Part 201 ~ 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.

At 5:30pm I jerked myself out of a doze. I went and told Ben it was time to fix his ponytail and take a bath. He fought me while I brushed his hair, he always fights me. I got it brushed and rebraided and started his bath. Then I went and did Sciencey Stuff while the water was running.

When the tub was full enough I told him it was time. Of course he ran off outside. I went and got him and told him that I didn’t think it was a fun game. Did he think it was a fun game? I wasn’t angry or accusatory, I wanted him to tell me whether he thought it was fun or just something he did. I’m not sure he understood, but he said it was fun.

I got him in the tub and was helping him get cleaned up, and he was testing me. He splashed me and jerked his hands away, testing me. I don’t know why… I wasn’t grouchy with him or rough. He must’ve felt insecure about something though. Anyway, I got him cleaned up and left him to play. I went to take more pictures.

When he was done, Daughter escorted him to bed. I didn’t even get a “Goodnight”. Alrighty then. I took pictures, then edited, took pictures, then edited… until the pretties were mostly gone.

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Daughter went to her room and I turned the AC off and noticed Sven was still uncovered. UGH! I covered him and turned his lights off, straightened up a little. I did my Night Things, then got Horizontal and wrote a couple emails. Then I did some WP stuff, ate my Double Double and missed my goal of going to sleep before midnight. I didn’t take my pill until midnight. I got stuck on a simple problem but my brain was grinding the gears. Once I was able see the simple, in my face, solution it was better, but I spent an hour doing all the wrong things. Don’t ya just hate when that happens?!

I woke up a bunch of times in the night… dreams I don’t remember. It was a turbulent night. I have a few friends who are having a rough time and my thoughts have been with them. I don’t know if my woo woo, juju beliefs are self-fulfilling, but I’ve been trying to take away their negatives and replace it with my “Zen”. The dreams may have been a “cleaning out” for me… and them. I hope so anyway.

At 6am Zeus was barking, Daughter was yelling at him as she opened Ben’s door to let him out, AND my alarm was going off. Another morning begun at Casa Cuckoo. Ben slept through the whole thing.

I got up, went to the baño, got some coffee and went to check out the sky. WOW! I took a bunch of pictures, then went back in to uncover Sven. Daughter got Ben up at 6:15am, he was under a blanket on the couch when I uncovered Mr Grumpy Beard. I dropped one of Sven’s bowls when I was dumping the old greens out and of course it shattered. I’ve been dropping things a lot lately. I hope the nerve damage in my arms/hands isn’t getting worse.

I got Sven’s food, greens and two worms and put it in its place and paparazzi’d him. The worms had burrowed under the greens, but Sven was trying to get them… bless his little reptile heart.

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I tilted the dish for him but he gave up and went to the Judgey Corner. He’d had some greens… maybe he’d get the two worms later.

I was still going back to the gate every few minutes to take pictures of sunrise. I was helping Daughter get Ben ready but I was mostly focused on the sunrise.

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The first picture is the Moon and Mars in the western sky, the second shows Venus. The rest of the pictures are not filtered or had anything done to them except cropping. WOW! Right?! The crows were visiting and the solitary seagull stopped by and hung out on a nearby power pole. I guess he came by to say Good Morning.

Then it was 7:20am and time to go wait for the bus. Daughter is out of practice and didn’t have everything quite ready. I helped and Ben just followed along. The bus passed us as I was leading Ben down the driveway, I told Daughter to hurry up and forget the chair. I rounded the corner and waved to the bus to let them know we were coming. Ben and Daughter rounded the corner and we walked to the bus. It was kinda rushed. Getting the tablet and ramen bowl away from Ben, Daughter had to wipe his nose with her sleeve and she forgot the wipes for his dirty hands and mouth. Then we almost forgot to send his water bottle, I was holding it along with Ben’s stuff and Daughter’s stuff… but Ben was on the bus, water bottle delivered and all was well. He waved and “blew kisses” and the bus drove away… HAPPY DANCE ! Yep, right there in the parking lot. I didn’t care if people thought I was deranged. It had been a fantastic morning so far, and I was Happy!

Daughter and I went back to the house, me dancing the whole way and went inside. We did all the stuff… plugged Ben’s tablet in, put stuff away, cleaned up after Dogzilla… set the house back to right. Then she went to her room and I got Horizontal and started editing the pictures, texting Younger, going through email and WP. Stuff… Happy stuff!

I spent the entire time Ben was at school doing a whole bunch of laying down and goofing on my phone. I got a notification that the prescription I dropped off on Saturday (?) was ready, and I thought about going and getting it, but decided I didn’t need it, so staying Horizontal won.

At 1:31pm Ben was scanned onto the bus. He was on his way home. I waited with Daughter for the bus to pass by, and went with her to meet it and get Ben. (NOTE: when a school bus has it’s lights flashing and the little stop sign out, do NOT drive past the bus! A child is getting on or off the bus, and for safety’s safe, stop!!) I watched two cars pass the bus without even slowing down. People! ARG!!!

Ben was very excited when he got home. He practically ran down the bus steps, and could hardly wait to get in the house to show us his “new dominoes”. It was a set of primary colored, game dominoes with the dots. I told him that his teachers must really like him a LOT to let him have the dominoes. He sat down and started playing with them. Daughter got his shoes, socks, jacket and tie off. She somehow managed to get him to wear shorts today! With the weight the meds put on him, basketball shorts fit better than long pants. Plus, in the heat, shorts are better than sweats!

Daughter and Ben stayed in the living room and I went back to my room to catch up on my goofing off. Horizontally, natch. Ben came to visit a few times… kinda. He came into my room, hit himself in the stomach and fell on my bed, then said “Gramma” It was kind of a visit. Another time he did a running, cannonball Bounce and landed on his back with his legs in the air. Thank goodness I have a California King size bed or he would’ve clobbered me. Then he said “Gramma, look.” I didn’t have my glasses on, and I’m severely nearsighted, so all I saw was a red line on his leg by his knee. It looked like an ouchie. I asked what happened and grabbed my glasses. It was marker. I told him he’d tricked me, I thought he got hurt but it was just marker. He said “take a bath” and I told him he was right, we’d clean it off in the bath.

Daughter will be cooking steak for him soon. He asked for “white chicken” the last time she made steak and she told him “tomorrow”. That was a couple (few?) nights ago. I need to talk to her about doing what she says with him. Ben has a fantastic memory. She’s hurting herself, damaging his trust in what she says, when she forgets or makes offhand statements. Anyway… sunset and Science later. Also bath and bed. Rinse, repeat…

A mellow song to go with a mellow day…

Well… we had a nice sunset last night, a spectacular sunrise this morning, and a whole lot of laying around like people of leisure today. The only things missing were the nice weather and the scantily clad bartender/server. The weather actually did change. It was hazy today, and a little cooler. No school tomorrow, but no work for Daughter either so we’ll probably do some more nothing. Of course, this IS Casa Cuckoo and things change quickly so there’s no telling what might happen. Come by tomorrow and find out with us. ¡Hasta mañana!

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HUGS!

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