Part 162 ~ The Adventures of King Ben & Zeus the Big Dumb Dog

~ King Ben's Grandma

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

Ben stayed awake, he ate, he had his bath and he went to bed. I took pictures, and I tried to be as still as possible in between getting Ben ready for bed and doing my Sciencey Data Gathering, because it was still so very hot!

I was taking trash out, so I went down to the street to check out the sunset from that view and the Parrots flew right in front on me. It made me very happy! Parrots and Sunset… two of my favorite things.

After Sunset, I ate the two veggie spring rolls that Daughter ordered for me from Panda Express, did the night things and waited for Younger to stop by to get mail.

I didn’t even hear her come in. She startled me when she appeared in my room. She has always been ninja-level quiet. Older walks heavy, so I hear her most of the time.

We talked about her first day at work, which went great… we talked about the fight she and Partner (I have no clue what the official status of their relationship is) had before she came over… we talked. Then the neighbor was knocking on my front door, wanting Younger to move her car, she was blocking someone in. She was getting ready to go home anyway.

I was tired, but I was also enjoying the cool quiet house. I took my pill at 11:15pm, knowing I’d konk out quickly. I was awake until after midnight…

6am and I got the full, old fashioned Bounce this morning… bedquakes, commands, and ear sniffing. As soon as he was sure I was awake, he ran off to the living room. Zeus stayed around to sniff some more.

I got up and did the Zombie Shuffle to the living room. I was actually COLD this morning… shivering and goosebumps. I enjoyed it, knowing I’d be sweating within a few short hours. I got coffee, uncovered Sven and turned his lights on. Then I got him fresh food, paparazzi-ing him.

I was also taking pictures of the eastern sky, and at 6:40 when the alarm went off, Doping Ben’s Face.

Daughter got up around 7:15, deposited her stuff in the living room and put her clothes in the washer, then she took over Couch Sittin. I got my stuff and went to get Horizontal. Ben joined me and Zeus ten or fifteen minutes later.

After Daughter’s wash finished, I very carefully took my and Ben’s load around to put in. I managed to get over the fence thingy twice without falling. YAY ME!!

Ben was back and forth between the living room and cannonballing onto my bed, or occasionally ME. I got caught up on my WP Reader and drank my coffee.

Around 10:00 I decided that I’d procrastinated long enough and took the clothes over to the dryers. The Quarter Lady was nice again. She even called me “mija” (WP isn’t letting me link the word, but here’s the link to the meaning. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/mija) … so bizarre.

At 10:45, after hollering out the med alarm, I went back to get the clothes. The mail had come and Daughter’s paycheck was there. She signed it so I could go put it in the bank while I was out, which I did.

Came home, folded and put away my and Ben’s stuff, got more Blue Ramen for Ben and sweated… fun stuff. Daughter came to tell me about Ben’s “distance learning zoom schedule”. Ben was yelling “All done!”, Zeus was bouncing everywhere and Daughter got angry at me and stomped off because I wasn’t giving her 100% undivided attention. Sheesh!

I told Ben I’d heard that he was done, if he wanted more, he needed to use his words and ASK for more, not just yell out that he’s done, over and over and over. So he asked for more. Great, wonderful, no problem…

Daughter was back on the couch. I told her I was sorry about Ben and not giving her my TOTAL attention. Then I asked if the schedule she’d shown me was all for Ben individually or for his whole class? She said it was both. Different things on different days… she’s going to put it on the calendar. There’s just no way. We will try a few of the meetings, but he got so wound up after the previous Zoom attempts, they just caused problems. They didn’t help him AT ALL. We might just have to wait until he can do on campus stuff. I knew that distance was the plan for now, I didn’t know when school was officially starting. I guess it’s Monday. Nice how they gave us so much notice.

I hollered out the noon alarm and Daughter brought his med into my room to Dope His Face. After all the fuss over more Blue Ramen, he didn’t even eat any. Around 12:30 he went back to the living room.

At 1pm Daughter went to lay down. She has work tonight. To avoid confusion and dilemmas, I asked her if she wanted me to wake her up and if so, what time? She said 4pm. I verified, “You want me to 100% come and get you at 4pm?” She said yes. Alrighty then.

I got my stuff and began my tour of duty, Couch Sittin. Ben was in front of the bathroom, doing his chalk thang. He pretty much stayed there the whole time.

At 2:30 I gave Ben his meds cuz the alarm told me to. Then I went back to deepening the sinkhole in the couch. I also texted, went through my WP Reader and my email. Oh, and I tried to stay awake. My eyes kept crossing and I seemed to be blinking in slow motion.

Daughter texted me at 4:00 with “4:30”. That was the entire text message. I texted back “K”. Nuff said, right?! I know she has to work tonight, but she’s had four days off, she slept at night and during the day on her days off. Plus, three out of the four days, I was up before she was, thanks to HRH. She sure is lucky I’m so nice.

Let’s end here. Daughter will be up shortly, then it’s Pregame, keeping Ben in a decent mood, trying to get everything done in time so we can get her to work. A bunch of chaos and stress… maybe.

Thanks for coming along to the laundromat with me. I still don’t know about that Quarter Lady. Tomorrow, after Daughter’s check credits, I get to see if I can get a WallyWorld pickup time slot. And there’s Driving Miss Daisy tonight, tomorrow and Sunday night and the morning pick ups too. Glad we got to relax a little before it starts getting busy. We’ll have fun, even when it’s busy we laugh. ¡Hasta mañana!

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HUGS!

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20 thoughts on “Part 162 ~ The Adventures of King Ben & Zeus the Big Dumb Dog”

  1. Wow! You have the quarter lady’s respect! You stood your ground, she saw that you were doing the right thing and she is nice to you! Fist bump! Great job! I just wrote out all the kid’s schedules and highlighted their different times “in” class, free time, and work that needs to be done out of class. The middle school and high schoolers are similar in that they have four hours in, “3” hours of work out. And the next day it switches (and on and on). But poor Declan. With elementary, they have to have their morning “circle time” with a zoom at 9AM. Then throughout the day, he has two hours of instruction and one hour of a “special” like music or art. I can’t imagine he is going to do well with this. If he doesn’t then we will stop, or opt out of what we can. Eh – we’ll see. Goosebumps this morning?! Nice! I am excited for the fall. Just something cooler than this! Here’s hoping for a cooler, chill day for us all tomorrow! And gosh, I think that song is a Coupe family favorite. We always play that one and dance together for fun. Good times, great song!

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    1. Declan’s schedule sounds like Ben’s. Ben is officially starting 7th grade (What?!) but he’s nowhere near what a general 7th grade student would be. I guess they still assign grade levels for comparison, but that seems silly.
      The thing with the Quarter Lady is so weird. Honestly, most of the Latinx women call me (and everyone else female) mija… it was more surprising when she called me a liar. I guess I proved her wrong and we’re besties now🤷🏼‍♀️
      I can totally see you, D & Cate dancing… the Bobs… not so much😂😂 it IS a great song…ah ha ha ha🎶💃🏼💟

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  2. I just can’t believe these people think kids with special needs can have zoom meetings and learn. I doubt either of my boys one autistic/Aspergers and one ADHD would tolerate sitting like that. I guess it’s better than nothing, but I’m hearing from friends and family that these days are very challenging. Trying to teach kids, watch and keep the younger kids quiet, work, and keep the family fed, bathed , a clean house, etc… Can’t imagine.

    Governor Newsom had a talk today about how communities could go back to school, work, etc. I didn’t pay much attention, except that we are in the purple which means there will be no school here until the color turns to red and then we have to wait two weeks until the Covid numbers are better. It’s surreal what we are living through.

    It’s my husbands birthday Tuesday, so I’m going to spoil him this weekend. Will keep you posted.

    Glad the mornings are staying a bit cooler for you.

    Hugs
    Teri

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    1. Ben’s 12th birthday is Wednesday. We haven’t made any plans. We might take him swimming again, give him a couple things from “the stash” buy him some cookies with the pink frosting… he doesnt like cake or cupcakes. He will lick the frosting off, and candles… ugh! He’s a pyro and will want to play with the fire, so we don’t do candles either…
      It always makes Daughter sad, but it is what it is🤷🏼‍♀️
      💟💟

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  3. Lovely photos of sunset and sunrise. You’re a very nice person, mom and grandma! No doubt. I hope they all appreciate you as they should. Love and hugs. 💖🤗🤗🤗

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    1. I always have fun! 💃🏼 or I try to, anyway. A new song to you, huh? It got some radio play here. It was late 70s, I think🤷🏼‍♀️ I like the traditional dancing and drum music they did before “rockin out”. I hadn’t seen this video before the algorithm suggested it to me. Sometimes it’s a win!💌

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    1. Nah… K is just an acknowledgement. “Alrighty then” is snark, and “okie dokie” can be good, neutral or snarky like the Southern “Bless your heart.”

      Although… in that case, I wasn’t too pleased. Maybe your daughter is right.🤔

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  8. Saying this as sweetly as I can, but I’m not really impressed with Older and her possible unappreciative attitude when it comes to you. Just sayin, in case you possibly have the same thoughts but think it best to keep them to yourself… 😉

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