Part 97 ~ 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.

We left Ben sleeping on the couch… at 5pm Daughter woke him up. Ben is very grouchy when you wake him up. Very! Grouchy! He grumbled at Daughter for a few minutes then she started playing with him and he lightened up. Then she asked if he wanted steak or chicken for dinner and he said “Pizza!” She told him that he’d just had pizza last night and he went back to grouchy. He yelled something unintelligible and ran into my room, throwing himself on the bed.

He leaned over and yelled that he wanted pizza right into my ear. OUCH! That’s what I told him too, “Ouch! You hurt my ear with your yelling.” I told him I wasnt grouchy with him when he woke me up, I didnt yell at him when he woke me up, why was he yelling at me? He said “Pizza!” I told him okay, pizza, whatever… he didn’t need to yell about it. I asked if he wanted his tablet. He did. I asked if he could use nice words to ask for it. He could, and did, so I got the tablet for him. He stayed in my room about ten minutes then went back to the living room with Daughter. Good deal.

I just stayed in my room, relaxing and catching up on my WP reader. Daughter cooked the pizza, gave him his meds and around 7:15 asked if he was ready for bed. He was, so she took him to his room (after the bathroom of course, final wee and brush teeth), wiped him down, changed his PJs and tucked him in. Success!

I went over to the Corner Market for some diet coke, which I should’ve bought at the grocery store, but whatever… sunset was beginning and it was going to be a good one, I could tell already. I took these on the way to the market, basically from the street end of my driveway

Then these when I got home, from my side door

Then I ate my #13 from Jersey Mike’s. Then there was a grand finale.

WOW! And the very thin new moon was right there through it all

I went into a Food Coma for a little while, then jerked awake because there was stuff I wanted to do before calling it a night. Just routine, getting ready for bed stuff, but still Important stuff. I did the stuff, took my pill and went to sleep at Whatever O’ Clock.

The Bounce came at Five Something. I didn’t look closely because the Five told me I had to get up. He did the whole “Pweeze” thing again after I told him to go get Mommy (I had to try). So I got up and relocated. I admit that I stared daggers toward Daughter’s bedroom door. If it had been two or three, I would have woken her up to do living room duty, but five is reasonable (ish) and an acceptable routine time to get up.

I got his tablet and water bottle (I’m wondering if he will go back to his “juice” or if we’re going to donate twenty odd boxes of Capri Sun somewhere?) and his blanket and then went back for my stuff and we settled on the couch.

The med alarm went off and Ben took his meds, then I uncovered Sven and lit up his little world. He was unimpressed. He did open his eyes and look in the direction of his plate, so I got him some fresh food.

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Daughter came out some time after that. I really dont know what time, I was busy taping things. She took over and I went to my room, followed by Zeus. I expected Ben to follow too, but I guess he was content with his project. Cool by me.

I wound up dozing off while in the middle of going through my Reader. I’m pretty sure I was just reading, but just in case I left a weird comment that looks like code… yadda yadda yadda, usual apologies and disclaimers…

I got Bounced again around 9:30 and commanded to the living room. I could hear Daughter talking in her “phone voice” and remembered the consult with his med doctor today. I got up and stumbled to the couch, where I sorta fell into a reclining position. I doubt I could recreate the move if I tried… a feet tangled fall forward with a twist of the body, landing perfectly with my butt in the dent and my head, neck and back against the pillows. Where are the panel of judges with their score cards when you execute a move like that? Where?!

I sat there, blinking like an owl, waiting for my brain to connect (cue sound). Daughter came to tell me about the call, all I heard was “no changes”. I must’ve made a “displeased” face because she asked me what was wrong. I asked if she told the doctor he can swallow pills now and she said yes, but the doctor didn’t want to make any more changes since he’d been sick and she was working the new job, blah blah blah… I told her it’s very frustrating how slowly they move with his meds. I didn’t expect increases or additions, but I thought there might be better options for the Adderall. Oh well… next month sometime we’ll have another consult. The nurse will call to schedule it.

I went back to my room. Daughter brought Ben’s 10:30 med to him in my room, he’d been drumming on my bed, but I had to move when my pillow became part of his drum set. He was back and forth between the rooms a lot. I took his water bottle out and refilled it at noon, asking Daughter if she was gonna do the half Adderall. I gave her the bottle when she said yes. (I didn’t want to make her mad by insinuating that she’d forgotten. This way, it looked like I was leaving it with her so she didn’t have to get it from him… I was being helpful. Ugh! Fragile Feelings…) Then I went back to Horizontal Time.

Ben came in a little while later with a cardboard box. It was a smaller one, broken down. He wanted me to turn the rectangular box into a square box. I didn’t figure that out until halfway through the project. The communication difficulties are such a huge frustration! Everything turns into a “Who’s On First” routine. The final product was the clock faces of Big Ben, which had to be taped to the top of a long rectangular box, stood on end.

I can follow the Ben Logic… yesterday he was knocking over dominoes. That naturally leads to Big Ben and the buildings of Parliament. It ties together in the movie V For Vendetta, one of his favorites. If you haven’t seen it, now would be a good time. A lot of the themes of the dystopian story are relevant to things happening in the world today. Plus, it’s a good movie. This scene alone is pretty cool.

Around 1:00 Daughter stopped by my room on her way to hers to tell me she was tagging out of couch duty. Ben and I were just finishing drawing the faces on the clocks. I knew I’d have to help “build” the clock anyway, so I gathered my stuff and took it to the living room.

We put the clock together and Ben asked me to take a picture, so I did. He got up on the couch, I gave him his tablet and sat down in THE spot. He grabbed the blanket and covered up after a few minutes then readjusted the pillow. When everything was just so, he settled in for some YouTube surfing.

Around 1:30 I looked over and he was asleep. I texted Daughter a picture of him and asked what she wanted me to do. She said “Let him sleep.” Again, cool by me.

On my way to Horizontal Time I went down to her room to discuss his 2:00 meds. We decided to give them at 2:30 and when I said I hoped he wasn’t grumpy when we woke him up at 2:30, she said she was just going to wake him enough to take the meds (the 2:00-2:30 is two meds, half tablets each so we crush & mix with water) and let him go back to sleep if he wants to. Cool by me Hat-trick!

I went back to my room and at 2:30 I gave him the meds and he went back to sleep, so I went back to Horizontal Time. And there I stayed, going through my Reader and just relaxing.

I was working on an email around 3:30 when I got a call from Younger Daughter. Her partner left their wallet at home and cash was needed for some thing or the other. I told her I had cash, come by. That wouldn’t work, blah blah blah… I transferred money to her account. It was a big convoluted conversation with a lot of back and forth. UGH! She will be by later with Kris for the shooting of the snake and to pay me back.

Ben slept until Daughter woke him up around 4:15 or so. I could hear them and he seemed to be in a fairly decent mood. Daughter did well, playing with him and being silly. The only problem was the Big Dumb Dog going in there and barking, barking, barking… So Annoying!

So, good day today. I haven’t been told to get dressed and go to the store, Daughter and Ben are hanging out together, I’ve had some Horizontal Time. Yeah… I like it. How about I play a song and end on a happy note?

Thanks for hanging out with us today. It wasn’t very exciting, but I’ll take an average, nothing-much-happens day over a drama day ANY time! Come on by tomorrow, things change fast at Casa Cuckoo, so who knows what’ll happen next?

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HUGS!

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