Part 230 ~ 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 took my pictures and Ben played with his chalk. He came outside to the dirt hole to sweep dirt into the air, and hang out with me for after a awhile. After the Sun was below the horizon, “Intermission“, I went back inside to clean up the chalk, then I waited to see if there would be pretties to go along with the Sciencey Stuff.

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Meds at 5:45pm, bath at 6pm and then he played. I edited the pictures and sent a few texts and email. I munched on veggie spring rolls and cream cheese rangoons while I was taking all of Ben’s stuff to his room for bedtime. I turned off Sven’s lights and covered him, he looked pretty tired too.

After kisses, Ben went to bed and took Big Dumb Dogzilla with him. Daughter went to her room and I did Night Things and some Stuff. I also worked on getting caught up on WP. I stayed away from all things interwebby. I was NOT trying to get sucked into the black hole of Election Night Predictions. A peaceful day, a peaceful evening and dad-gummit! I was gonna have a peaceful night! I took my pill around 11pm, konked out with chocolate in my mouth… brown drool… so gross!

Ben gave me a big, old fashioned Bounce this morning around 5:30am. After cleaning up the brown drool, I grabbed my stuff and headed to the living room. I set my stuff down and went to get his tablet and water bottle. He grabbed his tablet, then pulled the blanket over his head. I went to look for Venus. There was just a tiny bit of light and color along the horizon and Venus was shining brightly, high is the eastern sky.

I took a bunch more pictures. Some of the Moon, some of sunrise from the gate or my kitchen window. I saw my lone seagull and got a picture and a crow was on a branch, appearing to watch sunrise also. Zeus followed me, like Mary’s Little Lamb, everywhere I went, and Ben stayed on the couch, fake laughing really loudly.

The 6:30am med alarm never went off. I noticed the time at 6:40 and doped his face. I uncovered Sven and turned his lights on. He didn’t look especially pleased with the arrival of morning… I completely understood. He headed to his dish pretty quickly and I left the food from yesterday for a little while… give him a better chance to get the worms since the greens were wilted and/or dried out. Poor Triangle-Head Sven… I felt bad watching him eat wilty greens, so I grabbed the dish and cleaned it up, got fresh greens and a few new blueberries to go with the leftovers and the two worms from yesterday. He looked at the fresh food, then got tired and rested his head on the dish. Such a weirdo… Casa Cuckoo resident for sure!

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Then I was waiting around for 8am, so could do the WallyWorld pickup. I was bummed that they didn’t have the turkey breasts either. I may have to just get a whole turkey… such a waste!

Ben finally started to chill out and was munching on Blue Ramen and drinking a diet coke, when at 7:45am I got a notification that my pickup order was ready. I went and woke Daughter up. I felt bad about waking her up, but I needed her to be aware enough to listen out for Ben. Plus, the huge shopping was her idea.

She got up, I drove to WallyWorld. There were a few other things they were out of, but I can get them at my regular grocery store. I really do hate giving my money to that company, but they are the only ones that have Ben’s “orange chicken”, and stuff like storage bags, pantry stuff and shampoo, conditioner, lotion are cheaper there. I got myself some super dense cream for my plaque psoriasis. It’s been extremely flared in the dry weather, and the scales are building thicker and thicker. I got a cream with salicylic acid too, to help loosen the scales. Those two items were about $20 at WallyWorld. I looked at the lotions and creams at my usual store yesterday… I could’ve gotten the dense cream for $18, but they didn’t even have the cream with the salicylic acid. I really need to find a Rheumatologist. I now have scales everywhere there is regular skin… and I mean ev-er-y-where!

Okay, Psoriasis Tangent over, moving on… I got home and carried all the bags up to the door. I figured Daughter would hear me dropping them off on the stoop, but she didn’t. The last few bag I stepped over the rest and carried into the house, then she got up and started carrying bags inside. Of course The Boys had to get in the middle of everything and Ben wanted to know where his toy was. Utter chaos! I told Ben, as I always do, that it was just food, I told him I ordered a new toy, coming tomorrow (a different flip phone that I saw when I was ordering a second, duplicate Peppa Phone… to have put away, just in case), and I told Zeus “scoot!”, “move!”, and “get out of my freakin way, dog!” After the stuff was all put away, I asked Daughter if she wanted me to take back over Couch Sittin Duty. She said No, so I went to get Horizontal. I was going to start on my WP reader, but HRH kept Bouncing me and needing HELP with this, that and everything else. Daughter was right there, offering assistance, but apparently I am the only person who opens a can of soda and inserts the straw correctly.

Before I knew it, Tempus had Fugit and it was 10:30… the med alarm told me. Ben had his meds and then he needed tape. He was bangin into my bed, he was jitter-jivin all over the house, he was in full on ADHD, SpazmaTaz, Crackerjack mode! I tried to get him to go to Daughter with his tape request, but it wasn’t happening. So I gave up and told him to bring me tape if he wanted something taped together. He brought me an old roll that lost its stickiness. Ugh! I told him to go get the other tape, next to Mom. “Go get the other tape. It’s next to Mom.” He was having trouble with language today too. Simple direct commands are best. He occasionally has processing delays so, direct command… wait… direct command… wait… he finally went to the living room, and Daughter held out the tape for him.

I was charged with creating a square tower, out of domino size blocks. He had them set how he wanted them, I just had to tape them together. With much Huffing and Puffing, the project was completed. Ten minutes later he was back, he needed tape again. He took me to the living room to show me that he had taken part of the tape off, scattering it on the floor, to redesign the tower. I sat down, tape in hand and counted out loud, backward from ten. Not that it helped much, but it stopped my head from spinning and prevented the pea soup. Plus, I was illustrating “what we do when we feel angry”, not that he was paying attention… he couldn’t.

I retaped the redesign and told him that Mommy could help him, that Mommy wanted to help him and play with him. I probably sounded like Charlie Brown’s Teacher to his ears. I went back to Horizontal time and tried, once again to get through my WP Reader.

He actually left me alone for a little while. I thought he’d found something to occupy himself. I heard him grunting “Let’s Go Fly A Kite” a few times, and that’s generally a Happy Noise.

Around 1pm he came and got me again… “I need tape” and bade me follow him. On the floor of the kitchen was a “castle”. It’s basically his rendition of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle from the Disney logo. I’ve made this for him before, you’ve seen the pictures. There were easily a hundred domino blocks in this color coordinated, multi level design he’d made. I should have taken a picture… shoulda, woulda, coulda. I sat down with the tape and very carefully began securing the dominoes together. I got one side done, then very, very carefully turned it over. It tried to come apart, but I was able to get it turned over. Whew! Then I secured the rest of it and handed it to him. Then I cleaned up all the tape he left scattered everywhere again when he took other things apart to use the dominoes for the castle. Then back to Horizontal Time and WP.

Around 2pm I heard Daughter telling Ben to “Stop” and “Put it somewhere else”… things sounded bad, cuz then she was telling him to stop, he was gonna hurt her. And then he started scripting and kicking the front door. She got him away from the door and he ran outside. I knew he was going to move the stuff from the gate. I asked her what happened and it was apparently over him wanting to set the castle up on the floor at the end of the chaise where she was laying, watching her laptop. The problem for Ben was that Daughter’s feet were hanging off the end. She didn’t want to move her feet, he didnt want to move the Castle. Jiminey Cricket On A Motorscooter!! He came back in the house after doing the gate thing and started telling me to get dressed and go to the store… police car again. I handed him my tablet and told him to find one. I told him we have to order toys and wait for the mail now. The stores don’t have them. He took the tablet but got bored after a few minutes and went to the living room. Meltdown averted. Thank goodness! It did cost me the last box of chalk. Gonna have to order more.

Daughter gave him his 2:30 meds at 2:20 while he was looking at my tablet. That helped too, I’m sure. The weather is probably partly to blame for the SpazmaTaz, Crackerjack, pinball bouncing around. It’s much, much warmer today and it’s supposed to be 95°F (35°C) tomorrow. High pressure almost always sets him spinning.

Ben came in and laid down on the bed with me just before 4pm. He seemed calmer, a little more relaxed. Daughter just told me she’s making “white chicken” for his dinner. Hopefully it stays down this time. She also said BFF is stopping by to bring stuff she bought for Ben and just to hang out. It’s just about time for Science. The AC has been on and the door closed, I don’t have any idea what the sky is like… guess I’ll find out.

My optimistic side believes that most people just want to live their lives, love their family and friends… the power-seekers have warped everything and unleashed our anger and frustrations, then turned them against each other instead of at them. I have have hope. I will keep “smiling on my brother” and planting my seeds of hope. John Lennon was/is not the only one… I’m with Kermit, looking for the Rainbow Connection…

A crazy day! The ether is jumping and dark… everyone feels it whether they believe in it or acknowledge it, or not. It’s been a rough one at the Casa too. Even I was feeling grumpy. I got over it, I don’t like feeling out of sorts. It’s probably going to be the same tomorrow. Our friends Across The Pond are going into lockdown, right before Bonfire Night. There’s gonna be some angry people there… I’m determined to keep away from the election news, until there is actually news. Speculation won’t do anything. I’m determined to hold onto my Zen and to share it with all of you. I’m determined to have some Adventures, some fun and some laughs. Lots of laughs! I hope you’ll join me. ¡Hasta mañana!

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HUGS!

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