The clouds moved in, after a morning of brilliant sunshine, and we're having a bit of dampness. It's just a tease, really. What we need, desperately, is two or three weeks of good, substantial, steady rain.

The soil around here--underneath the lawn turf imported from who knows where--is adobe. After so long without any rain, it's very dry and solid. When the plumbers had to dig up the corner of my front yard to repair the main line that goes from the street to the house, they had to use adzes and pickaxes to break into the adobe.

That's why they built houses out of it. Even in the rain, it doesn't absorb liquid, unless the rain has been steady and unrelenting for weeks. Even then, it's unlikely the wet will get to the center of adobe bricks. The soil has to have been broken up (as in my garden area) for the water to do anything but run off.

So this rain is a teaser. We've had a terrifically warm and unbelievably dry winter; what little rain we had evaporated into nothing and we're looking at drought conditions come summer.

What *has* been unrelenting and steady has been my cold. I got sick the second day of January and was sick for three weeks. Last week I thought I had finally shaken it, but this week I'm coughing and clearing my throat and carrying vitamin C and zinc around with me. It seems to be moving out (but that's what I thought before), so I'll go back to work tomorrow.

I hate to use up my illness time being sick, because I have to use it as kin care time when I do the caregiver thing for my husband. If I run out of hours...well, I'll worry about that when it happens. I tried to go to work, but after 4 hours I had to admit defeat and come home. Tomorrow I'll try, try again.

I'm not used to being sick, and I'm a lousy patient. I have no patience with being in bed and sucking on lozenges. I want to be up, doing things, or at least reading something. But I can't read when the pressure in my head is so bad I can't focus my eyes. Drat.

OK, Universe, I've had the "cold" experience. I'm ready to be well again. Thankyouverymuch.