Part 217 ~ 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 started taking pictures for my Science Project around 5:30pm. At 5:50 I asked Daughter about Ben’s meds, she had lost track of time too. She gave him his meds a few minutes later. I continued to take pictures and Ben continued to be a SpazmaTaz. That last hour or ninety minutes before bed are always so chaotic. It’s exhausting.

Around 6:15pm I ran his bath, so he ran outside… another one of his games that I don’t like. Still occasionally taking pictures, I cleaned up ALL of the chalk, and ALL of the Jenga size blocks, and ALL of the dotted dominoes, and most of the blank domino size blocks. It was nearly impossible to walk without stepping on something.

The tub was ready, the sun was down, the Stuff was picked up, and Ben was still outside. I went to get him. He was laying on the ground outside the side door. He said “Sun is gone.” I told him he was correct, and asked if he was ready for his bath. He said he was but needed “help” to get up. (deep breath) I helped him get up and yadda yadda yadda…

I took a few more pictures while he was playing, but he didn’t play long. He was ready for bed, and I was ready for him to go to bed. Daughter tucked The Boys in and I covered Sven.

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I did the Things and was starting the Stuff and I started getting dozey. I still had way too much I wanted to do… I got up to check my frozen dinner options, but none of them sounded great, so I postponed the decision. Back to Horizontal and working through comments and a few posts. And then it was 11pm. DANG IT! I had konked out…

I tried to stay awake, there was Stuff I wanted to do! None of it was life and death, none of it was all that important to anyone except me, but dang it! it was my Stuff, and I was pretty upset that I couldn’t stay awake. So, I made the attempt, and the body hit the dag-nabbit OFF switch again, cuz it was suddenly 1am. I sent a quick message to a friend and explained why I hadn’t done what I was going to do, took my pill and gave in.

Around 6am Ben got under the blankets with me. Poor Zeus had to stretch over Ben to sniff my ear. Ben said “Gramma come living room.” I said okay but he didn’t move so I could get up. We stayed under the blankets for almost a full minute! He told me Living Room again and I said okay again. He got up, I got up and off we went to begin our Casa Cuckoo Thor’sDay.

I saw that I had a notification from my bank that my account was overdrawn, and I was seriously confused. How was that even possible? So I signed into the app and found that the stupid bank had made an error. I figured I’d deal with it when Daughter got up. I needed to give Ben his meds and uncover Sven.

Face Doped, Sven uncovered and lit, I paparazzi’d then grabbed his dish. While grabbing the wilted greens from yesterday, I found that Sven hadn’t gotten the leftover worm or the two new ones yesterday. Three worms in the bottom of his dish, hiding under the greens. They went on top of the fresh greens, next to the two leftover blueberries and a couple fresh ones. I’m pretty sure they burrowed down again before Sven paid attention to his food.

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After Sven went to the Judgey Corner, I went to check out the sky… completely overcast. It was really quiet in the neighborhood… even the crows were still sleeping. No people, no birds, no Sun… I went back inside. I decided not to wait until Daughter got up to deal with the bank issue. It was bugging me!

This is the second time a check written by a radiology business payroll account has been debited from my account instead of theirs. Something about similar account numbers and the signature blurring one of the numbers… it confuses the computer and I get to spend an hour on the phone, being transferred from department to department, waiting on hold from five to twenty minutes with each transfer. Thank goodness Ben was pretty mellow this morning so I could handle this little issue of the missing eleven hundred forty-two dollars… ya know, just a minor, little bit of pocket change… Sheesh!

I got it taken care of, finally. I got transferred into dead space at one point and had to start over, but I kept my cool, kept my Zen… I worked in a call center handling problems and I always appreciated when people treated me courteously. Yelling and being belligerent doesn’t solve the problem any faster or better. It wasn’t really anyone’s fault, it was just a computer error, easily fixed… in two business days. (It didn’t take that long last time, it was fixed the next day.)

Daughter got up around 8:30. I told her about my morning and what time we got up and blah de blah blah blah… Then I went to get Horizontal and hopefully stay awake long enough to do some WP, email and text Stuff.

Around 9:30 Ben came into my room in Full On SpazmaTaz Mode. He was playing with Zeus, but he was playing rough and Zeus was playing rough right back. It wouldn’t have bothered me except they kept bumping into me, being loud and nearly making me motion sick with the bedquakes. Ignoring my protests, they continued for almost forty-five minutes. That hour or so between 9:30 and 10:30 when Ben’s meds lapse is generally not much fun.

At 10:17 he took off for the living room. I noted the time in gratitude for the end of the bedquakes. I also noticed that it looked brighter outside so I went to look at the sky. The Sun was burning through the clouds, but there were still enough to be pretty, so I took pictures.

Then I got a refill of coffee and started on WP. I got through my comments and was working through my Reader, making progress, then just before noon, I had an incoming call… it was my mother. The dilemma. To answer, decline or just let it ring through to voicemail? I let it ring through. She left a voicemail and I listened to it. She wanted me to call her back. It didn’t sound like an emergency but I knew I’d have to talk to her. (Not that I have to talk to her, but there’s been no reason for complete No Contact. I just choose not to spend a lot of time with her… long, complicated…) I went back to WP for about fifteen or twenty minutes then that dang Sword Of Damocles… I figured it would be better to get it over with, so I called.

She kept me on the phone for an hour, and she only got off the phone because someone came to visit her. She only calls me when she’s alone. She can’t stand to be alone. Her ex-husband/roommate is dating someone new and my mother is very much hurt and bothered that he’s “abandoning” her… complicated. Ben hung out on the bed with me while I was talking to her, and Daughter came in at one point to give him his half Adderall and tapped my leg to ask who I was talking to, so I mouthed “my mother” and she made a booboo face and mouthed “sorry”. I shrugged.

Like I told a friend, I was doing okay, my “Zen” was intact, I guess today is just my day to wear tall boots, cuz the caca is deep! The weather was still nice and Ben was in a relaxed mood. Life is gonna throw stuff in your path… I could let a couple of not so great events ruin my day, or I could shrug and be glad they were over and handled to the best of my ability, then continue on.

Around 2:30 Ben started yelling and scripting Angry Words, and Daughter was saying something I couldn’t hear. They were butting heads over something. Ben went out and moved the stuff blocking the gate, he was really upset over something and Daughter had gone stomping after him. Oh boy! I guess Ben had snatched her phone and she didn’t say anything at the time, but when he got up off the couch with it, she snatched it back. She told him if he wanted to use her phone he needed to ask. It’s something we’ve been working with him on for his entire life. He sees something he wants, he just takes it. NOT okay. Some things he doesn’t get whether he asks or not, but her phone is generally not a big deal… just ask first. He was able to ask, she let him have it but told him to stay inside. Of course he had to push that by sitting on the step by the side door. Then he pushed it farther and went completely outside. I went and brought him back. By 3pm he was laying on my bed, watching his tablet. He still had her phone, but he was calming himself down. Great progress on self-regulation!

Daughter came in around 3:30 and asked Ben to sit up. She told him she wasn’t angry anymore, and that she loved him. He said “okay”, which is what he says a lot of times when he’s confused or doesn’t know what to say. She asked for a hug and he gave her one. Then he said he would “ring Doctor Brown Bear”… Ugh! More Peppa Pig.

I want to share one more thing before I mentally prepare myself for the chaos that usually happens around sunset/dinner/bath/ bed time. This

I put my ballot in my mailbox for the letter carrier to take and I got notified when the post office had it, and today I got notified it’s at the Registrar Of Voters. Daughter’s arrived too. The no reason NOT to vote. Please vote! (BLUE WAVE)

One of those songs you know, but have no idea what it’s called or who sings it… or is that just me?

Well today was interesting… a narcoleptic night, followed by a financial fiasco before coffee. Then some serenity shattered by a cringey call. That was just the morning. The afternoon was pleasantly peaceful until the snatching son made off with the cellphone. Thank goodness that didn’t lead to a full meltdown though it certainly seemed headed that way. What will Friday bring? Daughter is supposed to return to work tomorrow night. I told her she doesn’t need to decide until noonish tomorrow whether she’s feeling well enough to work. She could wake up feeling great or ten times worse. As for me and Ben and the Big Dumb Dog… who knows?! We just make it up as we go along. Laughter and fun is our aim, come join our games. ¡Hasta mañana!

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HUGS!

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