Peeking into the rock

So my friend Hummah, who would dearly love to do things around my house, is coming after Christmas to visit. And I need to paint, clean, clear and otherwise ready my bedroom. So I'm letting Hummah help me. I'm usually resistant.

Also, I'm going to bite the bullet and replace both the upstairs and downstairs mattresses with nice new futons. (I despise innersprings) I've been researching, and I think I know what I want and that I can afford it.

And I'm going to replace all the dog-damned leaky bunchy ancient annoying old feather comforters with almost anything else. I am tired of down everywhere, and it's years since I woulsd sit for hours tracking down holes in them and patching them, and it never worked anyway.

My plan to get new sheets is sort of on hold since I can't find any sheets that don't make me feel kind of sad and disappointed and betrayed. What's the deal, product designers? Are you just having a bad few years, or have you utterly lost the plot as to what makes a good patterned sheet? I have some hints. If there's straight stripes, or plaid, or checks, even houndstooth, make them woven-in for the love of all things not ugly. Choose colors that actually look good. I understand that you don't want to have very many electric-bright sheets -- neither do I -- but if you desaturate the colors so far that a normal eye can't discern what part of the spectrum they're in or even if they're warm or cool colors, you have gone too far. I think I kind of understand the desire to put large-scale patterns on sheets -- it's wrong, but understandable -- but dear hearts, this does not mean the designs should be coarse and ugly and grainy as if they were blown up from tiny little sketches. Also, thread count. What gives, here? Even modestly priced sheets have ridiculously high thread count -- I think it's the wedding ring shawl mentality, if you can make it finer just do it whether or not it's a good idea. Sheets should have some heft to them: they shouldn't feel like nylon chiffon window dressings, especially if they're all cotton. Which, of course, they should be, because polyester pierces my skin nerves with tiny horrible needles, and linen's too expensive. On the other hand -- if you must make flannel sheets, make them somewhat finer than burlap bags, and do remember that if you're going to say "brushed" on the package, the sheet should actually feel kind of fuzzy, and not, again, like burlap bags.

Oh dear, I did the rant again. Anyway, I'll probably end up getting an inoffensive solid color sheet, like blue chambray or something. Unless I can't find that either. In which case I don't know.

Also: looking at the report from CALSTRS, the teacher retirement system, I see that there coming up on ten thousand dollars in an account I will not be able to access unless I can find .9 year credit somewhere. I need to call CATSTRS and ask; (1) how much substitute teaching does this translate to? and (2) is it possible to buy back the years I cashed out when I was really really broke and couldn't get a job? and (3) how much does that cost? and (4) if I did somehow succeed in getting access to that ten thousand dollars, how much Social Security would I lose because of it? (teachers are among the few American workers who have their pension deducted from Social Security. Why is this? Because every time a congressperson attempts to fix it, somebody gets all huffy about teachers "double-dipping," even though anybody in a position to collect from both the teacher pension and Social Security (1) paid into the teacher system every year they worked as a teacher and (2) paid into Social Security every year they worked anywhere else.

Anyway, there's a remote possibility that it might become desirable for me to take a couple years' leave from my real job and work as a substitute teacher down the line, as much as I do not like that prospect (I don't mind subbing, actually). Since my current job provides no retirement benefit of its own outside Social Security.

So no, I don't want a "payroll tax holiday." What it actually means, for me, is that someone has unilaterally decided that I am not going to be allowed to pay into my only significant retirement plan.

On another front: I did in fact make fruitcake, and it tastes very good. And very alcoholic. And I am inching closer to the need fire, I have decided that it suits my narrative to allow the kid to think that the need fire is a human sacrifice right up to the night they do it, and for him to be trying to think of how to get out from under, while everybody tells him that having been selected for the role, he has to go through with it, even the available people who are not superstitious. Why? Because later, when he is "sold" into the army, it will mean a lot that he has been through this already. I think.

Finally, I am actually getting better in my legs. I think. I know I thought that before and I was wrong, but this is the real thing. I think.

I thought I'd return to the rain story and finish it. 1.7K words later I am no closer to ending it. Though the storm is ending. I'm tempted to end it when the storm ends, with the crew switching to cleanup operations andd making some observation aboutn the state of the world.

On the other hand, news from Nairobi is that my stepmother is doing okay, though she still can't talk properly. She's reading and walking, though one leg doesn't work right. Reading the missives sent before the stroke is very eerie -- she was overworked and had a runin with the Tanzanian police over a misunderstanding about an innocent delivery of a manuscript, and when you know what was about to happen it looks inevitable.

On still other fronts I am about to put a slightly larger batch of fruitcake into the oven.