Three different times I drove past the same old abandoned barn today. Not once did I pull over to take pictures of it. I should have. It was really cool. The barn was parallel to the road, mostly white with chipping paint. It had a fat silo next to it, made of large, red, concrete blocks, with a crenelated top like the tower of a castle. I could spend an hour walking around taking pictures of it. Maybe I will next time I'm out in the wilds of way-northeast Denver. I think it might have technically been Brighton, or maybe Commerce City. I'll look on a map sometime. I had to drive to the airport one and a half times this morning, so I criss-crossed a fair bit of ground before I was finally done. There was a huge open space along what I vaguely remember being 120th Street (Ave? Rd?). The first time we drove through it, it struck me as bleak and hostile. And then I realized I was hating it so much because the sun was scorching me. It was like crossing the surface of the sun, and I suggested that maybe I would like this open area more if it were partly cloudy. Ever since I went on medications to treat a condition that makes me sun-sensitive, I have become even more exceptionally averse to the sun. I thought the meds would make it better, and it's worse. By the time I dropped the Mr off at the airport, drove about 1/3 of the way home, circled back around to give him the gaming tablet he left in the car, and wound back across the eastern municipalities, a large storm had blown in, covering the greater metropolis with that cloud layer I had wished for. As I drove back west along 120th (we'll pretend that was the correct road number), I confirmed that I had been correct. The big, roughly groomed open space was much more hospitable to me when it was cloudy. I didn't stop there either.
Between walking around the Park this morning, watering flowers in the sun, and riding for hours in a roasty little box with big windows, I got way too much sun. Even walking across the parking lot a few times, when I left the car in the middle between the Michaels, Petco, and Lowe's, I was exposed to too much sun. My face looks red, sure, but even all of the rest of me that was completely covered with lycra, jeans, or shoes seems affected. My skin feels tight, like it could split if I poked it too hard. It is the time of year where it will feel like that frequently, nearly straight through until September. After yesterday, I know I'll have at least one room I can chill without having to hang in the basement, but my experiment of closing up the house and leaving the tiny a/c on in one room was a bust. The house was still 77 degrees when I got home, as measured by the thermostat just outside the hallway that leads to my room. Cool air did not move very far. If I want the whole upstairs to be cool, I'll have to pick up at least one more of the little a/c units (probably a more powerful one for the big, open room.)
I had good intentions. I spent hours yesterday pulling weeds from the flowerbed on the front wall of the house. (County Extension office lady said "campanula," but I sure think it is "calendula," and she said the wrong thing. Either way, it all must die!) Things started looking so much better without the weeds choking up all the desirable flowers. I was told that we had one more metal hanging basket that we could fill up if I went and got another one of the plastic bowls I used for the others. (It's too dry here for coconut husk liners, we have decided.) So I went to Lowe's just intending to buy potting soil, a calibrachoa or two, and maybe one or two other things to make the hanging basket interesting. Yeah. "Well, that didn't go as planned." I stopped once I ran out of spaces to put plants on the cart. About 1/3 of them were regular priced, the rest clearance. I had to roam all over the garden center to find calibrachoa, and in the process kept picking up things I couldn't live without. My name is Anne and I am an addict...
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