Part 204 ~ 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.

A little after 5:00pm I put “orange chicken” in the toaster oven to cook for Ben. Daughter wandered out around 5:20pm. She took over living room duty and I went to my room. I told her I’d put the chicken in cuz I didn’t know when she was gonna get up or what she had planned for his dinner. At 5:45 I went back to the living room to brush and rebraid Ben’s hair. He was eating his chicken and watching his tablet. Daughter gave him his night meds when I was done with his hair. I started taking pictures for Science.

The sunset and sunrise has been so pretty lately that even I forget that reason for the pictures is not only the beauty, but my Science Project of tracking the Sun’s position through the seasons.

While I was taking pictures I heard the Parrots. I was looking for them, and walked around to the south side of the house. They were flying around to the south, but coming north. I took a couple pictures and then a bunch of them started landing in my Pecan tree. I was very excited as they kept coming and coming. I switched to video to record them. (WP won’t let me put a video block in my post because I don’t have a “Premium” account.) I took a quick four second video to share, then I took a longer, twenty second video. I linked the short one. They started leaving as quickly as they came. I thanked them for visiting and invited them to come back anytime.

Ben had pretty much finished eating so I ran his bath. I was still taking sunset pictures throughout. When the tub was ready, Ben ran off, outside… I really don’t like that game. I left him and started cleaning up the chalk and carrying his stuff to his room. I also covered Sven for the night. Daughter brought Ben inside and I got him into the tub and cleaned up, then left him to play. I finished taking his stuff to his room, and edited pictures during the “intermission”. There wasn’t much after the sun was gone, but I didn’t care. I was ecstatic and Happy Dancing all over the place because Parrots!!

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When Ben was done in the tub, Daughter escorted him and Zeus to bed. I didn’t get a kiss or a Goodnight. After The Boys were in bed I did all the Stuff I usually do. I didn’t wind up eating until 11:30pm or so, then took my pill around 12:15am-ish. I’m not really sure what time I finally went to sleep.

I know it was around 5:30am when I heard BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! Daughter and I both came running. She asked “What are you doing?” I told her it looked like Ben was having trouble with his words this morning and wanted us to get up with him. Then I told Ben that he could’ve just come and got one of us, kicking the door isn’t a good thing to do. I asked Daughter how much sleep she’d gotten. She told me a couple hours, so I told her to go lay back down. She said No. I wasn’t gonna start the day arguing with her so I went back to my room.

The med alarm got me up at 6:30. I went to look at the sky in the east and took a couple pictures, then went to uncover Sven. I told Daughter the alarm had got me up and asked if she’d done his meds yet. She said she was waiting for 6:45am. Yeah, okay… contrary, stubborn, and cantankerous… that’s Older. I got Sven some fresh greens, the two worms were still hiding in the dish so they joined the fresh greens.

Sven and his aim… poor Dragon. I tried switching to a different dish but that didn’t help, so I switched back and put the worms on top. He got one of them, but couldn’t get the second. He ate some of the greens and just dropped some of the others. Finally, I dumped the dish, so the worm was on the substrate. It took him many tries and the worm almost got under the big tile under his house. There’s a heat pad under the tile to warm it very slighly, so the tile doesnt lay flush. Sven finally got the second worm and I put the greens back in his dish.

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In between helping Sven “hunt” his worms, I was checking the sunrise by the back gate. There were a lot of clouds but there was also a small area near ground level that was clear. I missed most of the progression but the sunrise was pretty! The sun looked red when it first came up, but that didn’t make it to the pictures.

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When I’d finished with Sven and sunrise it was getting close to 8am and my time slot for the WallyWorld pickup. I was getting dressed and I got notifications that it was ready… like ten minutes early. So off I went, after “checking in” on the app. It was busy in the pick up area but there were two people working it so I didn’t wait long. Even better, I didn’t konk myself in the head on the hatch latch thingy. Dude loaded the stuff, closed the hatch and I was on my way home.

I made two trips from the car to the front door and left the stuff outside. I did NOT want a repeat of the chaos of yesterday. Between the two trips, Daughter opened the door and started carrying the stuff inside. Much smoother this time. I went straight to my room and let her put the stuff away. Ben was doing his chalk thang right in front of the fridge, so Daughter was the grumpy one this time cuz Ben didn’t want to move. I kept my mouth shut! The stuff was put away and I was Horizontal. I gave myself about twenty minutes to relax, then took my and Ben’s clothes around the house and put them in the washer. After that load was done, Daughter took her load around and put it in.

Around 11am I took the clothes over to the dryers. I had to go to the 7-11 next to the laundromat to break a twenty dollar bill. Daughter wanted a Gatorade or Powerade… some kind of ade. I didn’t see the Quarter Lady when I put the clothes in, but I saw her outside talking to another lady in the parking lot when I went back to pick up my clothes. She acknowledged me with a head nod, but that was it. I got my clothes, took them home, then folded and put away my and Ben’s stuff. Then I went to the living room to take over Couch Sittin Duty.

Daughter was in the shower so I moved all of her stuff into her room and straightened up. Then I was able to sit down with Ben. When she got out of the shower at 12:15pm, I asked her what time she was planning on getting up, or did she know. She said 4pm and that she planned on pizza for Ben’s dinner. I told her okay, that we had to stick to “The Schedule” tonight since she has to work. She agreed and went to bed.

Ben sat on the couch for a while, then did chalk, then dominoes, then back to the couch. We just chilled. I did some Arts and Crafts, cutting and taping mostly. Just hanging out together…

Around 3:15pm he was eating Blue Ramen and watching his tablet and I was fighting to stay awake. I got up and started picking up chal. Ben came and took a picture of his artwork with his tablet, then started playing with one of the sets of dominoes. I finished cleaning up the chalk, then picked up the other, dotted dominoes from the kitchen area.

Daughter took over Couch Sittin Duty at 4:30pm. I went to stretch out for a little while before we start getting into The Schedule, getting Ben fed, bathed and ready to go with us to Drive Miss Daisy… the calm before the chaos.

To go along with the calm, here’s one of my favorite Jack Johnson songs…

Thank you for running errands with me and relaxing with us and last night… The Parrots!! Casa Cuckoo is an unusual place with unique inhabitants, that’s for sure! It’s not really surprising when weird stuff happens, is it? Bring your own unique selves by tomorrow. We’ll see what kind of Adventures we can find. ¡Hasta mañana!

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HUGS!

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