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Gobble Gobble!
Thanksgiving and Halloween are sorts of the co-anchors of the Autumn season. Autumn starts in September, but September and early October can still have some nice days, at least where I live (Massachusetts). Halloween and Thanksgiving fall (no pun intended) is a time of year when there is no doubt that Summer has left the building. I've bundled my children up in winter coats to send them trick or treating, and I've sat at a Thanksgiving football game where it was 12 degrees outside.
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This cold dichotomy may lead some people to hate Autumn, but not this reporter. I love the change of seasons, I love the fall foliage and I love all the harvest stuff going on at local farms. One of the reasons that I haven't written here in a while is that I spent a lot of October and November driving around to look at trees changing color or roaming through pumpkin patches like Linus. There are other reasons, but they are sad ones, and this is supposed to be the Enquirer's funny column, so no need to drag that all up here.
I was looking to write about Thanksgiving and especially Plymouth. Plymouth is the birthplace of Thanksgiving (Jamestown had the real first Thanksgiving, but Virginians need to argue with their underperforming public relations staff, not me). I live deep enough in real-life Plymouth County that I can see the Mayflower II across the bay from my house. Seeking to capitalize on this unearned Dad-bought-a-house-here expertise, I hunt incessantly for Plymouth-related sims every November so that I can let the people know my wisdom.
Only once in my years working for this publication have I found Plymouth on SL, and- to be frank- it looked more like northern California... and I say that in the "Sacramento is not California" sense that Rush Street Reggie made famous. They had a Mayflower, a few colonial-looking cabins, and some turkeys running about. I was very pleased, and Lanai got a Thanksgiving article out of me that year. That sim is something else these days, and I could find no substitute for it any other year I looked.
This year also failed to net me a Plymouth, but that doesn't mean my deadline goes away, so I had to hunt me up some Autumn somewhere.
I found Autumn in spades at the Mieville Thanksgiving Street Fair. This is a very nice sim that is all set up for the Fall season. as you can see from the pictures, they have turkeys, fireplaces, fall foliage, November-blooming flowers... all that good stuff. The sim is cleverly constructed so the visitor walks around a pastoral autumn scene, but as they do, they go by little sales kiosks where they can purchase seasonally-themed products.
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It makes for a very nice walk and is a good setting for some cute pictures. I heartily recommend it. They have the autumnal theme running through the 25th, so hurry on down this long weekend. Much like real life, there isn't much time for you to see Fall things... it will be December before you and I speak again.
People take things in SL for granted. If you go to a sim where it is done up for Autumn, you should rightfully praise whoever set the sim up. You should also, however, appreciate the infrastructure which provides the things that you see at that sim. You have to find someone who sells Autumn trees, turkeys, horns-o-plenty, Mayflowers, and what have you. SL is funny like that- many people play SL just to have cyber sex, but there are people who log on to SL and spend the day making Pilgrim hats. Because of them and the sacrifices they made, the sim you get laid at has a nice, comforting Autumn look. A timeless Norman Rockwell background takes some of the shame out of av-fucking a stranger.
Because there are designers who make turkey tailfeathers and Pilgrim costumes, my sister Courtney and I have seasonally-themed outfits for our job as dancers. Being from Plymouth, I was a natural for the Naughty Pilgrim costume. Not being from Plymouth, my sister ended up having to be a turkey. I didn't think to include my costume, which is just black lingerie with a Priscilla Alden bonnet, in this article. There was no way in Hell I was going to forget to highlight my sister with goofy turkey feathers attached to her lower spine.
I won the next season, too... I get to dance as Mrs. Claus, while Courtney will spend December wearing reindeer antlers with blinking Christmas tree lights on them. Much like her tailfeathers, she loves when people ask about her antlers, why she has to wear them, whether she lost a bet or not... go on down and say hello.
People should also not take Autumn for granted. Autumn gets a bad rap, basically because it is Summer's pallbearer. Never forget that Autumn stands between Summer and the ice/cold/snow of Winter. Winter's main holiday- Christmas- is all about snow and cold. There will be months where you'd be thrilled to see a forecast for the day as "highs in the 40s, lows in the 30s." People in western New York right now wish it was 48 degrees.
The key is to see the bright side. Go out even on SL- and see some trees changing color. Get an apple cider donut. Watch some farmer harvest something. Remember, in about a month, it will be too cold to go out. Go down to the Mieville Thanksgiving Street Fair and see some Autumn. Otherwise, once you go down the list some, you'll end up at Divas, watching a stripper journalist dressed as a Pilgrim... or her sister Courtney, dressed as a turkey.
The positive part of journalism is informing the public, sharing your adventures, helping someone who needs help, promoting good causes, blah blah blah... the negative but fun part of journalism is using your column to humiliate your sister, who might have to dance for all comers dressed as a turkey.
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Mieville Thanksgiving Street Fair = http://maps.secondlife.com/
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