Seems like every day I've been here, my house has gotten a little larger. In fact, my house is growing faster than I can find things I like to fill it with. After this latest expansion, I think it's a match for some of the largest homes in the town. I guess it's fitting for a mayor, but it also feels weird. I moved to town with nothing, and now I'm an important figure, with a big house. It hasn't even been a week.
It's kind of hard to complain about such good fortune, though.
My door, as usual, had a couple of notes from Isabelle stuck to it. The campsite project was done. A new villager had moved to town, and I should probably introduce myself to them.
I decided to handle the latter of those two issues first, and went to the address Isabelle had supplied. The house that had been constructed was colorful. Pietro, its owner, was even more so. To be honest, the guy kind of creeped me out. I had never been a fan of clowns. While he seemed nice enough, I found myself hoping that he wouldn't stay in town for long, much to the chagrin of the part of myself that had started to take my duties as mayor seriously. More residents was good for the town, but this one just felt wrong.
The ceremony for the campsite opening wasn't for a few hours, so I decided to handle my business with Nook. Despite spending most of yesterday on a tropical island playing around, the excess sea creatures and bugs I had found there had sold for enough money to pay off my renovation loan, with plenty to spare. I wired the money to Nook without much thought.
As usual, Nook was pleased, and we discussed my options going forward. Expanding the one room would be a waste at this point, he said. I kind of agreed. He instead put forward the idea of a second floor. The price was considerably higher than any of the previous renovations, but I knew I would have no trouble making the payments. I agreed to his terms, and he assured me the work would be done in the morning.
Nook's paperwork each day was eating into my time, but I figured the day would come sooner or later when I couldn't pay him back in one day, or he simply had no more ideas for expanding the house. But, that was done, and now the opening ceremony was set to begin. Much like the last one, there was a small speech and party poppers to celebrate. A surprising number of people turned out--I guess a lot of people were interested in the idea of having visitors from out of town. Certainly, such visitors would prove a boost to the town's economy, and it would hopefully serve well as a recruitment tool for new residents. We still had a long way to go on that front.
Next came work. Isabelle and I spent a while on paperwork, but the backlog was quickly clearing. I imagined that by the end of the week, we'd be to the point where we'd only have to handle what came in each day, which wasn't much at the moment. And, with the campsite project complete, we were free to work on something new. Of the options I had available, I settled on a fountain. The last two projects had been to aid the town, but this one would serve to increase its beauty. I settled on giving it a prominent position on the path leading to Main Street. Even those just passing by on the train would be able to see it. I figured it I planted some flowers or hedges around it, it could turn into quite the beautiful little landmark one day. The project's cost fell somewhere between the campsite and bridge. Again, I fronted the bulk, but it was important to let the residents contribute--it wasn't my fountain, but our fountain.
During the day's events, I had heard rumor from the residents that our town had a visitor of sorts. A traveling fortune teller had set up a tent in the town square. She apparently tended to come by once a week, but with no real schedule. No one was exactly sure just how real her powers were, but everyone encouraged me to go, saying that the experience was intense. The tent was easy enough to find--purple and gold, it stood out easily. As I walked in, I idly wondered if she had a permit to operate like this, but decided the issue could wait.
To say the experience was intense was an understatement. I'm not sure if it was actually some kind of psychic vision, or a hallucination from the odd-smelling herbs and powders she had in the tent, or even if such a distinction really mattered. She told me that disaster had been looming, but that my lucky item for the day was a hat--which I had been wearing anyway, a souvenir from my trip to the islands. It had helped to sway the universe in my favor and prevent any trouble.
I'm kind of convinced she simply used that whole spiel as a way of sounding amazing, when really all that had happened was that nothing bad happened on a day I happened to be wearing a hat. Maybe next time I'll visit her earlier in the day and purposefully ignore her advice, just to see what happens...
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