Decorations

I had been feeling pretty good about taking on a long overdue chore yesterday and sweeping down cobwebs, many, many cobwebs in both the barn and the house.  Some people are phobic about spiders; I like 'em (with the exception of Black Widows).  I appreciate that the traps they set for food also get rid of pesky flies, gnats, and mosquitoes for me.  When the webs are fresh, the gossamer threads are almost invisible and I leave them be.  At the end of summer when the insect population dwindles and the spiders abandon their hunting grounds (where do they go?), the webs become heavy with dust (what a surprise!) and it's time to take them down.  It occurred to me this morning that, if I'd left the cobwebs up for another couple of weeks, I'd already be decorated for Halloween.  People pay good money for fake cobwebs to make their houses scary for the holiday.  Mine were free and didn't cost a dime.  Sigh.

Steve was an absolute nutter when it came to putting up decorations for the holidays.  Name any holiday on the calendar and I guarantee we'd have a supply of decorations.  We decorated the house even up here where company came only for Easter and Christmas.  He put up lights and banners and the house was filled with appropriate this's and thats.  In all our years here, we never had even one trick-or-treater, but that never mattered; it was Halloween!  The house, porch, and deck  had bats, pumpkins, ghosts, Draculas, witches and black cats.  It took days to put everything in place and longer to take it all down, just for the two of us.  I swear my son-in-law Craig is channeling Steve now.  Deb sent me pictures of the tiny Halloween village they put up, complete with spooky lights.  Craig also loses control when it's Christmas.  Steve would be so pleased.  Me?  I'm lucky if the Christmas tree gets put up, and the one or two ornaments on it are just pitiful.  I should have left the cobwebs in place.

Most of the morning was spent watching the heartbreaking news about the fires farther north.  Total, unimaginable devastation.  Later, after undecorating the house, I made a quick run up to the grocery store.  Pete has obviously had an influence because I bought bananas and an eggplant.  (Totally self-indulgent, I also bought liverwurst and rye bread.)

There was a voicemail waiting when I got home.  Camille and I have a pact and we watch out for each other.  She'd called to say she was getting up on a ladder to paint the house at her other property, and that she'd call again in a half-hour to let me know she hadn't fallen off and was lying on the ground somewhere.  She left a second message to say so far, so good.  A third call later (and I was home) when she was going up the ladder again and we joked about my calling 911 if she didn't call back in 30 minutes.  I take my 911 duty very seriously, and when she hadn't called back in time, I gave her 15 minutes and then called her.  When there was no answer, I said I'd give her another 15 before I called for help.  Happily, she called right back to say all was well.  Another couple of trips up the ladder and accompanying phone calls and she called it quits for the day.  Cam stopped by on her way home and we watched the sad evening news together until it was time to put our critters to bed.

Guilt-ridden, I think I'll pull out a witch and a black cat or two today.  The house could use a few decorations or the ghost of Steve would haunt me.