Part 187 ~ 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.

Daughter made steak for Ben and he ate it while doing his chalk thang. She ran his bath and even gave him his bath. I was taking pictures of the sunset. After his bath, Ben wanted to go to bedtime.

I continued to take pictures for a while longer. It was so pretty. And the Parrots definitely flew by. I heard their squawking, saw their beautiful green color… I tried to take pictures, and I got a few but they fly so fast. I was happy enough just to have seen them

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Around 7:30 I went to run a couple errands. I went to Rite Aid to get wine for Daughter and I went to Vons for dog food and paper towels. While I was at Vons I stopped and talked to the pharmacist about Ben’s booster shot. She confirmed that insurance wouldn’t cover the shot unless it was done by his doctor. She checked on the cash price for me. With the discount it would be $53. She said it had been ordered and should come in tomorrow’s delivery. She suggested we call on Wednesday morning to make sure they have the medication, and if they do, then set up a time to bring Ben in to get shot. I called Daughter and explained while I was in line to check out.

Got home, made two trips to carry the four items in, put them away and went to get Horizontal. That’s when I heard Ben. Yep, still awake. He got louder and louder as time went on. He stayed in his room though, so we let him be.

Around 10pm I was in the kitchen, eating part of my Jersey Mike’s #13 “Sub In A Tub” (all the meat and cheese rolled up, and cut like sushi, laid on a bed of shredded lettuce, and topped with tomato slices, onions, spices and oil & vinegar) and Ben came out to use the baño.

I went and told Daughter, who hadn’t heard him get up. Zeus stayed in Ben’s room, he knew it wasn’t time to get up. I told him he was a Good Dog!, and got Ben’s water bottle to refill and made sure his tablet was plugged in (it wasn’t… 7% battery).

Without the details, Ben spent time sitting on the Throne, Daughter cheered him on, he was slightly successful. Daughter gave him stool softeners and tucked him back into bed. It was nearly 11pm by this time.

I went into a food coma from eating half of my “Italian sushi salad”… Daughter woke me around 11:30 to tell me about a scented candle she got as part of a Fall set that made her room smell like a “crisp Fall morning” and she was crying and telling me how happy she was. OY! She was tired, and from the slight slur, she was more than tipsy. I told how great it was that her room smelled so nice, and how awesome that it made her so happy. She repeated the story using the same words in a different order, and I made excited-for-her sounds. She went back to her room.

I took my pill sometime after midnight and went to sleep sometime after that. I dont remember hearing the 6:45am med alarm, so I was either deeply out, or I turned it off without realizing it. I got the spooning cuddle wakeup. It would’ve been sweeter if he wasn’t trying to push me off the bed. It was a little after 7am when I found my phone and got my eyes (one eye, I had to close the other, two wasn’t happening) to focus enough to see the time.

I got up to get his meds, he got up to use the baño. After Doping His Face, I did the Sven, sunrise, peasant to HRH thing. Sven got four worms on his mustard greens… I don’t think he got any of them. He has the WORST aim. Seriously… a worm had escaped the dish and was crawling along the floor of the terrarium, he tried five times and missed each time. He got mad and stomped off. It was pretty funny. I tried holding it for him but that didn’t work either. He’s not used to being hand fed, and the worms are only one inch long. It’s all the pet store had.

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I picked up the scattered greens a couple times. He may get the worms at some point. Poor Sven…

I got up too late for the actual sunrise, but it was overcast anyway. When I went out to look the clouds were burning off a little and it was beautiful. I even saw a pair of Parrots fly by. A happy start to the first day of Autumn (in the northern hemisphere. It’s the first day of Spring for those Down Under). Today is the Equinox (glitchy WP not allowing me to link again) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equinox… the time of equal hours of day and night. Of course, that varies depending on your latitude north or south of the equator. In the San Diego area we have twelve hours and seven minutes of daylight on the equinox. We’ve been losing about two minutes of daylight every day since late August. On the 26th of September we will have 11:59:12 of daylight, the closest to equal hours.

Anyway, cloudy sunrise… a few pictures to celebrate Equinox

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After taking pictures and rushing around doing all the Morning Stuff, I settled down with a cuppa and began my first tour of Couch Sittin Duty. I threw the ball for Zeus, talked to Ben, edited the pictures I’d taken (I only cropped them, no effects or filters) and just relaxed for a little while. Ben sat with me or paced or played with his Jenga size dominoes. He was able to have a small success in the baño around 7:30am. I cheered for him as I cleaned him up. (Yes! We cheer for poop. Ben, like many children on the Spectrum has G.I. issues and constipation is a common problem.)

Daughter got up around 8:30. I was just finishing up a plumbing fix that I’d been meaning to do. The bathroom sink has been draining slower and slower. I knew I needed to clean the gunk from the U-Bend in the pipe. I got that all cleaned out and was putting it back together when Daughter got up. There’s still a toothpaste cap stuck in the drain that I can’t get out. She was stuck doing the Potty Dance again. Seems like if I want her to get up, I need to be working on something in the bathroom.

I gave my report, got more coffee and went to get Horizontal. She had a sad face and I asked her why. She was sad that I got cuddles. I told her No, I got pushed out of bed as he was trying to steal the warmth. Ben “cuddles” are when he leans against you on the couch.

Ben had a Zoom scheduled with his Speech and OT at 10:30am. Daughter gave him warnings, starting at 10am. At 10:20 Daughter told Ben it was almost time. He got up and ran outside to his dirt hole. She went out at 10:28 to ask if he was going to come in and talk to his teachers, he told her No. She came in and emailed whoever.

I let her know when the 10:45 med alarm went off and she took the med to him in the dirt hole. He came back inside around 11:00am, telling Daughter he wanted to talk to his teachers. I guess he doesn’t understand that he has to do it according to the schedule, not whenever he feels like it. Daughter explained that it was all over. He missed it, he chose to play in his dirt hole instead. He has a very difficult time understanding consequences of actions. I don’t know if it’s a kid thing, an autism thing or a Ben thing… I know it makes keeping him safe more difficult. He had another Zoom scheduled for 11:30. Daughter told Ben he could talk then. It won’t be his Speech and OT, it’s a “Group” session.

When I noticed it was 11:38, I figured Daughter decided to skip the Zoom. On Tuesdays, we generally only have him do the one session with his Speech and OT anyway. Ben was hanging out with me in my room at the time. I was gonna ask Daughter, but Meh… didn’t really care. We are SOOO over the whole Zoom thing!

Ben was back and forth between my room and the living room. I hollered out the med alarms to Daughter, and she thanked me. We all three just kinda did our own things with the med alarms marking the passage of time. A very relaxed morning and early afternoon.

Around 2:15 we were struck by a tragedy of epic proportions… Ben was out of poofs. I quickly changed into shorts without holes in them, put on my mask, slipped into the hated shoes and walked about fifty yards to the market. I got his poofs and I got more Oreos too. Then I made the trek all the way back home to deliver the treasure to HRH. No thanks were given for my great sacrifice in donning footwear. I was not even personally acknowledged. HRH took a bag of poofs, flopped on my bed and began munching. The med alarm went off and I got the meds from Daughter and took them in to HRH on my bed. Then I put my holey shorts back on, after kicking the shoes off, yadda yadda yadda…

And that about does it for the adventures. An hour of me rushing around this morning followed by a whole lot of laying around. I like it! It was a few degrees warmer today and the Guessers app shows Summer isn’t done with us yet. Triple digits at the end of the month, 90s until then. It’s not uncommon for SoCal. It’s a bummer though. I’m tired of the hot. No Driving tonight, no errands tonight, just sunset pictures to take. Very important Scientific Research photos…

This song makes me think of Autumn or Autumn makes me think of this song. Whatever… It’s Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere now and a Led Zeppelin song is always a good song! (NoC-NAT )

Thanks for spending the equinox with us. Tomorrow is the big sunset reveal. The first part of all my diligent Scientific Data gathering will show results. But the project isn’t over until December when we compare Summer Solstice to Winter Solstice. That’s the full range of movement. But that’s for December, tomorrow we compare solstice to equinox. And maybe Zoom, and maybe take Ben to get shot. I guess we’ll find out tomorrow. ¡Hasta mañana!

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HUGS!

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