It is 1122am. The cleaners have gone and most fortunately, they totally ignored my admonitions to skip the shelves, which now glisten. Yes, it will take me awhile to find my remote controls etc, but boy is this place clean! Now I have to warm it up again; huddling under my Scotland blanket currently. [It was got when I first met Westy and I exchanged too much American currency, so had to spent British money before going back to the states.]

Got me to thinking about this whole Illegal Alien thing a bit. Of the people who came in with mops and buckets and scrub brushes and sponges and vacuum cleaners and worked for hours on end without a break, none of them spoke English. I wonder how many out-of-work software engineers would do the same. Or kids between their Sophomore and Junior years at college.

The common “wisdom” is that these people do the work Americans won’t do. I never denied that they are hard working, not after watching them carrying one railroad tie on each shoulder as I tried to drag one along the ground when c**** did his retaining wall for his swimming pool and I was supposed to be ‘helping’.

Before they left, they made my bed (!) and darned if they didn't find and replace a couple of screw tops on the glass jars in the bedroom where my loose change (sorted by denomination) finds its way when I come home and empty my pockets.

Gracias people!