*On Clean White Sheets*

Louisa Duvet Cover & Sham

I was spoiled rotten on Mother's Day. It was a good day -- no breakfast, or even toast, in bed -- but that's because the kids slept in a bit later than usual. I seem to remember that last year, both of them were awake around 6:30am and chomping at the bit to storm my room, wake me up and give me their proudly-presented toast and coffee.

Quite adorable in theory, but in reality? Let me sleep!

I was treated to a pancake breakfast cooked up by the hubby, and was gifted up to my eyebrows in a manner much more befitting Christmas than a mere Mother's Day. Sweet handmade cards, a beautiful photo scrapbook from Lily, made in her first-grade class. Two decorated brown lunch bags, filled with a feather, a pencil, and a dollar (!) in each.

My favorite surprise (of many!) was some much-coveted bedding from Pine Cone Hill. Mmm, sheets. Yes, I did request them. But I had asked for either the Louisa duvet cover, or the ruffled sheet set. Instead, I was treated to not one, but both items, along with the matching pillow shams. I'd seen the duvet cover a year ago in the May '08 Better Homes & Gardens. It was folded at the bottom of a guest bed, and had the simple-yet feminine-and also slighty vintage feel that I'd been trying to find in a quilt or bed cover.

I've cheated for the last half year with just a lightweight white comforter folded at the foot of the bed, but the ruffles add a wonderful finishing touch. And God bless my dear husband, for not only tolerating white ruffles, but acquiring them at my behest.

The sheets are very soft, and are likely the highest quality sheets I've ever owned. Only 200 count, but I've read that retailers often fudge on thread-count counting, so that a "400 count" sheet set for $30 at Anna's Linens feels and looks about as lux as it sounds. Evidently 200-count combed cotton, made in India, is a whole different animal.

I tried to give the sheets the royal treatment they deserved before fitting them onto my 11-year-old mattress: I bought fresh-smelling linen spray! I bought spray starch! I flipped the mattress! I washed the sheets in warm water without bleach or further additives, did an extra rinse, and tumbled-dried low without a dryer sheet.

And then I commenced to iron. And iron. And iron. The full sheet, the pillow cases, the duvet cover. I gave up on the fitted sheet. And in the end? Those were still some damned wrinkled white sheets on my bed. I will say, after all of the above efforts, that I slept quite soundly in my newly dressed bed. Mmmm, to clean white sheets.

Perhaps all that physical effort could have been avoided if I'd only gotten one of the other items I'd requested: a backyard clothesline. Yes, my recent bedding fetish also features dreams of fresh linens snapping and drying in the afternoon breeze. Never mind that my neighborhood is uber-suburban, and I have a rather narrow and shallow rectangle of a backyard. Images like this have filled my head of late:

From Professor Bob

And this:

From Cheeseslave

That last picture looks a lot like my old backyard in Orange, with the telephone wires against the sky, and the bougainvillea in the background. There may even be the distant sound of a freight train in the distance there. *Sigh*

However, reality check: those whiteys flapping in the breeze there are cloth diapers. I admire that kind of dedication to the environment, but, um, NO. And also, maybe it means something that the most vivid memory of clotheslines I have from my childhood is when I was four, and twirling myself around & around the metal pole of one end of the clothesline, while my mom hung the laundry. Then I got dizzy and fell, and whacked my mouth onto the concrete supporting base. I screamed bloody hell, was given a popsicle, and ended up with a gray front tooth that hung around for a couple years until I got my permanent tooth.

So, yeah. Maybe not.

In the end, I have no idea where this new bedding/laundry/fresh breezes fetish arose from. Probably too many spring shelter magazines urging us all to "Get Outdoors NOW" have gone to my head. Or perhaps it's my brain, processing and memorizing the lyrics from my beloved Neko Case's new album.
This, from one of my favorites, This Tornado Loves You:

Cause I miss, I miss, I miss/
How you'd sigh yourself to sleep/
While I raked the springtime/
Across your sheets.

Ahhh. Lovely. Almost as lovely as my new, soft, wrinkled white bedding.