Chapter 9.8 – August 2023 – To promote or not to promote... (Parenting is no longer a question...)

Being on pregnancy and then parental leave is.. nice enough, but it's pretty clear from Sofias dreams at night that she misses her job.. spending time at 'the office', proving her worth by helping people in various degrees of need and just in general maintaining things around the fire station.. Seven months of going to work was a little to long now...

 

It still has the benefit of getting to sleep a little longer every morning while her husband got out of bed to check on the baby before having breakfast and heading off to his job...

 

..and panicking while thinking about what to do with Yumi and her habit to chew up every piece of furniture available.. buying toys for her to play with had no effect at all. She still goes for the furniture.. do they really need to take her into town to find a dog trainer or something?

 

When Sofia woke up, she would start her day as usual.. checking her body in the mirror to check for any signs of aging, and if she found any they would need to be taken care of as soon as possible.. She had to always look her best..

 

..and then there was time to care for the youngest one. Little Rose Marie.. sometimes she found herself looking forward to the moment when her little baby girl spoke her first word, when she learned how to stumble and eventually walk around on her own.. and other times she hated herself for having the very same thoughts... but she always made sure that her little diamond was well taken care of. She was so small, so innocent, so cute...

She thought the same about little Yumi as she walked downstairs to give her a treat...

..until she was being snarled at and met with the same temperament that makes the dog chew on all the furniture..

"I don't know what to do with you, Yumi, to make you stop chewing on our furniture all the time..."

While Sofia is at home being a little tired about Yumis bad behaviour I check up on Palashs younger siblings to see what they're up to. Bhavan is at home not doing anything special, and Nitya has gone to one of the local university colleges auditorium to hold a lecture about cooking meals at home.. So she got some aspirations to be a chef, maybe?

 

Sofia spent her days happily (mostly) caring for her little jewel, but at the same time couldn't help the growing feeling of missing her job. Soon after this month her mandatory parental leave would be over, and she could return to her duties at the fire station again..

 

..and the dog too, the other little 'jewel'. If only she could find a way to rid her of her destructive habits..

Things looked good over at the High Products Business Building as Palash just got a promotion to Vice President..

 

..or maybe not, because almost as soon as they had given it to him, they realized they might have made a mistake and gave it to his sister Udisha instead...

..or maybe not again, because all of a sudden they pulled back her promotion to.. really? Where's the workers union here? You can't do that to your employees! What kind of morons is it that's running this business? You need to make up your minds! ;)

 

"Yeah, I swear.. I've always been on time for work! And I was so happy when finally I thought they'd notice my efforts, but no! Can you believe it!?"

 

In anticipation of her husband returning from work – with or without his promotion -Sofia was as usual in the bathroom to freshen up her appearance..

 

Sofia of course hoped for some of Palashs attention as soon as he came home, however his main priority appeared to be the little baby upstairs as he walked into their bedroom to snuggle and feed the little one..

..and make the bed as if he was going to take a nap on it or something..

..except he's not of course as he goes downstairs again to greet his wife to where the latino music is still playing from the stereo..

 

..and give her a good warm massage..

 

..and whisper sweet words into her ear..

 

In spite of all this, Sofia is still unsure that she's good enough and feels the need to remind him that she's got a swimming pool.. He had to appreciate that she though, since her reminder to him of being a fire fighter worked so well earlier, but..

 

..unfortunately she was wrong.. Palash didn't appreciate her bragging this time and the mood he had worked to build up was killed almost instantly..

Sofia trying to 'save' it by talking about her car wasn't helping.. Material goods and fast cars wasn't what Palash was about, she should have learnt by now, but old habits die hard..

 

"I'll go for a bath..."

Though Palash wanted to have another baby with her already, now was not the time for love making..

 

..but Sofia still had her little baby girl and Yumi to care for and give some love to...

It might take a while for Palash to fulfill his wish of having a second child, if it will ever happen.. only time will tell..

Good night...

 

 

Other happenings:

Cristina Østreng of the Østreng household who lives out on Outwash Point finally turned 18 and is now a young adult!

Christina in her new car as her father Benjamin and her younger sister Simone says goodbye.

She also passed her drivers exam and got her drivers license as well as deciding to pack up and leave the nest to settle down on her own in a house a little closer to town at Ferskvannsvingen 32. The Watcher congratules and wishes her the best of luck on her new adult life! ;)

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Chapter 9.7 - Can we make a deal...? Part II..

Remember the band the "The Bushweeds", who got their first 'major' gig at Sofia and Palashs wedding a little over a year ago? I hope you do, because heres an update on what happened to them since then...

 The band playing at Sofia and Palashs wedding, about a year ago, which led to them getting a little more recognition and another gig a little later at the summer festival and potentially a deal with a record label..

..so a few days (or more like a week and a half) later the band had taken the trip to the mainland, to Orange Music Records, located in the business district of the county capitol of Cyme Ixotic, to have a meeting with the label, after sending over a few of their tracks..

Excited that they would finally get their music out to a wider audience, they gathered outside the building to already discuss all the new music they could make and include on their brand new future debut album..

 This, they hoped, would prove to be the most important day in the history of the band...

So.. they greeted the woman at the front desk, asking for directions before taking the elevator to the 8^th floor where the manager was set to meet them. They were then let into his office by his secretary before they were finally welcomed to sit down on the couches in his office.. They felt a little like superstars already. Imagine that, this small town punk band from an island almost in the middle of nowhere got an invitation to this fancy office in the city...

 

The conversation went well initially with the record labels representative even saying that he liked their music and that he thought their songs had.. potential. They just needed to, the way he saw it, switch their music up a little, perhaps tone down some of the punkier aspects of their music, maybe soften some of the lyrics a little and well... make the music have a more marketable appeal as he put it...

 

"So you want to turn us into some kind of pop group then?" guitarist and frontwoman Gerda asked him, not to pleased about what she just heard..

"Well... not excactly, but you have to understand that signing a new band that, let's be honest, nobody has heard of is a big financial risk for us and..."

 

"..and what? You heard our music.."

 ..and it all pretty much went downhill from here, with the representative from the label continuing to insist that they should "maybe tone down some of [their] lyrical content, and (...) make it a little more radio friendly" which wasn't at all what the band wanted to hear...

 

 It made Gerda a little agitated as she got up from the couch saying that "[it] sounds like a load of crap to me!" and continuing on to explain who they are and what their mission in music is... then she said something I'm not going to repeat here..

The tables now looked like they had turned and the manager immediately took a more defensive position, but still continued to insist on having things done the way the label wanted...

 

The situation began to look really locked in as Gerda also got support from the drummer Kajsa..

    "We're just not gonna do what you're saying. That's not us. We're not gonna accept that kind of deal."

"You're making a big mistake..." the represantive tried "I could turn you into big stars, give you a deal to record a music video..."

"Not at that cost" Gerda said pointing his finger at him "we just can't do what you're saying with our music..."

 It was pretty obvious by now that this wasn't gonna end up in anyone signing anything, and after some more bickering back and forth the band finally decided to march out of the office with Gerda still muttering a few words under her breath..

 ..but they weren't done yet. Kajsa had to leave behind a small signature as a last goodbye to the record label before they went for the elevator... "The Bushweeds was here.. and they thought it sucked!"

Now the band found themselves in a bit of a situation.. their first real meeting with the music industry wasn't excactly what they had hoped for..

 

Even though Gerda was the one doing most of the talking and being quite hard headed during their meeting with the record label, she was a little concerned now about the bands future.. how were they going to record their songs now? And how would they arrange and afford to go on tour when or if they even get to the point of releasing an album?

 

They didn't really know yet, so all they could do after discussing their situation over a meal at one of the citys cheaper restaurants there wasn't much else to do but for them to take the ferry back home to figure out some new game plan..

They were adamant to not want to change their sound, so after a while they did what they probably should've done to begin with... they worked at their day jobs to save up some extra cash to buy their own recording equipment and sort of set up their own little home studio in their rehearsal room over at "The Party House".

It took a lot of fiddling around with buttons, sliders and various settings to get a sound that sounded something like what they would want, as well as writing a few more songs here and there while they were recording..

They found it best to leave all the more technical stuff and messing around with the buttons to Gerda, as she was the most tech-savvy of the bunch...

 

..but even for her figuring out everything took a while, and there were a few occiasion where she forgot to press the record button or even managed to overwrite a previous recording...

 

---

 

And of course, the usual discussions and disagreements that often comes as a part of such a creative process.. but overall they agreed on the direction they wanted to go, and whatever argument they had were only about minor things... a little to much guitar here, not enough keyboards there, maybe these lyrics should be like this, maybe add a drumfill there, a bass solo here etc...

..and finally, after lots of hard work, blood, sweat and tears, they could finally proudly present their own self-released debut album and their first band merchandise and web shop to go along with it!

On vinyl of course, because nobody buys cd's anymore...

Backside with track listing.

They also made a new logo for the occasion, as they figured the old one wasn't very good anyway, and also had it printed on their first merchandise. They only had a simple tank top to begin with, available for both male and female, but eventually if they became a little more popular and perhaps even started to make some money on it, they would expand it to proper t-shirts, sweaters and maybe even hoodies..

Tank top design front. All the way on the left is frontwoman Gerda Botnen (guitar/vocals) with the standard black design. Next to her is the drummer Kajsa Tangstad with the army design. Then there's the bass player Sam Mæle with the flames design, and all the way to the right is keyboard player Merete Sagmo with the skulls and crossbones design.

Backside.

...............................

I can only congratule the band for making it this far, and hope that their hard work will pay off... Now is the time for them to use whatever channel they can to spread the word as much as possible... try to get a few concerts played here and there even. The last one is easier said than done without a label and a marketing apparatus support them, but they have to give it a shot.. if they want to make it big, they need to get off of this little island they lived on and out into the world..

 

I wish them the best of luck....

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