Wednesday

One of the nicest things about our Oakwood Homes unit is that it comes with free laundry and housekeeping service. The laundry isn't free for everyone, though. Each unit complex has one laundry room per floor. These are run by laundry card, costing $1.25 per load to wash (I don't know how much to dry). We are presented with new cards as our old ones expire, courtesy Sunshine's employer. Most unit tenets have to recharge their cards with actual money. It's convenient to have the washer and dryer close to, but not actually in, our living space. Housekeeping is pretty convenient, too. In México, Rosy showed up every Wednesday morning to clean the house. She stayed all day, doing what she thought needed doing, ate our food for lunch, and left around four three hundred pesos richer. Here it works like hotel: two housekeepers show up on Thursdays, knock, and then return later when I am out (or when I let them in). It's a small place, and two of them quickly dust and vacuum and change the towels. Once a week, I don't have to make the bed because they change the sheets. They empty the trash and recycling. They wash the dishes if there are any to do; and when they do that, they do it like me: wash them in the sink and leave them to dry in the dishwasher, out of the way. They have a checklist they follow every week. I like this a lot. The service is far less invasive than the routine in México. I don't have to have their cash ready (Sunshine's employers again!), service is scheduled around my convenience, and it only takes twenty minutes. I still clean up a little the night before, though. Old habits die hard. [Cavin]