Mariah’s Reemergence

NEW MAILING ADDRESS – We got Mariah a private mailbox today….sorry for all the addresses given, and we will get the mail at whichever location you send it, but here is her personal mailbox as of today:

Cpt. Mariah Kochavi
Abrams Hall, Box 4098
6900 Georgia Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20307

So here is a typical day with Mariah and Clay at Walter Reed Hospital so far:

0630 hours: Clay wakes up to personal alarm beeping, throws arm out and knocks it on the floor while brain adjusts to the fact that body is NOT returning home from a gig but is actually getting up for work…very weird.

0700 hours: give Mariah morning medication and morning V8 juice (this juice is vital, it’s like universe dew for the superhuman..can’t fight superhuman battles without it!) Breakfast ensues, usually Raisin Bran poured into little plastic bowls that I , uh, borrow from the cafeteria downstairs. This is followed by my cursing vehemently about the fact that General Mills with it’s black sourcery ensures that I always purchase the Raisin Bran with only three raisins in the entire box. Mariah usually shares a little of whatever REAL breakfast I procur for my mountainman-self. You know, eggs, sides of ham, whole chickens, small livestock…

0730 hours: after teeth brushing and face washing, Clay bundles up Captain K and self in layers of warm clothing, including gloves and scarves and headwraps and such and heads out the backside of the Mologne house to avoid the excrutiatingly slow and stubborn (and small!) elevator to the first floor front entrance. From backside 2nd floor we fly across the split level courtyard to whatever building MAriah’s first morning appointment is in. (This is the fun part because the past week has been first time appointments and Clay guesses what buildings are what. They are numbered, but only in theory, as far as I am concerned.) To my own amazement, time management has actually been a decent strength of ours as we traverse the campus to make appointments. We have been on time or early to everything, ranging from the optometrist (where I held two prizm-rulers in my hands over each of Mariah’s eyes steadily while the eye doc held two other instruments at various distances to measure her varying pupil dilations to work towards improving her double vision), to the physical therapy session this morning which began with us reading a book together in the waiting room (a Stephanie Plum series novel, very funny stuff!) until her therapist snuck up behind us and, after listening in to me mimicking Italian-voiced characters, introduced herself as, “the captain’s physical terrorist”, at which point I excused myself for, umm, the duration of Mariah’s appointment (yikes!)

1100-1200 hours: Lunch is somewhere in here. I don’t know what else happens here, although a lot definitely happens. I’m so hungry that the other important stuff is flying by me whilst I operate via cruise-control auto pilot. 

1300-1500 hours: There is often another appointment in here. MAriah’s schedule is filling in pretty fast. She even has physical therapy on the morning of Christmas eve!!! Personally, I think Santa is being very unreasonable making my big sis work so hard for her bag of coal this year. Haha! Big sis: 0 little brother: 1 … Captain K’s schedule is re-printed at the front desk each time I make her a follow-up appointment with that office, which makes appointment-scheduling easy on yours truly, since everyone on campus sees Mariah’s schedule as it evolves progressively. 

Oh yeah, today, at aproximately 1430 hours: On way out 3rd floor door of building number 6 (behavioral care, psychiatry, etc.) we passed the vending machines near the elevator. I spotted a lone Coca-cola dispensed in the vending machine receptacle. I paused and stared in disbelief. I looked around the corner…nothing. I passed by, honestly, to the elevator, pushing Mariah in the chair. The elevator, obviously on Mologne-House time, took for freakin’ ever, so I dishonestly wheeled Mariah back to the vending machine and instructed her to snatch that soda…cuz, I mean, if no one was there yet, that Coke was clearly up for grabs, right? Mission accomplished.

evening-hundred-hours: Usually naps and lazy time follow exhausting day-time multi-tasking type stuff. Captain K and Clay kick back and relish the wall-mounted flat-screen with front-load DVD system and the DVD library downstairs on the first floor. Some of our favorites over the past week: (Joe Dirt, Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead, Van Wilder…the funny list goes on)

Hey thats all I got today. We love you all and Happy Holidays!!!!!!!

-love and light,

Clay