, because Shaka has a back story that is long. One does not become an orphan in the fall of seventh grade without a lot of strum and drang and pain. And we had just the place to write it. Last week, we mistakenly believed that the actual St. Michel's Orphanage was in the sky. We went looking for it and found Mother N----R instead. Yes, that is what the place is called, and it has lovely Japanese architecture.

This is the cute little mailbox. Shaka had to cam and sit to come in out of the cold. She found a cushion, ordered a cup of steaming, hot tea, at the bar, and began to write. We pondered the beautiful establishment's ugly name, and Shaka thought she was the first person of color ever to pay a visit. Ironically, Shaka felt more comfortable at the Mother N----R than at St. Michel's office where she received an announcement that if she was not a parent with an appointment she didn't belong there. Talk about hostile! Shaka felt faintly irritated.

At least the name, Mother N----R, was a very, bad joke or someone's poor grasp of English. Constantly threatening (and it was an empty threat. There are security orbs for that sort of thing) casual visitors with ejection, worried Shaka. She wondered if the orphanage really existed. The Giano Estates rules that came in her info packet said that racism was strictly prohibited, yet here she was. What else was not there that was promised?

So it was off to the Giano Estates to look for the orphanage which was on an archipelago that was supposed to resemble New England. I loved this idea. I spent the important years of my adult life in Central New York, but of course Rhode Island is coastal and flat. Also, Shaka landed in someone's back yard and immediately tripped a security orb. I blinked. "What kind of place was this?" I wondered, as memories of kids racing through each other's back yards in various paths and cut-throughs flashed through my mind. This was supposed to be a family role play archipelago.

Still Shaka set out exploring. For some reason, we took almost no pictures. The above is the sign outside the Dean's House which is a public spot on Penn State UBMS where Shaka is spending the weekend. Except for the commercial district on The Warwick and Newport Keys which had two story shops that might have featured cozy apartments with personality, most of the residential area, was huge, dull looking prefabs. There were no murals, graffiti, colorful play equipment, gardens of flowers, pastures for a grazing an exotic pet, no modernist sculptures or land-bound mobiles etc.... Everything was well made, solid, conservative, and off limits. There were redwood fences everywhere, even between neighbors. This is what you get when you cross a "nice neighborhood" with a fortress.

And for the record, there is a church but no synagogue in the the Giano Estates either. By the time we reached the orphanage, Shaka figured out that she would get in trouble if she came in the yard and used the swings. Shaka is at heart a good kid, happy to obey adult rules. She understood and was content to cam around a bit to make sure there was actually an interior and not a dungeon. "They need me to liven this place up," Shaka told me of the entire archipelago. "I never considered myself an artist, but now I think I am one."

And speaking of artists, this was a week Iyoba got deprived of inworld time for her dear, little altie, so by last night, it was Iyoba's time. She made two tables for the Little Hotel in the Sky and also a new dress. It was high time for a new dress. She unpacked seven or eight boxes of free sculpties, and then started chatting in Never B Solo. She's a group member. She was trying to figure out whether Shaka who is on her mind all the time, is a teen or child. Twelve year olds are on the cusp of the two groups. Meanwhile, an avie called Istas contacted Iyoba privately and said she wanted to meet Shaka. She had a ten year old, a lover, and twin teenage boys. Shaka sounded like a perfect fit. She begged to meet her.

Exit Iyoba. Enter Shaka. Since Iyoba had taken down the Little Hotel in the Sky in anticipation of sandbox cleanup, Shaka headed to Penn State UBMS to make sure she could get in Ms. Jody's House for the weekend.

Then the teleport request arrived. The connection conked out after arriving at a store-bought, meshy, prefab. There were lots of fashionably dressed female avies around. One was Ms. Istas herself. Another was Titania, her ten year old daughter and then there was Treva, a family friend.

"You don't look twelve!" the conversation began. I think Shaka cuts a fine, early adolescent figure.

"How would you like a makeover?" came next. Remember folks, this is a first meeting.

"No," answered Shaka. "I really like my look."

"Well if you won't have a makeover, you really can't be part of this family."

Shaka answered and by now I was deep in character and speaking from the heart: "I have a lot of issues, and I don't want to pretend to be pretty." I got back some comment about a makeover making me realistic and natural. There is nothing natural in Second Life, and everything natural there too. By then Shaka had left. Istas accused her of being rude. Talk about projection. Talk about being in middle school. Isn't Shaka in middle school?

Or better yet, I remembered my my Mapp Training back in the 1990's. In one of the classes was a story about parents fostering a four year old and taking away all her clothes and changing her hair style and her name because none of this was good enough. Shaka is twelve not four, but the story, a glistening example of what NOT to do, returned as I rode the bus home that night in "real life." Also when Istas called Shaka rude, another word flashed in front of my eyes, glowing, phosphorescent: BOUNDARIES. Istas has violated Shaka's boundaries on a first visit.

I did not think "judgemental;" for I am quite judgemental. I think spending endless money on store bought perfection in Second Life and never making anything is a rip off and a bore. If you don't spend the money you spend time, another precious commodity, on hunts. I guess I could help someone on a hunt, and I would never tell such a person he or she wasn't getting the best out of Second Life or was too dependent on others or any other number of things. One just doesn't always say everything one thinks, and you can love and befriend people who love superficial beauty and conformist perfection, just as they can love an ugly, DIY twelve-year-old.

"Suppose Shaka were a vampire with bloody fangs or a neko wtih a tail?" I asked myself. Suppose she had wings or was a mermaid? Second Life needs to have room for diversity. I can judge but at the end of the day, I do make room. That is why it hurt to see Shaka squeezed out. That is why I cried.

I am going to have to try again with Shaka, but Iyoba is getting the short end of the stick. Shaka is difficult because real life, from whose memory well she drinks some very, bitter dregs is difficult. Shaka is not the right age because the time is never right for pretty much anything, but here she is with her flowered shirts, longing for pink hair, and colorful dreams. I'll find a place for her. Iyoba may end up not so alone, and maybe there is a place for me as well.

Eileen H. Kramer with help from both Iyoba BatOni and Shaka Prynne -- March 7, 2014