Is it a cold or allergies?

My money is on the former, since Roy came down with a full-blown head cold a day or so before I started feeling funny about the place where the nose meets the throat (which was yesterday afternoon). I took a zinc lozenge and went off for a ten mile bike ride as planned, given that the forecast for the next day (which would now be today) was iffy.

This morning I feel about the way I usually feel when I hit a cold with zinc the moment I notice it: I'm aware it's out there, like rain beating against a window. With luck it will stay that way.

And the rain has indeed been beating against the window since at least 5 this morning, and now it's 10. I see no sign of clearing to the west so I think there will be no bike ride.

I just dumped a frozen roasting chicken into a big pot of cold water, and am pretty sure it will be thawed by dinnertime.

Yesterday Roy got up on a Very Big Ladder to paint the trim around a window in the back house. We'd had the trim replaced because it had rotted out -- we replaced it with some of that faux wood that's made of sawdust and epoxy (or some such). Roy thinks that if the stuff doesn't exude noxious chemicals he might make me a raised bed out back.

In lieu of my bike ride, perhaps some quality time in the woodshed...