Part 310 ~ 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.

Younger Daughter arrived gathered her mail, gave Ben lots of hugs and kisses, came into my room, greeted the spastic Dogzilla, tried to talk to me and got irritated cuz Zeus wouldn’t calm down. I didn’t blame her. Zeus has been very, very naughty lately. He has always wanted to be in the middle of everything, but he usually calms down after he’s been greeted. Lately he acts like he never gets any attention or any food for that matter. Anyway, Younger gave me hugs and left. She was here no more than ten minutes.

I went to look at the sky, expecting pre-storm blah. Mother Nature decided to mix it up a little. There was some pre-storm blah in the west, but there was lots of pretty too. The clouds were very pretty off and on all day Friday, and I took too many pictures, so I made a video of them.

We got Ben fed, doped, bathed and ready to Drive Miss Daisy. Daughter was dropped off on time, minimal hassles, and we came back home. The Boys were tucked in, Daughter was texted and I started my usual evening routine.

I took my sleeping med halfway through my food and was asleep pretty early… 10:30pm I think. I woke up a couple times, but didn’t stay awake for long. I woke for good around 5:30am. Very nice!

I pottied, then puttered and looked at the sky. I let Dogzilla out of Ben’s room at 6:15am and told Ben to start waking up, then spent time giving scratches and belly rubs to Zeus. I gave Ben his meds at 6:30, then more sky. Back and forth until it was time to go get Daughter.

I was very lucky to be outside during the thirty seconds of magic…

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The entire cloud mass, and the rainbow within it, was gone in less than a minute. I watched it fade away… sad to see it go, but thankful and stoked to have been in the right place, at the right time.

We got Daughter, she was very happy to be leaving work. She had four admissions last night and they were all difficult for different reasons. They were all COVID patients, but they all had other things going on too. One had heart issues, one had had a stroke, one was in alcohol detox, and the other was moved from ICU cuz they needed the ICU bed for someone sicker. Daughter said the ICU person should not have been moved. The person was doing okay, but not really as stable as Daughter would’ve preferred.

Anyway, we got outta there and came home. I took the picture with the Sun above the horizon (can’t have Sunrise pictures without a picture of the Sun, risen… right, right?!?) then we all settled into our spots.

Ben and Zeus were on the couch with me, Ben putting together combos with his letters then having me tape them, Zeus was snoring and twitching. Daughter went to her room and went to sleep fairly early… before 9:30am.

Ben and I continued to hang out. He moved from having me tape the letters to arranging them like he does the pieces of chalk. Sometimes I can figure out what the letters mean, like “JDP” is Johnny Depp, but other combos mean nothing to me. I’ve asked him what the letter combos mean, and he won’t or can’t tell me.

After arranging all the letters, he asked for Pink Cookies. He’s been asking for them since last night. I had two boxes in the car, but didn’t bring them in until we brought Daughter home and we could hide them in her backpack. I’d found two packs of two cookies last night and gave him those this morning when his first words to me were “Pink Cookies?” Anyway, around 11am he asked for more, so I grabbed one of the boxes we’d snuck in. He was very happy.

After eating all the frosting and part of the top of the cookies, he dumped a bunch of chalk and started doing the chalk thang. It was a cold and rainy day. The only sounds were the traffic outside and the plop of the leak in the roof of the bathroom, dripping into the plastic container. At one point it was a steady stream of water dripping down… it must’ve been raining HARD. This whole house is falling apart.

A little after 2pm Ben decided he wanted to go outside… in the rain… to the dirthole-now-mudhole. UGH! It wasn’t raining hard, but it was cold and I thought he’d come right back inside. Nope! When the med alarm went off I tried to get him to come to the side door to take his meds… I didn’t want to go out in the rain. Nope! I changed out of my slippers and took the meds to him. He was using his broom to stir the water around. Then he stepped down to grab a stick to use as a “fishing pole” (DreamWorks boy on the Moon fishing) and stepped right into the water. My head almost exploded! I closed the door, and walked away. I couldn’t watch any more. He came in a couple minutes later and I stripped him and got him dry clothes. I hate rain! No… I hate when it rains when Ben is home and awake, because I hate MUD!

Daughter got up about ten minutes after Ben came in. I think I woke her up, yelling from the doorway, which is whatever, it was 2:30pm, time for her to get up anyway. She took over Couch Sittin Duty at 2:45pm and I got Horizontal and ordered more chalk. Man, I hope school reopens soon!

Daughter has work tonight then she’s off until Thursday night. We’ll be driving Miss Daisy and everything that goes along with that. There’s no sign that the rain intends to stop, so I won’t be taking too many pictures unless there’s a dramatic change before sunset.

Cuz rainbows and hope and MUPPETS!

Thanks for hanging out with us on this cold, soggy day. We have to pick Daughter up from work in the morning but that’s it as far as “plans”. Probably more Couch Sittin and probably more chalk, but other than that, anything could happen… or absolutely nothing. I vote for nothing. ¡Hasta mañana!

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HUGS!

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