Today was the day on which I'd decided to make my big breakfast switch. For too long, my breakfast has consisted of two protein bars. It started off as part of a thrust to get into shape two years ago. Now though, now that I'm no longer on a high-protein diet, the breakfast of protein bars has remained with me out of morning laziness. I'm tired when I get up, and until I've had my coffee, barely human. The last thing I want to be doing is to be fumbling about in the kitchen first thing in the morning.

Nevertheless, I've gradually been preparing for the big switch over to ... protein shakes! Before you shake your head in disgust, they're actually very balanced shakes, made with fresh peaches, almonds and whey protein powder - lots of good natural fiber in there. Last night, I bought the peaches, ready for this morning, and as I got up this morning, I was ready for the new breakfast routine. But I'd reckoned without Sally, my overly helpful every-two-week cleaning lady, who'd apparently thrown away a vital part of my blender last time she was here. So it's back to the protein bars, temporarily at least.

She's a difficult lady, my cleaning lady. I've mentioned in the past how she tried to force me into buying some scruffy old vacuum cleaner she found in the basement for $50.00, and how she playfully leaves my jock strap on the top of my clean laundry once she's finished with it. A couple of weeks ago, I ran into her in the coridoor, and, in her heavily accented english (she's Chinese), she kept going on anxiously about how she'd seen me in the street, "but it's no polite". When I asked what she meant, she explained how she'd been trying to ask me for a raise for months, but I'm never home when she cleans my apartment, and apparently well-born chinese ladies don't accost their employees in the street.

So I agreed to the raise, but when she asked me for back-pay, I demurred. After all, I asked her, couldn't she have left me a note?

"I can't write in english", she said.

At this point, I'd like to say that I was instantly understanding and embarrassed. Unfortunately, instead, I expressed my extreme surprise that she had never learned to write english considering she'd been here for thirty years. Whereupon she brought me low when she explained that she had no time since she had to spend all her spare time and cash on supporting her ancient brother, and even more ancient mother. Oh. So finally, I was embarrassed, and coughed up some cash.

But it showed me a side to things I hadn't anticipated. You know how you start to form impressions and even suspicions about people in situations where you don't have much to go on? Say you have a neighbor whom you keep seeing in the window as you pass, and you begin to think they're always spying on you. After a while you form a complex about them ... well, I do at least - maybe you're not so paranoid. It's only later you learn that maybe they have a tiny little apartment, and they sit near the window to look out at nature, or something. Well, the same with my cleaner. Ever since the episode with the vacuum-cleaner, and a few other incidents, I'd been suspicious of her. I felt she was manipulative, and cagey. And since I positively hate to be made a fool of, I'd built this up in my mind to the point where I always thought of her as being on the make.

Of course, in reality, she's a poor old transplanted woman, who works like a slave all day for pitiful fees, to help her family. Yes, she has a tendency to throw pieces of my appliances in the trash, but I guess now that she's humbled herself and given me a glimpse behind the scenes of her life, I can no longer harbor those nasty suspicions of her.