Yay, Decadence!

 Yay, Decadence!

That used to be the battle cry of my friends and myself in our SCA days, lounging around in our fine costumes, raising glasses of wine to the equally well-dressed young men who were flirting with us.

Of course, the word decadence has its roots in decay - and can lead to hangovers and other regrets.  So today I'm going to talk about indulgence instead.

Indulgence.  Self pampering.  Something we all need, especially in this damned Covid time (as I write this, our reported numbers are 20 times higher than they were in April and still climbing.)

Most of the last two years for me has been about being empty, and emptying.  Pity I haven't kept track of the actually tonnage that has left this house - and there is still so much more to go.  Letting go of things.

But some times you have to let things come in.  Like everyone else In These Times - other than food, most of my stuff comes from Amazon.  Which means that I have a record of what I've bought.  The vast majority are practical:  my swing sickle for clearing underbrush.  A kitchen scale.  A new toaster oven when mine died.  A rowing machine (which I do use).

But not everything has to be functional or practical.  My mother used to talk about "hyacinths" from a poem (attributed to several different authors)

If of worldly goods thou are bereft

and if of thy slender store but two loaves to thee are left

Sell one, and with the dole

Buy hyacinths to feed the soul

So yes, I have hyacinths.

I have bought a couple of sheep fleeces because I'm just weird about that - I love having different kinds of wool around for my spinning - although sometimes I think I spin just so I can buy wool, even though it's not the most practical fiber for Florida).

Old fashioned rose scented dusting powder.  My favorite loose tea (Yorkshire Gold, which Patrick Stewart drinks instead of Picard's Earl Grey) - and the tea-making ritual that goes with it.  (Every time I make tea - simply enough, using a French press - I remember the day at work when the department chair came to see me just as I was pouring tea out of my press into my Russian silver tea glass; she looked down at the paper cup of coffee in her hand and a wistful look flitted across her face)

A soundbar.  I listen to a lot of music (because Emptiness).  And there are a couple of male singers that I love (Ramin Karimloo and Geoff Castelucci) who have low voices (Geoff can make my ribcage vibrate).  I wanted a better-quality speaker (the 30-year-old speakers left the house last year).  Great for music.  Unfortunately for television, it did not solve an issue that I have - so many shows play The Dramatic Music so much louder than the dialog, so I constantly have to grab for the sound control.  But it does help if I remember to unplug the woofer when I'm watching a show.

My port pipes.  I saw these tiny wine glasses on a cooking show and my little heart went pitty pat. I tried to talk myself out of them - I counted, and between glasses bought or inherited or that just somehow showed up, I had 30-some wine glasses.  I did not need four more.  But sigh . . . .   I compromised.  I packed up 15 or 16 silver plated wine goblets and gave them to an SCA friend.  The I got the port pipes.

They're adorable.  Only hold 2 ounces.  I like to have a wee dram of something while I'm reading in bed at night, and you don't have to glance away from the book to tip a wine glass - just have a little sip.  Of course, they're delicate, and the cats have already broken one (surprisingly not the little spout but one of the legs).  But they came in a set of 4 so I'm OK for awhile.

And then there are my sheets.  I love my sheets (how many people say that?).  It comes from being what a friend calls "a natural fibers snob."  It's not snobbishness; I'm a very tactile person - and I can't stand the feel of polyester.  It's cringy (which probably explains my lack of a decent wardrobe because you trying finding something "nice" that doesn't have polyester in it).  I can handle rayon (which at least is cellulose and not plastic).  So that leaves, for the most part, cotton.

And sometimes linen.  You don't find linen clothes too often, because the stuff is naturally rumpled.  And if manufacturers try to put a finish on it to keep it smooth, it just creases like crazy.  But I have a visceral reaction to linen.  There's a weight and drapiness to it that just speaks to me.  I can even be watching TV and suddenly get distracted when I see that someone's costume is linen (Dune comes to mind).

So last year when my sheets were wearing out, I dreamed of getting bed linens that were actually linen.  Problem is - there's no place to get them locally.  If I'm going to have something against me 6-8 hours every night, I'd like to be able to see and touch it before buying.  And bed linens are expensive - $300 and up for a set.  My fear, in reading descriptions, was that the high-end linens might have the above-mentioned finishes on them to keep them smooth, which ruins the desired properties of linen.

Then I saw a set on Amazon for $150.  I risked it.

They came in, and my textile-loving fingers told me that I had The Real Thing.  I washed them, put them on the bed, and dove in.  One of the lovely things about linen is that it's very wicking and responds quickly to the body, so sheets don't feel either too warm or too clammy.  And there's a drape that makes it feel somehow like one of those weighted blankets that are so soothing (but also heavy and hot)  I snuggled in for a happy night.

I was trying to ignore the fact that I was being gently exfoliated.  My beautiful, longed-for sheets were . . . rough.

Linen is famous for being rough and stiff when newly made.  It has to be abused to soften it.  I have read that in Ye Olde Days, they would make it into sheets and give them to newlyweds to get them worked over and softened up.  I did not have any newlyweds handy (and, besides - ewwww).  I did some reading, and thinking, and back into the washing machine they went, with a box of baking soda.  I kept turning back the dial so that the machine ran for almost an hour.  I dried them in the dryer, but on the air cycle so they had to tumble for a long time.

It helped.  And now, almost a year later, they are beautifully and buttery soft.  I've have talked about my need for "contact comfort" and these sheets definitely help.  In fact, there are some days that I glance at the bedroom and then pop in for a quick lie-down and cuddle.  In the mornings I let the sheets sift between my fingers before, regretfully, turning them back and getting up.

I am basically a frugal person.  It comes from being my mother's daughter who, despite her occasional hyacinths, could (as Bob put it) wear the beard off of Abraham Lincoln before spending a penny.  So spending $150+ on a set of sheets, when you can get a set of percale ones for under $50 seemed to be an extravagance.  But I've had them over a year now, and they're the only sheets I've used, and there is no sign of wear on them whatsoever.  I'm starting to think that they might be an example of Sam Vines economics.

Sam Vines is one of Terry Pratchett's characters, who spent his childhood and much of his adult life in poverty.  And this is the Sam Vines Economic Theory:

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”

So there is a chance that these sheets might outlast three sets of cheap ones.  With their buttery draping soft . . . decadence.