The Chicas keep me healthy in the cabeza.

A few years ago my bridesmen and I were discussing run-of-the-mill chores that we'd much rather pay someone else to do, if we only had a bit more money to play with.  Mike Lake and I, being the much more truly rational beings when compared to Mike Mahan, dreamed of having house cleaners.  While Mike Mahan prides himself on being rational, his conclusions are often a little off from that of the general population.  Hence his top farmed out priority: having a driver.

"A DRIVER!?" Mike Lake asked incredulously.  "Hm, let's see, what would I rather do?  Drive myself to work every day, or wash my own toilets?"

I'm with Mike Lake.  I think Mike Mahan was just trying to flaunt the fact that he had experienced how luxuriously extravagant having a driver could be, but that's one of the reasons I love him so.

This past July marked the start of my salary reflecting what medical students everywhere dream of when signing their loan paperwork, then cashing a measly check that is meant to last the whole semester: my "full earning potential".  Or at least part of it since technically I'm 80% time.  I never went into medicine for the money, and I sure as hell didn't choose family medicine to make the big bucks.  But between a significant pay raise and being a busy mom, my time had come.

I think The Chicas started coming some time around October.  A co-worker had recommended them to me, and based on my description, my mother-in-law thought they might be the same house cleaners who used to clean for a family friend.  Ignacio, the family friend, hails from Spain.  The Chicas I believe are Mexican, and so Ignacio would refer to them as "The Chicas," and now so do Josh and I.  To each other, of course.  I hope no one is offended by that.

Anyway, The Chicas have essentially changed my life, or at least they do every other Thursday.  We often have a hard time prepping for The Chicas as neither Josh nor I are particularly neat people.  Heck, my sister moved out of our shared childhood room into the landing/hallway space just to free herself from my sea of clothes and used snot rags.  When I moan (quietly) about the frenzy that Chica prep requires, my friends and family often laugh and say how ridiculous it is that we "pre-clean" before our house cleaners come.

Let me be clear.  We don't pre-clean.  We put things away.  Things that we are too damned lazy to put in their rightful places when we come home from work, are finished with a given item, and so on.  If you have ever asked the "pre-clean" question, you obviously did not have house cleaners at the moment you asked that question.  I feel perfectly fine about leaving my compost rot on the counter, leaving crumbs on the kitchen table, leaving dust bunnies and dog hair lining the hallways, and leaving a rather disgusting toilet to be cleaned.  The Chicas are in the business of cleaning.  They are not in the business of picking up my crap.  This point goes along with the whole being neat vs. being clean thing, which I won't get into as I'm not particularly fond of endeavoring to be either of one those.

Sadly, our Chica prep often requires 1-2 hours of intense, dedicated work.  THAT is how lazy we are (we have a really small house and it still takes that long).  So yesterday I worked on the kitchen, and the massive islands of clothes that had accumulated despite our new, bigger hamper.  This morning I sped-straightened.  Two weeks ago we had to cancel on The Chicas as our house wasn't ready for cleaning--that was uncomfortable and embarrassing, and frankly disappointing as Josh was doing his best but just couldn't make it come together before 8:30 am.

I rejoiced as I walked in the front door this evening.  Clean floors, no more dust/hair second carpet in the living room, freshly changed sheets and nicely made bed.  The world again feels like my oyster.  I made a 5-minute Trader Joe's dinner as Josh is in the ICU this week which gives me insight into the world of single parenting (single parents: I bow to you completely)--I prided myself on not only being efficient, but on maintaining our clean counters and stove for one more day.

*sigh*  We'll see how long the clean lasts this time...

What's in a name?

Apparently a lot.  I was all steamed up and ready to get going after a morning of straightening up the house complete with a very lengthy internal dialogue, or monologue really, but then got stumped creating this blog by Step 2: naming the damned thing.

I like catchy names of blogs--my most recent find is "Baby on Bored", but I also admire those of my friends such as "Amy's Bitch Mobile", "Luminous Lotus" or "Kendra's Moral Monster".  The title gives you a sense of either who the person is, who they want to be, or just what they'll be discussing in their posts.  I don't really know what I want to talk about, other than my views on things in general, and I suppose one of the reasons I'm picking back up with blogging (here is the MySpace graveyard in which I laid that blog to rest) is that I don't really know who I am anymore after all my free time has been devoted to motherhood.  Or Facebook.  Whatever.

See, even my MySpace site name was http://www.myspace.com/yourfavoriteyogini.  Your favorite yogini?  I really thought of myself as that steeped in yoga that I put it in my website title?  I suppose a regular practice of 4-6 times weekly even through residency, preceded by regular hour long bus/subway (yes, I needed both) trips into the city for classes at random NYC studios, might have qualified me as a yogini.  But since having Elena, my practice has withered.

I could have called my blog something like "Dr. Jessie, Anti-Medicine Woman" in reference to my career with its special bent on integrative medicine and my preference for giving good ol' lifestyle changes a fair chance before medications when appropriate.  But that sounded boring.  I do love my job, but who really wants to define themselves based on their career?

My latest (as in past year and a half) has been breastfeeding, but I couldn't come up with something catchy enough (though this product line is seductively practical and awesomely named).  Plus it just seemed too restrictive, and the one thing a nursing mom hates is restrictiveness.

So there it is.  My Opinionatrix: My deep thoughts on stuff.

But then I got started thinking about ground rules for The Opinionatrix.  For instance, on my prior blog, I didn't think much of throwing in the odd curse word if it served the purpose of making a point, or adding a bit of zing to a particularly heated rant.  But this blog is all public and stuff, so I guess I'll be more metered.  I also vented a bit about people in my old blog.... as in specific people who weren't my friends and were therefore amenable to being complained about.  But I don't really want to do that, either, because I'd like for some of my posts to be helpful and maybe even intelligently written--you know, something that you'd reference for either a good recipe or home remedy for a cold or something.

Anyway.  We'll see how it goes.