Part 28 ~ The Adventures of King Ben & Zeus the Big Dumb Dog

If you missed the start of this series, you can find it here. A lot of things will be the same or very similar.

Last night I tried to go to sleep early. Well, early for me. I was asleep by 11:00PM, but awake again at 12:30. Sophie Cat would NOT get off of me and even a cat gets heavy after a while. I was able to go back to sleep after 30-45 minutes, but was awake again at 3:00AM. I was able to doze back off just as the Bounce and bedquake hit at 4:00AM. I wanted to cry in frustration.

Ben didn’t immediately make me go to the living room, which was very kind of him, but he didn’t let me go back to sleep either. He wanted his black and white striped jacket and his green tie. The same things he was obsessing over before he went to sleep. I told him to go look in his room. He responded with “Gramma to do it.” Too tired to argue, I got up and went on the search. I found them in his bed and brought them to him. Then I went to use the bathroom, which he immediately needed. Of course he did.

I don’t know if this thing of getting dressed up every day is because he’s missing school or just because the characters he likes to pretend are ‘dressed up’. Once he wanted us to cut his hair to look like Victor in The Corpse Bride. While it would be easier on everyone if his hair was shorter, I can just imagine him wanting me to tape it back on.

By 5:30 we were in the living room with all our stuff. He couldn’t settle down. He was pacing and going from activity to activity. When he did sit down to watch his tablet, I thought I could do my morning emails and WP reader, but he kept interrupting me. He’d say “Gramma?” and I’d ask what we wanted. Silence… so I’d go back to reading. Then again “Gramma?” and silence after. Maybe he was calling out to me because I kept dozing off. I couldn’t help it.

A “Crackerjack” morning for sure. He calmed down a little after his 6:30 meds, but he was still jittery.

Daughter got home from work a little late. There was supposed to be a meeting this morning, but after a half hour of standing around, she was told it was canceled. But there was another development in the “mask saga”. Instead of the nearly useless paper masks they were to be issued weekly, they were now going to get these completely useless masks made out of the same paper as the embarrassing gowns one wears in an exam room

One of Daughter’s co-workers fired off a 3 page memo to the Head Administrator, letting him know that those cheap, flimsy masks were proof that the Company obviously didn’t care about their staff or their patients/residents. I’m guessing that he used some great words in those 3 pages.

Apparently the Administrator was in the building at shift change at 7:00AM today with a box of surgical grade paper masks to distribute. The box had the name of another admin/office person on it, so I guess those were her personal surgical grade masks. Corporate B.S. at it’s finest. The entire staff had to sign NDAs too. More Corporate B.S. I told Daughter I was going to put it on my blog, she said “Go ahead. I hate that place.” She hates that she’s not able to provide the full care she wants to provide because she consistently has 25+ people to care for.

She was wired and angry still when she got home, so she told me to go lay down. I gladly accepted. Unfortunately, Ben followed me to my room. He was being very wiggly, what I call “ants in his pants”. After being jerked out of a doze several times, I told him to be still or leave my room. Whether he was actually still or I was too exhausted to care I don’t know, I went to sleep.

Just before 10:00 I was awakened by Ben’s full weight coming down on my leg. I yelled out “OWWW!” and things went downhill from there. He was doing some fight scene with a stuffed animal all over my bed…jumping, falling, flopping… of course Zeus, incapable of leaving my side was trying to stay next to me without getting hit by Ben.

I admit I was grumpy when I woke up. My eyes were still crossed with exhaustion and I was irritated that of all places, this game had to be played on my bed, on top of me, while I was trying to sleep. As I’ve written before, Ben doesn’t respond well to grumpy. He started knocking things over in my room. He ran outside and started busting down the already broken gate, yelling “You have to get dressed. You have to go to the store” I was SO not ready to deal with a tantrum or meltdown. Dag-nabbit high pressure!

I tried to get him to knock down the jungle of weeds in the back yard with a stick. He took the stick and started beating on the gate. I headed him toward the weeds again and he walked past them to the pop up awning thingy and started trying to poke more holes. He was distracted by the pile of ash that came out of the BBQ grill when he knocked it over. He wanted his broom… STAT!

I couldn’t find his broom, so I got dressed and I went to the dag-nabbit corner market and spent $10.00 on a cheap broom, the kind they sell at the dollar stores. Whatever! Supporting small businesses, stopping the downward spiral, I was too tired to deal with it alone and Daughter needed to get some sleep.

The broom made him happy enough. He gleefully swept the ash into the air so he could watch the cloud of particles with his eyes all scrunched up and his head turned to the side. As I’ve written before, He’s  VERY visual.

By 11:00 things had calmed down, helped by his 10:30 meds, I’m sure. He ate some Blue Ramen and watched his tablet.

At noon I fed Sven. A little late, but better late than never, right?! I was going to take pictures but after the first one, I could tell he was not pleased, as evidenced by the second

So much attitude! Or maybe I’m imagining it??

Daughter got up and took over Living Room Duty at 1:30. I was hoping to get a little bit more sleep, but Ben followed me to my room. He was in full wiggle jiggle mode for the rest of the afternoon. It’s not fun having the bed you’re laying on constantly shaking. Nor is it fun to be bumped into, fallen on or to have a Big Dumb Dog try to climb into your lap to be saved from the child. If the dog had sense, he’d get up and go somewhere else. If he had sense he wouldn’t chase his own tail, growling at it.

I was able to keep my temper in check, therefore preventing a repeat of this morning’s near wreck. It was a near thing. I may be Zen most of the time, but I have limits and bad days too. I never claimed to be a saint.

At 4:00 Ben, in a dramatic voice, said “I so tired!” and threw himself down on the couch next to Daughter. Quick thinking on her part, she asked if he wanted a bubble bath then, or wait until later. He agreed that a bath would be agreeable then, so she ran it for him. It took 15 minutes to get him to actually get into the water, he had to play with this, or touch that or make faces in the mirror first. High pressure… I am NOT looking forward to summer, especially if we’re still on lockdown.

It has been a long day for me. I don’t do well with pressure changes either. Low pressure used to give me migraines and high pressure gives me headaches and makes me feel jittery. Or maybe I’m picking up on Ben’s agitation? That’s a downside to being an Empath, sometimes you don’t know if what you’re feeling is yours.

I have to journey to the store tonight to get Ben’s trazodone. I won’t be doing any shopping though. We have a delivery coming between 8:00-9:00PM tonight. Oh, and Daughter’s co-worker gifted her with this

SCORE!

I’ll see ya here at Casa Cuckoo tomorrow. The Weather Guessers are predicting a drop in temperature and a lowered pressure. Maybe we’ll get back some of that calm we had before… anything is possible.

Take care of yourselves!