Red in Tooth and Claw

Chumps:

I have to beg your indulgence on this unhappy Sunday night. It has fallen to me to substitute for a Mod who couldn't do his post this week. Perfectly OK -- happy to help out. This evening I was all ready to punch out a ripping good summary of the last pages of "Bilocations," pregnant as they are with answers to quite a few questions that have been bothering us for months now.

This afternoon, however, I made the mistake of trying to keep my house in good bourgeois order. Down by the lower part of the yard, my mower annoyed some kind of stinging insect, which took quite an effective revenge: It stung me just over my left eyebrow. Half an hour later, my entire eye was swollen completely shut, and I've only now, at about 11:00 PM, begun to get the damned thing to open. I have tried valiantly to type out a Cyclopean precis for you, but the combination of antihistamines and the headache one gets from having one's eyeball squeezed all day have unmanned me, and I had to give up only partway in.

I promise I will have a Mod Essay up in this space tomorrow (Monday), by the evening at the very latest. But now, it's Ho for the ice-bag and a night-night Benadryl.