I did not make any measurable therapeutic progress today. It was almost a perfect 360-degree arc from last Tuesday’s launch for recovery into disaster Wednesday, followed by Triumphant Thursday and into a satisfied Friday festooned with pride but without new landmarks.

The weekend was marked by gentle Yoga and a few sit-ups and the onset of a certain lassitude, pierced by the inability to to understand the mobility system regulated by the Woodbine Rehab units for our safety.

My fault. I rose Saturday with the intent to stride boldly down the corridors in a brisk stride. I got the exercises out of the way and rose to my feet only to suffer an immediate reprimand in the broken English that provides inadequate communication. “Nah, down! No Belt!” Was what the nurse said with volume and I think you will appreciate my measured response of “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?”

It took several exchanges with me fully upright until enough English could be produced in one room to translate more fully. A more complete exchange would have been:

Me: “I gotta get out of here! Out of my way!”

Skilled Nursing Staff: “Please Sir, you have clearly failed to peruse the Goodwin Rehabilitation Advancement manual so Situ-You Down!” That was followed on six interchanges by an abrupt turn and speedy departure.

The full translation required thirteen interactions with seven staff to produce a more complete version, rendered something like: ”Sir Speedy, we are pleased you now understand the mandatory use of a seatbelt strap of black or yellow color which must be worn around the chest to obviate need for the additional staff member rolling a wheelchair in formation behind the novice walker to avoid falls. A “Yellow Belt” is required for unsupervised visits to the restroom. For your safety.”

So you can see time moved a bit slowly, or at least until I turned my attention to finding a place to live without two roommates and their support staffs confined in a one-bedroom apartment.

With a bathroom permitting safe seated showering, easy access to a pleasant street and a safe place for the Mercedes, which I understand may be the next targets for defacement after Tesla’s.

I know, I know. that is a lot of terrain to cover and the Rehab center is in Alexandria, not Arlington, and the new Administration’s mandated 47,000 job cuts may have upended the housing market. It used to be always hot and always expensive. Getting to the assisted part introduces cost and broken English into the hunt.

Like: The old Condo might not be worth the mortgage to unload, and finding an assisted-living rental might cost more for the assisted part than having a door that locks.

An indication of the market were the realtor calls that answered my first email expressing an interest in “three hots and a decent cot”.

So, I assume there will be a little busy tomorrow with people in my position, attempting both “entry” and “exit” from Your Nation’s Capital and maybe wearing chest belts of different colors. . I put that matter aside to look at Arli/NOW to see if there was anything that did not require a formation of trailing wheelchairs. I found one immediately on the side on the tablet with glowing letters: “Riot Reported at Fashion Center.”

My eyebrows perked up, since that was a corner in the Pentagon City Mall on the way to the food court we used to walk across North parking to avoid five-sided food. The lead sentence indicated three teens had been arrested for assault on the cops. Two were girls, aged 13. the third was a boy, 14, with a knife. the article said there were a hundred or more in the snarl, so I would have been late to the Yemen target meeting if I had gone over there for lunch.

That started the laughter in the corner of Room 318 in Rehab, since the big story yesterday was that Virginia State Police and Department of Homeland Security had made a major detention of a Terror suspect here in town, and that major weapons had been seized. They also mentioned the East Coast Kingpin’s age, which was: “twenty four.”

You can see why I started texting around after finished the article, The girls at Fashion City were thirteen and their knife-wielding guy was a year older, A joint task force was big news for taking down a terror kingpin only a decade older. The article said the Kingpin had been imported specifically for his age at about 14 to rnanage the terror operation.

ArlingNOW had it right. There is a lot happening for young people here in town. And for us, who have grandsons or daughters who might be dealing with people dealing with Joint Task Force kinds of things on the way to the mall….

V/R,
JR