spring fever?

How ironic. I was just thinking about blogging about having finally found a permanent cleaning lady that we managed to click with, following a year and a half of a steady parade of temporary cleaners that always ended up not working out for one reason or another. I was going to express my relief at finally knowing who was coming every two weeks on Sunday morning, that she had learned where everything was and how we like things done so that we didn't have to reinvent the wheel twice a month. She came about five times, I guess. The fact that she's much more chatty than I would like, that she wanted to bring a helper we didn't know, that it's very inconvenient for her to start later than 8am -- these were issues I might have left out, choosing instead to emphasize what really mattered, that we had finally come to the end of an endlessly stressful trial and error process.

I certainly wouldn't have dwelt on the sensitive issue of her being an Arab from one of the area's small towns. A certain PC discomfort in this quasi-open forum might have held me back. But that seems to have been a material issue in the fact that she has just become the latest in a long line of cleaners that have bailed on us.

She was supposed to come tomorrow morning, and called this evening to ask if she could bring her boyfriend to see our apartment. It seems he's the jealous type, and he'd demanded to see all the places she works, to make sure she's not cheating on him or something. She's a divorced mother of about 30, from an Arab village -- apparently being engaged to this guy looks better to her than her current situation. I can't help but feel sickened and sorry for her, but I don't want any part of that drama. Mr. Squarepeg told her in no uncertain terms that we do not agree to have the guy come up to see the apartment, and that this was inappropriate. Only after this, he told me that last time she was here she had a 10-minute screaming fight on the phone with the boyfriend, which had also struck him as inappropriate when a person is at work.

So that means she's not coming back. And we go back to our search.

In spite of this and the fact that it's back to work tomorrow morning, I'm feeling uncharacteristically cheerful, even though I've had one of my lovely PMS headaches much of the weekend (am keeping it under a certain control with 5HTP and codeine/aspirin pills, and it's gone now).

Could my good mood have anything to do with the fact that for the next two weeks we'll only be working half the time? ...uh, YEAH! Three days of work, then a four-day weekend; then two very quiet days of work during Pesach, and five days off (I'm taking an extra day to get away with mr. squarepeg to the Dead Sea for two nights).

And my car-slammed finger is doing very nicely, thank you, serving mainly as a reminder that my glass is most definitely half-full.