Part 214 ~ 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.

I asked Daughter if she wanted me to make Ben’s dinner last night. At first she said no, she was fine, she knew she was running late… I stopped her. I told her I wasn’t criticizing, I was offering to help because I knew she wasn’t feeling well. I told her I didn’t want to just do it without asking because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. She started crying and said everything hurts her feelings. I told her I knew… it’s cuz she’s sick. She told me to go ahead and cook, so I did. She’d taken chicken out of the freezer, so I cut it up and cooked it. While it was cooling, I went and took some pictures. When I came back in, Ben had found the bowl and was already eating. I guess I did an okay job. It’s kinda hard to mess up cubed chicken breast sauteed in butter with salt, pepper and garlic.

While Ben was eating I brushed his hair out. I was happy to see that not very much came out. I thought his hair was dirtier than it was and decided to skip the hair washing. I rebraided it and let him finish eating. Daughter had me give him his meds at 5:30 and I ran his bath at 5:45. He got in the tub with minimal prompting, and I got him all cleaned up, then left him to play while I took more pictures.

When he was done playing, Daughter got him into his jammas and tucked into bed. Zeus followed cuz he knows he’s supposed to go to bed with Ben. He’s a Good Dog!

I kept telling myself I had enough pictures, then the sky would change. I wound up taking over 80 pictures of sunset. Don’t worry, I’m not using them all…

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

I did have a horrible time choosing. When I finally stopped taking pictures there was still light in the sky, but not much. I started editing and didn’t look outside. It was breath-taking and awe-inspiring and it made me very Happy!

Then I did the Things and some Stuff. Nuked some food and waited for it to cool. Made my way through my comments and found this

What can I say except THANK YOU! I am humbled and amazed that anyone finds my blabbing interesting enough to follow my blog. I don’t look at my stats and I had no idea how many followers I had… Five hundred is an unbelievable number. (I know that some are bots, or people who’re looking for a follow back to improve their stats. I also know that some of those five hundred aren’t active followers, or even blogging anymore… still… it’s a humbling number.)

I ate my food, read some posts and took my pill at 1:00am. I was wide awake and could’ve kept reading, but knew that sleep is very important too. Especially with Daughter and Ben both sneezing and coughing and the unknown virus around. We know it’s not THE virus but I don’t wanna get sick with any kind of Kootie, so eating and sleeping is what I’ll do, to keep my body healthy and ready to fight off invaders of the Kootie kind.

The 6:30am med alarm woke me up. No Zeus sniffing my ear, a quiet house… nice! I got up to get coffee. Daughter was in the baño, so I said hello and uncovered Sven and got his food ready. Of course I paparazzi’d him. He glared at me and made me stop after a while, but I got a few shots after that.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

I was waiting for my turn in the baño but knew Ben would be up soon. Daughter went ahead and opened his door, releasing the Dogzilla and saying hello to Ben who was apparently awake. Both of The Boys came running into the living room. I went out to check out the sky in the east. It looked overcast in the west, I wasn’t sure there’d be much to see. I was wrong. It was a very trippy sunrise. Lots of clouds but still a show. After the first couple pictures, I went back in for my turn on the Throne and answered all of Ben’s questions regarding school and this morning. Daughter had given him his meds after he used the bathroom. I asked him what he wanted to eat, he said Blue Ramen. I wanted him to have something in his stomach, for him to have a better chance of a good day. Last week was awful for him.

I was in and out taking pictures of the show Mother Nature was putting on, and helping Daughter get Ben ready, and getting myself ready to meet the bus. At 7:20 we all put our masks on and walked around to the parking lot to wait for the GLYSB. I took the last of my sunrise pictures from the parking lot.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Weird how all the color went away after the sun had gotten high enough. The bus was on time, Ben got on, no problem and sat down. He didn’t wave to us or even look at us. For all his protesting this morning, I think he was happy to go. I Happy Danced my way back to the house with Daughter and started editing the pictures from this morning.

Soon enough it was time to leave for my pump fill appointment. One thing I love about people still working from home is the lack of traffic on the freeway. I got to the office in fifteen minutes, a ten mile trip that would often take forty-five minutes B.K. (Before Kootie)

I lost two more pounds which bothers me. I’m down to 172.3 pounds. Way too low for my six foot frame. My blood pressure was good at 135/83. I generally run high and 157/93 would be “normal” for me. So lower BP = good, losing two more pounds = not so good. I have to go get Daughter’s other inhaler, that they had to order, later this afternoon, and I think I’m going to look at some of the other frozen meals, like the super protein ones… something with more calories.

Anyway, the pump fill went fine, but I was stuck waiting around while they fiddled with something to bring the amount of Fentanyl I get from 31.5mg to 30mg. Something to do with all the STOOOPID restrictions and guidelines from the DEA and the Medical Board. It was such a small adjustment the software that regulates my pump didnt want to recognize the change. Everything was finally set and relayed into my pump’s “brain” and I left for home.

I got Horizontal and started doing Stuff, intending to catch up on my WP READER, but kept dozing… Dang it!!

Before I knew it, and before I was ready TBH, I got the notification that Ben had been scanned onto the bus. He was headed home. I went to wait with Daughter in the living room for the bus to pass by so we could walk around and meet it. They scanned him on at 1:27pm… three minutes early again, I figured we had at least twenty minutes. The dang driver must’ve hit every green light between there and here cuz the bus went by at 1:46pm. Yes, almost twenty minutes but DANG!! his drop off time is 2:05pm. I’d like those other twenty minutes too please!

I ran out of the house without my mask. I forgot to grab it as I was literally running to catch up with Daughter. I told her to slow down, not walk so fast. She didn’t need to start coughing from pushing her lungs by walking fast. I stood away from the bus, in the parking lot with my bare face, Ben saw me when he got off the bus and came toward me. Better anyway, idjits speed up and down that little alley/street. We got him in the house and stripped off his shoes and socks, his jacket, tie and sunglasses. His t-shirt and basketball shorts stayed on.

Within ten minutes he was in my room saying “I need tape.” I told him the tape was next to Mom, so his next statement was “I need help.” Sigh… why do I even bother? I got the tape and made yet another “Searchlight”. When that was done and I was just getting back into what I’d been doing, he brought me the pieces for another. OY!! When he gets stuck on a thing, he gets seriously stuck! After the second one, Arts and Crafts time was over… for the time being anyway.

At 2:30pm Daughter gave Ben his meds. I called the pharmacy just before 3pm to see if Daughter’s other inhaler was ready. It was, so I put on my shoes and mask, grabbed the list Daughter made and I was off to the Dang store… again. The pharmacy was the main reason and my first stop. Twenty-five dollars seemed expensive for a generic inhaler, but she hasn’t given the pharmacy her updated insurance information. Big Dumb Dummyhead.

Whatever, I paid it and went to find the things on my list. She’s making the creamy soup with the chicken, carrots, celery, onions, garlic, corn, parmesan cheese and cheese tortellini. It’s very nom noms! We were out of chicken broth, carrots and onions, plus she wanted more Gatorade or Powerade… “ade”. I grabbed a few other frozen meals that had a few more calories than the Amy’s Bowls that I usually get.

The door was locked when I got back and I had to wait for her to let me in. The Boys mobbed me, especially since I’d grabbed the delivery from the porch. Ben thinks ALL deliveries are his. I gave it to him, I knew it was a case of Blue Ramen, and told him it was, but he ran off to open it. Dogzilla just wiggled and whined and stayed in my way. I must say “Move” or “Move, dog!” a hundred times a day, every day. Argh! I put the stuff away and went to get Horizontal again.

Daughter will be cooking soon… soup for us and “white chicken” for Ben again. He won’t mind, it’s his favorite. Then bath and bedtime. Time has gone by fast today. Another day of running on the hamster wheel and not getting anywhere. Seems to have been a few of these days lately.

Never have too much Tom Petty music…

Thank you for being patient and understanding with me as I try to get caught up on your posts. I made a small dent today, and I’ll be working on it some more this evening. I really and truly have NOTHING planned for tomorrow except putting Ben on the GLYSB and getting him off the bus. Hopefully that will remain my only things, and I can spend some time doing what I want to do… and hopefully I can stay awake long enough to do them. That’s the idea anyway, but you know how things are at the Casa, I never know when everything is gonna do a one-eighty or jump into an alternate reality. Come hang out with us, see what happens next. There’ll be fresh coffee and like any Southern (nod to Tom Petty) fridge, there’s Sweet Tea, fresh made. ¡Hasta mañana!

.

.

HUGS!

.

.