Part 74 ~ 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.

A picture from last night’s sunset

I didn’t get Bounced. Or if I did, I don’t remember it. I went to sleep earlier than usual but was awakened many times in the night. Apparently my bed is in the middle of a Feline Freeway because Diesel and Sophie ran across me, or stopped on me and generally paid no mind to the fact that I was trying to sleep. At times like these I’m reminded of an old TV commercial

Anyway, Daughter got up and herded Ben into her room at whatever Dark O’ Clock time he got up. I dozed in and out until about 5:00. I heard Daughter asking Ben why he was wearing all the clothes. Oh boy, here we go again.

He came into my room shouting “Gramma, look!” I told him he was very handsome (he IS adorable in his dress shirt, vest, tie and jacket) but that he should’ve taken the nightgown off before putting all those clothes on. He started taking everything thing off to remove the nightgown and then put everything back on. WOW! He actually listened to me.

6:30 meds were given and Ben went outside to sweep. Sweeping is actually the activity we prefer him to do. It burns energy and doesn’t break anything… win-win!

He came back in around 7:00 all kinds of hot and sweaty. He drank a juice on my bed and then went to the living room. Daughter asked if he was hungry and what he wanted to eat. He told her “Bacon and taters!” She demanded three hugs as pre-payment for slaving over a hot stove.

While she cooked, he sat on the couch with his (my) tablet. As soon as the food was done. He moved to the kitchen area to do his chalk thang. Oh, and Sven is still hiding in his house.

He won’t be going in the shower today. There is a drive to the office of Daughter’s Hiring Coordinator to show her I.D. and Social Security card. (hopefully this longer car ride will go as well as the previous ones) Also on today’s agenda, laundry… SO exciting!

At 10:35 we told Ben to go potty, that we needed to drive Mommy to an office to do some paperwork for her new job. Like last time, drive there, wait a few minutes while Mommy goes in, then drive home. He went potty and went to grab his Kittys. I told him not ALL the Kittys, he brought 5 or 6. I grabbed a couple pouches of Capri Sun and his taters (he’d eaten the bacon already) and herded him to the car. And away we went.

We got a block away and had to pull over. He’d been messing around, trying to buckle his Kittys in on the other seat and his seatbelt had locked, pinching his tummy. That rear seatbelt locks too easily. Anyway, I pulled over, Daughter turned around on her seat, got the Kittys buckled in and unbuckled and rebuckled Ben. She told him to be still. Good luck with that…

And away we went. We made it the 18-19 miles in less than 20 minutes and Daughter went in. (She’s a horrible navigator by the way. She blamed the Google arrow. I told her that’s why I read the WORDS of the direction, not follow an arrow. “Turn left, no right” isn’t helpful)

Ben decided we should park rather than cruise the parking lot like last time, so we parked. He wanted to get out, that’s why he wanted me to park. I told him Mommy would be right out and before he had a chance to get upset, she was walking out. I pulled out of the parking spot and met her at the crosswalk. She got in and we headed home.

Ben wanted a turn as Navigator and wanted me to “go that way”, a right instead of the left leading back to the freeway. No biggie, I wasn’t gonna get lost in that area. I knew it pretty well.

We drove a few streets out of the way with Ben telling me when to turn and which way. I found the freeway onramp and headed home. Got home, unbuckled him and his Kittys, went in the house and he started doing the chalk thang. SUCCESS!

When we got home, Daughter put her load of clothes in the wash (told ya there’d be laundry). After her load was done I put mine in. Ben was still doing the chalk thang in the kitchen area.

When both loads were washed, I put them in the car, masked up and drove them across the street to the laundromat to put them in the dryers. After the laundromat I drove by the bank to deposit some cash. My cellphone bill will autopay tomorrow but my SSDI money won’t deposit until Wednesday. I was only about $10 shy in my account, but I don’t need to carry a bunch of cash around anyway. Then back home to wait for the clothes to dry.

Ben decided to come hang out in my room with me when I got back. He watched his tablet and asked for an occasional juice. A little after 2:00 it was time to put the mask back on and go get the clothes. Daughter said she was gonna do his meds then try to talk him into going to her room. They were in her room when I got back with the clothes. I folded the load I had, which was half Ben’s stuff and put everything away.

Ben hanging out in Daughter’s room didn’t last long. At 2:45 I was commanded to the living room. I noticed we had a new movie playing on repeat… Hocus Pocus, a good one. We just hung out on the couch until 4:15 when Daughter came out to take over living room duty.

I went to my room and Zeus followed me. Then along came Ben about two minutes later. He’s angry that all we have are King Size Hershey bars (I looked in the fridge again, no more regular size ones), he wants me to go to the store and buy him a Sweeney Todd Barber Chair toy. He was yammering at me while I was on the phone with Younger Daughter. She called about the text I’d sent her that she had mail… a pair of earrings from Bangkok apparently. Then Ben was pointing at his tablet saying “Look! A toy gun” and all I saw was a black cat and I told him that. He wanted to argue that it was a toy gun and he needed a toy gun. I gave him another toy gun from the stash that shoots balls. The first thing he did was point at his mother. Of course she flipped out. So he kept pointing it at her. I came back to my room, hoping he’d follow and he did. He shot me with all three balls. I kept them. When he asked where they went I held them out and told him if he shot at me, Zeus or his Mama I’d keep them again. He shot at the mirror. I told him “Good Job!”

No clue why he flipped into Angry mode. We were chillin when we were on the couch. I guess Daughter coming out disturbed some fragile bubble or something, I don’t know. He settled back down though, so that was good.

It’s about time to end for the day. Here’s today’s song

It’s been a pretty good day overall. A busy day for me. I have to go to the dang grocery store again after Ben and Daughter are in bed. I just bought six boxes of juice and they’re gone, so I go in search of juice. Ugh… the mask and shoes!

Thank you for stopping by today and all the previous days. Can you believe how long we’ve been doing this? I’ll keep the invitation open and the coffee brewin as long as you all wanna hang out. See ya tomorrow, hopefully not TOO early.

HUGS!!!

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