Part 186 ~ 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.

The chaos settled a little, I was required to tape some blocks together, Daughter and I cleaned up the scattered messes he’d made when he ransacked the house. After I had made, whatever it was that I made, Ben went outside to his dirt hole. The sun was going down and it was not only time for me to take pictures, it was time for Ben to madly sweep dirt into the air. I took half his night meds out to him at 5:45pm.

At 6pm I ran his bath. He’d come inside a few minutes after I gave him the meds. He was supposed to be eating, but he wasn’t. I got him in the tub and cleaned up, and he got out right away. He didn’t want to play. I helped him put on his bathrobe and had him sit on the couch with his tablet and his chicken nuggets or “orange chicken” (because the breading is an orangish color). I went to take pictures and Auntie arrived.

Auntie took Ben to bedtime after helping him put his jammas on. Older Daughter was in the baño with an unhappy intestinal tract, and I was taking more pictures.

We left around 6:30pm to Drive Miss Daisy, and got her there pretty quickly and back home I headed. All was quiet when I got home. I texted Daughter to let her know, took more pictures and chatted with Younger for a few minutes. She’d come from work and was tired, so she left pretty soon after I got back. Hugs, “I love you ” and I locked up. Then took more pictures…

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I did the Night Stuff, wrote an email, did some WP stuff, and texted with Older Daughter. She was having another crazy busy night at work. Ben had been quiet so I figured he’d gone to sleep. NOPE! He roared for the first time around 8:45pm. The last roar I heard was around 10pm. He stayed in his room, so it was all good. I ate around 11pm, I usually go into a food coma after I eat so I waited until I was ready to sleep and sure Ben was done roaring. I took my pill right after I finished, texted a picture of the empty tray (a frozen meal) to Younger as promised, and exchanged a few texts with her. I konked out in the middle of typing a sentence, sometime after midnight.

The 6:45 med alarm woke me up. I’ve got the alarms set to gradually get louder. I don’t like being startled awake, and I usually hear it when it’s still pretty low volume, even with my partial deafness. This morning it was blaring full volume before I could find my phone and get my fumble fingers to do the swipey thing that makes it stop.

I got up, got Ben up, got Sven up and fed, put some food down for Zeus and went to look at the sky… heavily overcast. No pretty sunrise pictures, and that was probably good because in the rush, I hadn’t given Ben his meds… the reason for the alarm. I Doped His Face and took more pictures of Sven. He had to eat a big piece of mustard greens with his worm. He showed his displeasure by scattering some of the greens, probably looking for more worms.

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By then it was almost time to go get Daughter. I had to get one of the portable chargers to plug Ben’s tablet into, cuz during his roaring last night he’d unplugged his tablet and it only had 2% battery when I woke him up. He likes to bring his tablet when we Drive Miss Daisy. Luckily, he didn’t do the mad dash to find fifteen other things to bring today. We got to the hospital a little early and had to wait, but only a couple minutes.

We got home and he rolled the window up without complaint or games. We fought past the Dogzilla, whose whining was muffled by the toy in his mouth. Ben was still wandering as I locked the front door and took the key out, I was afraid he was waiting for me to move so he could bang his head and fall down. Misplaced fear… he went after the Oreos. Cookies for breakfast? Sure, why not?! It’s 2020, “Anything Goes” (WP glitching again, won’t let me link. GRRRR! https://youtu.be/2jV_puhanl8) Anyway, no head banging and falling… YAY!

Daughter went to change out of her scrubs and do some Couch Sittin before Ben’s 10am Zoom. She planned to go sleep for a few hours after the Zoom, since she’s off tonight and can sleep all night. I went to my room for some Horizontal Time before I had to do Couch Sittin Duty after the Zoom.

Ben was given many warnings about the 10am scheduled Zoom. When it was time to log in he suddenly needed to use the bathroom. He spent almost ten minutes on The Throne with nothing to show for it. Daughter got him to the Chair Of Zoom and logged him in. He spent the entire time being disruptive, scripting Angry Words and falling out of his chair. Daughter is SO over trying to make him participate and dealing with the aftermath, she just let it play out. She asked him to get back in the chair and to pay attention but she didn’t make a big deal about it.

At 10:30am he was released, she went to go lay down and I began my second tour of Couch Sittin Duty. Ben played with his dominoes for a little while, and at 10:45 I gave him his Seroquel. He paced around for a while after taking the med, then settled down on the couch, next to me and watched his tablet.

He got up several times to use the bathroom, all unsuccessful. I’ve told Daughter that we need to make him try every day. I think part of the reason he gets constipated is because he holds it. He holds his urine too. I don’t know why he does it, but I know it’s unhealthy.

Between his 1pm half Adderall and his 2:30 meds he decided to build “Fox Searchlight Pictures” logo out of Starbursts. Then of course he said “I need tape!” When what he meant was “You! Peasant. Begin taping those together, at once!” So of course I taped the dag-nabbit Starbursts together. I grumbled about it the entire time too. He just ignored me.

At 3pm he got back on the couch. He sat right up against me (Ben’s version of cuddling) and watched his tablet. Daughter stumbled down the hall about fifteen minutes later. The first thing she said was “Why isn’t the AC on?” I told her it wasn’t that hot. (The Guesser’s site had the current temperature as 82°F [28°C]) She rolled her eyes at me and turned it on. I poured myself some cold Sweet Tea, started a new batch and went to get Horizontal. Ben walked by with his arms full of his stuff. I looked at Daughter and said “I guess he’s moving in.” She said “looks that way” Sigh…

Ben hung out with me until 4:00pm or so, then went to go hang out with Daughter. Zeus stayed exactly where he was. He’s my shadow. I heard Ben asking Daughter if she had work tonight. I don’t think he likes the stress of “work nights” any more than we do. We’ll just continue the mellow vibe we’ve got right now, right up until bedtime. Maybe I can even go to sleep before midnight tonight. Anything is possible at Casa Cuckoo.

I heard this song on the radio this morning when I was driving to get Daughter from work. A fun song with a simple message, ignore the lies, don’t play the game…

Another Casa Cuckoo day. A rushed morning, a useless Zoom, Couch Sittin, Arts and Crafts, and unsuccessful BM attempts. I’d say it was a pretty typical day. Even when it’s mellow and relaxed, it’s always cuckoo. Thanks for hanging out with us and sharing our Adventures. Daughter is off until Friday night, she’ll be doing most of the Couch Sittin and deciding whether to Zoom or not. We never know what’s happening until it happens. ¡Hasta mañana!

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HUGS!

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