Cobwebs

This is the scene when I walk Olga through the nearby housing estate early in the mornings. I love the way those street lamps create orange patches of light.

Our library Christmas tree was delivered yesterday, which meant I had to string the lights and then scrabble around above the ceiling tiles to retrieve the extension cord we use to connect them to electricity. I didn't fully decorate the tree, though, because we're thinking the kids might like to do the rest. It sounds like a perfect homeroom activity. (We say this every year, and in the end, I always wind up doing it.)

We joked that we should hang masks on it, with maybe a latex glove at the top -- inflated, even! That would be star-like, right? But I think everyone is so tired of coronavirus that a normal tree might be more welcome.

On Monday night I was walking down the hall toward our living room and I saw this:

Now, I fancy myself a fairly decent housekeeper. I certainly feel like I'm always cleaning. So how this appalling aggregation of cobwebs grew above our wall sconce, I'm not sure. The funny thing is, from the living room you can't see them at all -- against the wall they're invisible. It's only from the side, when the light is on, that they become apparent.

I feel like the Addams Family. Or the Munsters.

What creates cobwebs, anyway? Spiders? I've never seen a spider in them.

Isn't it funny how we just don't see what's around us, particularly in our own houses? We get so used to the surroundings, so comfortable with them, and we see them so frequently, that creeping changes are invisible to us until they reach some shocking level of decrepitude.

Speaking of which, our landlord's management company is supposed to send a handyman this afternoon to fix our kitchen cabinet. So at least that won't look quite so ramshackle.