Today was the day the world came to see us.

We’d asked our house cleaner to skip our house on what would have been her first March visit – of course, we paid her because we’d cancelled the session. And after that, she couldn’t come because of the shelter-in-place – we kept her on retainer, though, and paid as if she were working for us.

Last week, she texted and said that the relaxation of the shelter-in-place meant that she could clean our house today if we were willing. We talked about what she’d have to do to make us comfortable (and vice versa) and agreed to have her come over and clean today.

Her usual visit is just about two hours; we planned to leave as soon as she got here and stay out until she left (in other words, we were going to follow our usual Tuesday routine of a walk and grocery shopping). But she told us she’d need more time than usual to clean everything; I still hoped to stay away until she was finished, but while we were out, Rupert, the guy doing our deck repair and refinishing said he wanted to come over about noon and finish up.

We went home a little before noon; our housekeeper was still working but she was nearly finished – we stayed outside as much as we could until Rupert arrived and started removing boards from the deck and we had to retreat inside.

After a few minutes, she left and we took a look around – even though we’d been keeping things cleaner than usual, I could tell the difference that a professional makes!

Rupert finished an hour or so later – but he was outside and we were inside, so all was well, and with any luck, we won’t see him again for several years. :-)

I have to admit that having someone else in the house was a little unsettling – but I expect we’ll do it again in two weeks.

When I started writing this blog twenty years ago, I didn’t know how long I was going to do it. There have been years when I’ve blogged most days, and years when I’ve only created two or three entries all year – it depends on what else is going on in my life.

Today marks a record – the eighty-fourth consecutive day that I’ve created an entry. It’s also the eighty-fourth day of our shelter-in-place order; that’s not exactly a coincidence. It helps me process what’s going on – sometimes I don’t publish everything I think about (for which I suspect my readers are grateful).

Back in February, we took our first (and probably only) overseas trip for the year, spending a couple of weeks in Costa Rica and Panama, including a trip through the Panama Canal. Early in the trip, we visited Doka Coffee Estate and I enjoyed their coffee a lot; in fact, I bought a bag and schlepped it with me through the whole trip. But I only brought a half-kilo, and it didn’t last very long. I’ve been trying to find Costa Rican coffee locally with limited success (the best I’ve found is a blend of Costa Rica and other beans from Intelligensia), so last week I gave up and ordered 3 kilos from Doka. I was afraid it would take a long time to arrive (I’m still waiting for the webcam I ordered on April 12), but it showed up earlier this evening, less than a week after they roasted it. It’ll be a few days before I open it (I want to finish what I have in hand), but I’m looking forward to it.

And I have a sneaking suspicion that I may still be blogging daily when I finish the coffee.