Here’s how grand my life is these days: yesterday’s excitement was the appearance of a two-person cleaning team to “do” our house. About a year ago, I let our housecleaner go (sounds much better than ‘fired’) because, frankly, she was doing a shitty job. I have a baaaaaaaaaaaad habit, learned from my mother, of making friends with the hired help under the assumption that they’ll be motivated to do a better job for me. Maybe it worked for her, but it didn’t for me. Probably the fact that I was dealing with mucho guilt that I was hiring a Salvadorean immigrant (albeit legal) to do my dirty work had much to do with the situation. Still and all, I decided that for the first time in my life, I would play house for real and do my own cleaning. I had much fun at Target getting the appropriate implements–I have quite a collection of Swiffers–and for a time, I kept on top of things. But then I started back to school–and the house cleaning is history… But yesterday Micheal and Maria came & 2-1/2 hrs later, most of the house was clean. Except for the bedrooms. Which were too cluttered to let anyone into. Which reminds me that when I was a kid, my mother used to shut the door to my room on the day the maid came. And in college, when they cleaned over Christmas break, my roommate’s and my room was always skipped. Some things never change…