Leap day!

Merriam-Webster's says that the term leap year comes from the 14th century. I suppose "leap day" is a newer construction. The idea that it's a day for the calendar to leap forward seems like an odd construction. I would have expected something like Bonus Day or Correction Day.

The word leap itself seems to have sprung into the language as a verb sometime before the 12th century. It's traced back to Middle English lepen, from Old English hleapan, akin to Old High German hlouffan, meaning "to run."  If you have to go back further than hlouffan, then I feel sorry for you.

But it is Leap Day! Leaping and jumping is fun!

Whee!

So let's have some jumpy thoughts on leaping from my copy of The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.

"With the help of God I shall leap over the wall." (Prayer Book, 1662)

Yay!

"Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing; for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert." (Bible, Isaiah 35:6)

Hooray!

"Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen!
Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
By their own beauties!" (William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet)

Hacha!

"A little before you made a leap into the dark." (Thomas Brown, Letters from the Dead)

Uh...

"By heaven methinks it were an easy leap
To pluck bright honour from the pale-fac'd moon,
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,
Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drowned honour by the locks." (William Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 1)

Well, okay...

"With rue my heart is laden
  For golden friends I had,
For many a rose-lipt maiden
  And many a lightfoot lad.
By brooks too broad for leaping
  The lightfoot lads are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
  In fields where roses fade." (A. E. Housman, "With Rue My Heart Is Laden")

Sad!

"My mother groan'd, my father wept,
Into the dangerous world I leapt;
Helpless, naked, piping loud,
Like a fiend hid in a cloud." (William Blake, "Infant Sorrow")

Whuh...!

"I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark." (Thomas Hobbes, final words)

Umm... not so sure leaping is as much fun as I originally thought. Let's stop the leaping. Maybe it's best to keep your feet on the ground after all.

Picking up chicks.

If you have a Tractor Supply Company near you, you may know that they have a lot of supplies for your farm dog. Even if your "farm dog" is a Peke named Mr. Fuzzy whom you like to dress up. Clearly, it has plenty of supplies for more typical family dogs. It also has plenty of supplies for more typical farm animals. Sometimes even the animals.

I was getting a big sack o' dog food at TSC yesterday when I discovered that these are the Chick Days. Who knew?

That ain't hay. You can actually go on their site and pick from 88 different kinds of live birds, plus whatever you'll need to keep them live. For you country boys that's just another day at the office, but for us suburb slickers, it's all interesting. And sometimes it's a problem, as you will hear in a moment.

I'm a fan of farms because I'm a fan of food; it's my favorite thing to eat. But as past blog entries have noted, I grew up in the city knowing nothing about farms, and that hasn't changed a lot. So I'm not crazy enough to think it would be a great idea to get a bunch of baby chicks and start my own egg business in the backyard. We don't have a homeowners association here, but if I tried that I think we would have one, formed for the sole purpose of making me cease and desist.

It would probably be moot anyway, as I would likely kill the chicks by accident or the dogs would on purpose.

If you are going to a place like Tractor Supply at this time of year, allow me to suggest that you leave the children at home.

A few years back, our parish school had a little farm with a handful of animals, couple of sheep, maybe a goat, I dunno. Educational for the children. But one of the kids, a softhearted child, apparently decided to save a bunch of cute li'l chicks by buying a large mess of them. Whether it was with the intent to give them to the school farm-slash-petting zoo or if her parents just made her do it, one way or another the pastor wound up with a big pile of fuzzy little chicks and no way to take care of them over the long haul.

This ecumenical crisis was resolved over a couple of weeks, as the pastor pleaded from the pulpit for anyone who would like to take some free chicks to inquire after Mass or at the church office.

Ultimately a few families equipped for this kind of thing stepped forward, and the chicks found new homes. Maybe they joined an egg operation, or were brought to adulthood and eaten; I don't know. It was probably a bit of pain for everyone involved, especially our pastor, and more proof that you should never bring children around baby anything, because they'll want to bring it home and raise it. All baby mammals and birds are cute. Even the ugly ones.

So that's my words of advice regarding chicks. I'm in no danger of acquiring any, as I said, but it doesn't mean I'm free form risk. If my wife goes to goat yoga or something, there's a fair chance she'll try to sneak a pygmy goat into the house. Wouldn't you?

Lack-of-summertime blues?

Feeling low as we slump to the end of February? Tired of winter in this northern hemisphere? Wishing for a hint of summer?

Let's go shopping!

Things have certainly changed since the days when Doritos and Fritos were the closest thing one could get at the supermarket to a tortilla chip. There are a lot of good brands out there now, but of course Late July was chosen for its name, a name specifically created for thoughts of summer. The company puts it this way: "Late July is the sweet spot of summer. It’s a moment in time when life is simple, pure & good. It’s also our name and philosophy on snack making."

I suppose that's okay, although as a child I would have said that late July was a disaster because summer was half over, and if we were going somewhere fun we had probably been. August was a hot stretch of boredom tainted with growing fear. But their point is taken and the snacks are good, even if they are organic. Are they really "restaurant style" as advertised? Sure, but that always depends on the restaurant.

We're not just here to talk about food, though. Let's go to the can!

Target keeps changing its house brands. A couple of years ago they introduced a new line of inexpensive personal-care products called Smartly. Intelligence, despite being in low supply, seems to be in higher regard these days, and I guess it's smart to be a skinflint. The company said, "A product that gets the job done but doesn’t cost an arm-and-a-leg? That’s smart. A whole line of products that are effective, stylish and unbelievably affordable? Now that’s Smartly, Target’s new essentials and personal care owned brand perfect for a budget-conscious and space-constrained shopper."

I don't see how my can of shaving cream does anything to save space, but for a buck, it certainly saved money. What caught my eye was not the price, but rather the scent -- not "Ocean Breeze" or "Sea Escape" but "Smells Like the Ocean." Pretty straightforward. As the site says about its attributes:

rich, soothing lather

moisturizes and protects

light ocean fragrance

all skin types

Okay, well, I can't say it's good for all skin, because I only have one. Its lather is not really very rich and is not particularly soothing; I don't find it to be very moisturizing or protective, either. But smell like the ocean? Yes, yes it does.

I know that can mean many things, from the brisk scent out in international waters to a fish stink at a barnacled broken-down dock, but it's probably just what you'd imagine: A sea-salt fresh-air breeze. Puts you right on the beach. And that'd the summertime beach, because in the cold weather you don't get much of an ocean scent, and you're probably staying away from the beach anyway. I sure am. So I call it a summertime callback product.

Of course, there are other places to be at the seaside in summertime, like:

This is Scent Theory's Summer Boardwalk hand soap.

"The Theory of Scent shapes our lives," says the company site. "It affects our mood, evokes memories , and makes us feel ENERGIZED, CALM, REFRESHED, HAPPY. A moment of pure indulgence in every pump." Pretty strong words for a product I got in Walmart!

Like "ocean," the word "boardwalk" may evoke different scent-memories to different people. Sea breezes. Sausage and peppers. Zeppole. Sweat. Corn dogs. Unwashed carnies. Small-child vomit. But that's not the direction Scent Theory chose to go, thank heaven. "Revisit the carefree SUMMERS abundant in cotton candy and sunny BOARDWALK adventures. Indulge yourself in something special." They love that CAPS button at Scent Theory!

This soap is definitely different. It's pretty much all cotton candy. Nothing wrong with that. It is a fun scent, and it's not cloying, and it not so strong as to make people think you've been strangling clowns. I haven't had cotton candy in a long time, but this brings back some nice memories. And no, not about strangling clowns.

If none of these things help you through the February blahs, take heart -- February's almost over, spring is less than a month away, and in my slice of New York there's daylight at six a.m. and at six p.m. Keep the faith!

Fred's Book Club: The Two Bishops.

Welcome back to the Humpback Writers, the book feature that always features writers, but never features humps. It's Hump Day, that's all, otherwise known as Wednesday.

And today is Ash Wednesday for Christians in most denominations, especially the Roman Catholic Church. On that topic, today's book is one of the most peculiar in my collection, a graphic novel that is, I think, an example of great writing paired with the right art, that could be told as well in no other format. It is The Grand Inquisitor, by John Zmirak, with illustration by Carla Millar.

Where to start with this one? It's a story about the first black African pope -- or is it? When we first meet the man he is in a madhouse in Rome, having arrived there following a mysterious call from a Ukrainian cardinal. But the bishop's race is only a part of the story -- it isn't all about being black, or even being a Catholic leader in a nation of Islamic extremists, as he was. It's about this man of faith and his grim experiences that led him to promotion in the church, but also into this madhouse following the death of the current pope. 

That leads us to the other main character, the other bishop. This elderly cardinal, Fr. Primo, is a behind-the-scenes church leader, a fixer, an intellectual, a man of faith decayed but of determination no less. At once the title becomes clear, for "The Grand Inquisitor" comes from the famous story in Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov, a fable about the returned Christ meeting the titular official. 

And yet this is not a story even about naive faith and cynical administration; it goes beyond that. John Zmirak, senior editor of The Stream and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism, opens the book with this quotation from Pope Benedict XVI when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger, an excerpt that I further excerpt here:

In the course of a dispute, a senior colleague, who was keenly aware of the plight of being a Christian in our times, expressed the opinion that one should actually be grateful to God that He allows there to be so many unbelievers in good conscience. For if their eyes were opened and they all became believers, they would not be capable, in this world of ours, of bearing the burden of faith with all its moral obligations. But as it is, since they can go another way in good conscience, they can reach salvation.... Since that conversation, I knew with complete certainty that something was wrong with the theory....

And this is really what the book is about. It's a tale of secularism and faith, of salvation with and without God, of Man storming the heavens under the banner of Good, with failure and damnation and everything else. The old man goads and taunts "Black Pope" (as he calls him) for his ambition, for the sacrifices others had to make for his confrontational actions in Sudan. He is like Satan in that regard -- Satan, whose name means Adversary or Accuser. And has has had ambitions of his own, worked out in silence through the decades.

It is not a long book, but it has a magnificent scope and sweep. The two main characters are locked in a battle to the finish, each in his way a man of the past and of the future; it is not clear how this will end. 

The story is told almost entirely in Shakespearean dialogue. The verse in which it is composed is blank, and yet mostly written in iambs, the short/long syllable rhythm, with unexpected rhymes popping in to remind you it is verse:

The Church was meant to service man!

                         It fails,

and works instead to foster an elite

of spiritual aristocrats. And they

soak up the benefits that ought to pour

promiscuously on every needy prole.

You lack the intellectual control

to maintain a consistent position.

One minute you're a Catholic, the next

a Marxist dialectician. 

The art is Boschian, if that artist had focused on woodcuts instead of paint (and Bosch does get a well-deserved name check in the dialogue). Every panel is compelling, symbolic, hard to look at. 

On the whole it is a dazzling display from both writer and artist. I first read it one Easter morning, having been at the long Vigil the night before. I found it horrifying, and depressing, but ultimately reassuring of faith and hopeful. That may seem crazy, but it's one of those books you experience, much like a stage play, rather than read. If you're going to check out a fictionalized tale of two strong clerics and the papacy, then prefer this one to that other piece of fiction from Netflix. Fake pews!

I would recommend The Grand Inquisitor to modern Catholics, but maybe to each one for a different reason. One person might appreciate the art, another the writing; a third might need to look at the course of secularism; a fourth might want to ponder how engagement with the world affects faith, or vice versa. And one might just want a powerful Church story. Zmirak and Millar have achieved something worthy of note with this story, and I hope it continues to find readers. It is set "ten years in the future," but is a story for our day.

Big Amphibian is watching.

Are the frogs taking over?

Room and bored.

Since my return from the hospital last Tuesday, I have been limited in what I can do. I can only walk around for about five minutes before pain begins to grip my leg and I must sit down. I'm not supposed to do any heavy lifting, ought to limit driving, and I must be cautious on ramps and stairs. And so on. I'm seeing two doctors this week, who may be able to help, but meanwhile it's restricted activity for me.

And the dogs are driving us crazy.

My wife has been doing an ace job with them, all the things I usually do plus all the things she usually does. Slowly I've taken some of the easier jobs, like feeding and a late-evening send-out, but we don't have free-range dogs here. No fences, plenty of dog-hating neighbors. They need an overseer, if not an escort.

It usually takes both of us to get them enough activity on an average day, and my wife's at-home job is much more demanding, especially time-wise, than mine. So usually it is I who roughhouses, walks, and generally goofs around with them, and it's just out of the question now. So our bored dogs are spending large chunks of time whining and fussing and causing irritation all around.

Fortunately there are plenty of tips for how to keep a dog occupied, such as this list here, but most of them require things like human activity, which is in short supply at the moment. Or they may recommend one of those treat-containing puzzle toys, which you may recall occupies my big bruisers for approximately two minutes, tops. They also don't play with toys on their own very much, except for Junior Varsity Dog Nipper, and with only one toy -- an old collar of his. He loves to lick and chew it. He thinks he tastes great.

Other options include leaving the front door open with the storm door closed, or as we call it, Dog TV.  And we do that, although it leads more often to random attacks of barkage, which is bad if my wife has a phone meeting. Or we could consider installing an Invisible Fence, or hiring a dog walker to break up the day, but anything that involves a steady or large financial outlay at this time, with hospital bills amassing on the horizon, seems like a poor idea.

We're doing our best to keep things normal, but it's hard. They know something is up, but they can't understand what, or why. You could explain to a small child that Daddy is hurt and is trying to get better, but dogs don't understand. Once again we are let down by the fact that our wonderful pets cannot speak English.

Hospital TV.

During my medical sojourn last week, I found that you can learn things from the TV the hospital provides to help pass the time. Mainly, you can learn that daytime TV is an irritating way to pass the time. Still, I had nothing to read and no juice on the cell phone until my wife brought me books and a charger, so it was more engaging than looking out the window.

I can't say I wasn't warned. A friend of mine was undergoing cancer treatments last year, and while he was able to stay at home through most of it, he was unable to do anything beyond watch the tube. I believe he said he had memorized episodes of Bonanza and The Twilight Zone and that Wilma Flintstone was starting to look good to him.

Thankfully, I only had a couple of days to deal with it, from Sunday afternoon through Tuesday evening. I can see how it would make you crazy. Even the all-news channels, or maybe especially those; the constant chewing of the same Bone Du Jour is insane. Apparently there was nothing much in the world of note last Monday except for the Roger Stone sentencing, because all the news channels were on it constantly.

Ah, but the cable TV provided by the hospital had soothing channels, with calming music and video clips from nature. Well, the most educational thing about that was that I couldn't stick with them very long. You'd think a guy in pain, who'd just been through a major pain crisis, would want nothing else on but that channel and the back of his eyelids, but no. No wonder I suck at meditation.

So what did I like?

Well, as I alluded to yesterday, I watched America's Funniest Home Videos on Sunday night. What made that educational was how my attitudes had changed toward people falling during the previous 24 hours. You just fell down the stairs! Go get an X-ray! You have no idea how this can come back to haunt you, you fool! My previous reaction to people falling on AFV was the more lizard-brained Ha ha him fall funny.

On Monday there was a Catholic priest in the little chapel downstairs, and I was able to watch Mass on CCTV. I liked that, although the sound quality was pretty bad.

I picked up a tidbit on the History channel, one that had nothing to do with Ancient Aliens. It was a neat little documentary on Air Force One that the channel ran on Presidents Day. I knew some of the history of the planes assigned that name, but amid the data was this: the name of the country painted on the plane's exterior is meant to simulate the typeface used for the name of the country as it was seen -- for the first time -- on the Declaration of Independence.

Cool.

Other things I leaned came from watching most of Return of the Jedi, which I have not seen in a very long time. And those things were numerous. They include:

1. The movie begins with the worst rescue plan I have ever seen in the movies. I can't even tell what they were trying to accomplish, sending people into Hutt's Hut in dribs. To infiltrate and then take over at a signal? Obviously not, since everything went to hell immediately. It made no sense at all. If R2 didn't have enough space to hide a lightsaber in his chassis, the galaxy would have been screwed. Even then a lot of dumb luck was required. Almost any other plan would have been better. 
2. Mark Hamill was a pretty bad actor. I don't know if he got any better. I haven't the new trilogy and I don't care. But Harrison Ford was pretty bad, too. He looks stoned through the scene where we learn the plan to attack the new Death Star and he is revealed to now be General Solo. If 1970s Steve Martin had been cast as Comic Relief Solo, and played the part the exact same way, people would have thought it was a hilarious spoof. 
3. Retroactively speaking, I hear that Leia was supposed to do all kinds of Force stuff late in the third trilogy. This makes perfect sense, as she's revealed to be a Skywalker. And yet, although Darth and Luke can sense each other's Forceishness in real time across space, neither of them had any idea that the Force would be strong with that princess, too. Was this addressed?

Anyway, by the time we got to the Ewoks, I was about to be whisked out of the room for injections. Some people loathe the little Space Teddy Bears, but at least for those pre-CGI days, they were pretty convincing.

I also saw enough (ten minutes) of Matt Damon's The Great Wall to realize that, whatever faults the Star Wars series might have, if you put them all together in a bag they might still weigh less than the faults in The Great Wall. What a waste of Willem DaFoe.

All of this hard-won knowledge would have been avoided if i'd had more than an 8% charge on my phone.

Maybe I should have spent more time staring out the window. Sure, it's a modern, dull building, and it looks drab and tired although it opened in 2011, and February is not much to look at -- but at least the skies were blue.

Question: Did someone determine that tan and brown are great healing colors? Because that's the sum of the whole color palette in this place. Does it help keep people relaxed and compliant?

The rest of the hospital story.

If you'd told me on Sunday morning, when I was in crushing pain in the ER, that I'd be relaxing in a private room watching America's finest network program on Sunday night, I might have thought that it was some weird, unattainable dream. But indeed that was the case.

The hideous pain I'd suffered didn't return, but I was terrified that it would. However, I slept and napped pretty well, for a guy who was getting an IV bag (they feared bone infection initially) and vitals checked every few hours. Ultimately on Monday they chose a course of action, and that was the epidural steroid shots commonly used in my situation. They had had to hold off until they decided bone infection was not likely, because steroids' immunosuppressant characteristics would make an infection worse. Monday afternoon I was whisked away for the job, and that was awfully painful, because I had to lay on my stomach. This stretched out the nerves, and the doctor doing the procedure said in cases like mine it could bring that pain right back. But there was no choice. However, the nurse was able to slip some fentanyl in my IV plug, which made me dizzy but eased the agony.

And that was the last painkiller I got. I had to stay over another night for observation, and then all day Tuesday while endless paperwork was processed, but I haven't had so much as an aspirin since. I don’t want to mask a return of crisis signals.

I'm grateful to the hospital for getting me some treatment. Complain as I have over the last couple of blog entries, I can't imagine what people did with these kind of issues in the past. Whiskey, I guess. What else did they have?

And every person on staff was shockingly nice. The grumpy nurse, the overworked resident, the empty-headed intern, not one of these caricatures appeared in my reckoning. They were all great.

Yes, the food was exceptionally bland, but it was prompt and generous. I thought the bed was comfy enough, considering that I had to sleep on my back for the duration. One nurse sympathized, having heard complaints from patients about the beds; another said she'd been a patient and had hated the bed. But I thought it was fine.

Seems like a comfy spot to me

And when the time came to leave, the duty nurse was organized and efficient. I was offered a wheelchair but refused. I was going to have to start walking on my own again anyway.

Now what? Well, I was told to see four different doctors, including my own GP, who is finally returning to action after being missing for months. (I suspect he was on a three-hour tour near Hawaii when the weather started getting rough.) I can't walk very far without the leg hurting, so my wife still has to tend to the dogs all by herself. 😞 And I can't lift anything heavy. There's also some question in the discharge papers as to whether I should be allowed to drive. So clearly there's a path before me to traverse back to health.

But I'll say this: On Tuesday night, when I went to bed, I was bone-terrified I would wake up again as I did on Sunday morning, in all that awful pain. Fortunately I was exhausted, because I fell asleep. In the morning I didn't feel any better -- but I didn't feel any worse. And that was all I really wanted at that moment. For a long time on Sunday, being without pain was all I thought I could ever want again in this world.

Later, that same morning....

Continuing my saga from yesterday....

The emergency department is like a fish tank where the bloopfish and beepfish communicate constantly through the medium. Something is always making an electronic noise. TV shows about hospitals would be ridiculously annoying if they accurately portrayed the ambient electronic sounds in an emergency medical setting.

I lay on my side once more, racked with pain, waiting for something to happen. With any luck it would involved lowering the pain, but so far things had only added to it -- drawing blood, checking vitals, sticking in an IV line.

Frankly, I was surprised that someone in so much obvious physical distress would be allowed to linger so long. I'm not exaggerating when I say it was hours before I was given a dose of morphine, which eased -- but didn't remove -- the intense pain in my back. I have to wonder if hospital protocols have gotten so tough on dispensing pain medication that they make the stuff exceptionally difficult to procure. I intend to ask someone about that.

Meanwhile, I was in the bed, white-knuckled, grasping the side rails like they were keeping me from falling. The pain actually kept getting worse, incrementally, as my repeated blood pressure checks confirmed objectively, and like a good Catholic I offered it up for the salvation of souls. But five hours into the ordeal, I suggested to God that I had probably saved as many souls as I could handle.

I got a lidocaine patch, which helped about as much as a smear of vanilla frosting would. But at last the nurse said he get some morphine.

The time between the nurse saying he would get me morphine and the drug's actually arrival was so long, you could probably have watched half of Cats, which might have been almost as painful. Because now it was tantalizingly just out of reach. My wife, my angel of mercy, probably would have gone out in the streets to try to score some illicit drugs is it had kept up much longer.

No man I know wants his loved ones to see him the way my wife had to see me. I was reduced to a whimpering mess. I feel ashamed about it, but I don't know how I could have behaved differently. Now I wonder if she'll always think of that when she needs me to be strong for her.

Hours passed. I listened to the usual ER chitchat. One patient and his wife being interviewed over and over by staff trying to get them to admit that the husband was a drunk; them clearly bluffing and prevaricating. Occasional laughter in the air. Someone with a long, dull litany of complaints. Me moaning. Why couldn't I pass out from the pain? Does that happen in real life? Of have I been lied to by the movies again?

About the time that the minor relief of the morphine was wearing off, they came to cart me out for a CT scan. This meant lying on my goddamn back again, and once again it was brutally hard. But at least we were doing something constructive. Then it was back to the same spot in the emergency department, to wait some more. Next time I get in medical trouble, please remind me not to do it on the Saturday overnight.

I don't know when it was that they decided I ought to get some Dilaudid, but it took until they decided to send me to get an MRI. That stuff did really ease the pain, at least to bearability, and for the first time I started to think I might survive this mess. I want to note that there was no fun to be had out of these pain meds. I had no mind-altering effects, except what you would expect from the reduction of awful pain. I was a little dizzy. And then I broke into a terrible cold sweat, right in the middle of the MRI.

If you've stuck with me this far -- thanks! Also, you may remember that in 2018 I was sent to get an MRI of my head for a hearing problem. That MRI had a mirror to give the illusion of looking out at the world; this one didn't. It was a blank white tube and it fit me like a tuxedo. I'm not terribly claustrophobic, but it was pretty bad. I shut my eyes and tried to think of anything to occupy my mind -- prayers, shopping lists, every member of the Justice League of America in alphabetical order. When I started flushing and sweating, I didn't think I could make it through -- it's almost a half hour ordeal for the contrast MRI. But I was so strongly motivated to stay in that tube and let them get the data they needed, I just kept my eyes shut and managed to not panic. That was a gift from heaven, right there.

From the MRI I was checked into a room in the orthopedic section, there to get interviewed by all the doctors who hadn't interviewed me already. Now, at least, the painkillers were adequate to the situation, and once installed in the room I was able to rest. It was about mid-afternoon.

I don't think I was rude to anyone, and absolutely no one was rude to me. Really, the staff could not have been more kind through the ordeal. However, I am not proud of my behavior, the moaning, the cries of pain, the inability to put on the brave face. If all the other little indignities of a hospital stay did not follow -- the need for permission to get up, the stupid gown, the escorts to the bathroom, the constant reminders of what one looks like stripped down -- it would still have been as humiliating as anything that has ever happened to me.

Maybe it just means I have too much pride, after all. But as I said, no man wants to be seen by his loved ones as I was in the ER.

🏥 🚑

We'll finish up the tale tomorrow; all downhill from here. What happens next? As Wagner wondered yesterday, maybe I died! That would be awful.

So here's the deal.

From Saturday evening takeout.

Let me state up front, since no one seemed to understand at the hospital, that I was not hurt because I fell on the floor. I fell on the floor because I was hurt.

I tried to explain the story at least eight times.

If you've hung around this joint at all, you may know that I've been diagnosed with sciatica and have been battling it through physical therapy since January. It was taking a turn for the worse last week; Friday was bad; Saturday was awful.

Then, Sunday, at 4:30 in the morning, it was unbelievable.

I can hardly describe the pain, but to say that everything I'd felt up to that point was virtually nothing by comparison -- and it had not been nothing. Blinding, burning, crushing pain. Somehow I got to the toilet, wolfed down Advil and Tylenol while using it, but then had one thought -- get to my chair.

Every guy has his chair, and mine was a lifesaver on Saturday. It was the only place I found any relief from the pain, pain that made my wife cancel our dinner plans (a friend's birthday gathering). If it had been a little worse, I would have gone to the urgicare. But, since it wasn't, and since on Friday I had made an appointment to see a pain specialist on Tuesday (earliest available), I didn't. I figured I could stick it out until Tuesday.

And then it was Sunday, and sitting in my chair was burning agony. So, I fell forward onto the floor.

This put my head by Tralfaz's dog bed. Fazzy got up and made for the hall, which I appreciated; I was able to tug his bed over and rest my head on it. And that was about the limit of my ability to move. I was on my side, knees pulled up, not quite a fetal position because that would have hurt more. Really, even though I was the beach for waves of pain to wash over, every move beyond my right arm was horrendous. You've heard the expression "writhing in agony" -- now I know that it is quite a literal description.

Fortunately, I had my phone. Unfortunately, no one was up.

I could have called 911. That would have meant them breaking down the door, setting off the electronic as well as the canine alarms, and scaring the ever-lovin' snot out of my wife. Or I could do what I did, when I finally conceded that it wasn't getting any better on its own, and started calling and texting my wife.

It took until about 5:20. Then she got right to it. Although she was freaking out a little, she kept a cool head and took care of business. She corralled the dogs, called 911, and checked if she could do anything else for me. But nothing could be done for me. All I could do was be a lump of agony on the floor, praying that when the ambulance arrived that for mercy's sake they'd bring with them an enormous cartoon-size hypo marked PAINKILLER and jam it right into me. Because I was thinking, there are two kinds of people in war movies who get grave injuries and don't die -- the kind that somehow summon the guts to get up and move, and the kind that ask a buddy for a bullet in the head, and I was so far into #2 camp that I couldn't believe #1 really existed. Not if he felt like this.

The gentlemen who arrived more than half an hour after the call (I grumbled to my wife that she should have lied and said there was blood everywhere) were friendly, professional, and completely powerless to give me anything to stop the torment. In fact, when I told them I could not roll over -- because sometimes you really can't force your muscles to do things -- and that to be rolled over would make the pain even worse (Spinal Tap style, the 10 on the pain chart would go to 11), I was regretfully informed that it would be necessary in order to get me into the chair lift to get down the stairs and onto the stretcher and into the meat wagon. This turned out to be the case, and as the men heroically moved my bulk hither and yon, I screamed like I was giving birth.

I often exaggerate for comic effect, but all of this is just as I'm telling you.

Once strapped in we waited on my driveway an abysmally long time while the driver got the okay to proceed to the hospital, 17 miles away. The pain was indeed worse on my back, which is why I had been on my side, and I was trying to hold my left side up as much as I could with the force of arms, because my left side was the very worst spot. Finally we were given clearance for liftoff.

"I'm sorry," said my medic in the back. "This isn't a Cadillac, it's a truck, so it's gonna be a little bumpy."

"Yeah, I figured," I said, while he took my blood pressure, which was so high I thought the cuff would burst like a balloon.

To be continued....

Valentine's cake.

Blogger's Note: This was supposed to be Sunday's entry, but I was unduly tied up (which I will explain tomorrow). I might have just disposed of this little essay. But I can't waste a good dessert.

💟💟💟

So, how was your Valentine's Day?

Mrs. Key and I eschew going to restaurants on the day, leaving that to those who need to feed each other on a particular day to show their love. She needs nothing to prove to me her love; she's been doing that by putting up with my jokes for years. And she thinks it's silly to fall into the trap where a husband is obliged to buy flowers on the day. I know what you guys are thinking: The Perfect Woman! Yes, but that also means flowers are desirable on the other 364 days (365 on leap year).

So we didn't go out, but I did try to make a special dinner, or at least a special dessert, courtesy of Godiva Chocolatier. Although certain observations make me wonder how special it is.

First, the product:

Godiva has been putting out these baking mixes for a while, and I got this one thinking it would be a good dessert for when we had guests. Well, we've had guests and it didn't happen; either my wife wanted something else, or the guests brought the sweets. But Valentine's Day seemed perfect, and who doesn't like Brownie Cheesecake Swirl?

But how classy is it? Godiva, around since the first shop opened in Belgium in 1926, had a great mystique of high class when it finally came to upscale American stores in 1966 and then opened a Fifth Avenue boutique in 1972. The name was supposed to command respect from us Hershey-bar-sucking swine, and indeed it seemed to. It was associated with the more urbane stores like Macy's -- not like Woolworth's, where you could go get a Whitman's Sampler or some other peasant food.

And indeed, Godiva held on to that image for a while. The last Godiva shop I was in, to get a gift, was in the upscale Westchester shopping center known as The Westchester in White Plains, where one finds Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom as anchor stores.

However, I bought this baking mix in the local supermarket. I could have gotten it in Walmart, which sells it and virtually every other pre-wrapped Godiva product.

Godiva, in fact, was bought by Campbell's Soup in 1967, which makes it seem less a shining star than a sweet brand alternative to canned Cream of Mushroom. Campbell's sold it in 2008 to Istanbul-based Yıldız Holding.

Furthermore: Are brownies classy? I suppose I shouldn't denigrate brownies too much; they were invented by the chef at Chicago's high-class Palmer House Hotel as a portable luncheon treat. But like the cupcake, they have a silly name and are popular with small children, so they don't come across as a fancy-pants sweet.

Regardless, I went ahead and baked this li'l ol' cake while the wife was out. It has its own pan inside the box! But you do need to buy a brick of cream cheese and a couple of eggs.

Cute, huh?

I didn't do a good job with the "swirl" part, I admit, but as long as the chocolate made it in the cake, I figure it's a win. So how was it?

Well, it's good. The brownie was a pretty solid piece of dark chocolate, and nothing wrong with that; some people like a fudgy brownie and this is that. The cheesecake was a little less successful, but making a good French-style cheesecake is rather complicated and involves water baths and things. For a cake mix cheesecake it is just fine. All together, a successful dessert, easier than making the components from scratch, a little more involved than most box mix cakes, but not as good as buying a brownie cheesecake from a good bakery.

So next Valentine's Day, don't bother with Betty Crocker; go with Lady Godiva instead! Woo!

It’s “no” time!

Okay, still unavailable but explanations tomorrow. It will mean the postponement of our Wednesday book club feature this week, but I know you can muddle through somehow.

Blarg redux.

Experiencing some problems — unable to post. Will try to return on Tuesday.

Down, boy!

Town and country.

Had a strange dog-related experience with someone in the neighborhood the other day.

There's a new lady in the area; she has a couple of young children and a tiny little dog. (No, she doesn't live in the Witness Security Program/FBI Safe House; I don't know where she lives but it's not there.)

I tried to keep away from her, I ought to let you know that. She was coming down the block with little dog but no little kids, and I was in the front yard with Senior Varsity Dog Tralfaz. Tralfaz is an enormous hairy beast, although the friendliest pup you know, and he sometimes scares children and other dogs with his enthusiastic greeting. That being: A few really loud barks, then he barrels at them like a locomotive. Who would be alarmed by that?

Typical action scene 

Anyone would be alarmed by that, I know, so I dragged and cajoled him against his will into the backyard until the lady went by. Well, he immediately pulled me to the farther end of the house to watch when she came out the other side, but he was quiet about it. Once she had gone, I took him back to the front to resume what we were aiming to do out there in the first place -- walking up the street, in the same direction from which she had come.

What I didn't realize was that as soon as she got to the end of the block, she and her dog turned around and started back up in our wake.

So now we had the world's slowest chase: me trying to keep my crazy bear from realizing the little dog was behind us, Tralfaz dawdling to sniff every molecule that the little dog had left behind, her and her dog strolling along, and me also trying to glance back to see if they were gaining on us (they were).

When the inevitable happened and we met, our greeting was quite friendly. Tralfaz immediately went nose-to-nose with the little dog, and at first all was fine; then the little dog did an aggressive growl and the lady had to pull him back. Which was no problem, as she is quite tall and presumably strong and her dog weighs maybe ten or fifteen pounds, maybe a tenth of Tralfaz's fighting weight.

We chatted a bit, complimenting each other's canine chums; she asking about dog groomers. I found out that she and the family just moved up to the Hudson Valley from the city and are just finding their way around. And then she said something that surprised me: that she'd cleaned up after her dog and didn't know what to do with it so she left it on the fire hydrant.

That sentence didn't compute for me, so I just let it fly by as we went on to the next topic. Soon we parted, and I took Mr. Friendly back down the hill.

Sure enough, hanging from the fire hydrant closest to my house was a plastic pet waste bag.

I realized suddenly that she really is from the city originally, and probably a neighborhood where there are municipal trash cans on every corner. Clean up after your pup there, drop it in with the Styrofoam coffee cups and chip bags and soda bottles in the corner can, and be on your way. This is something she didn't know about suburban life, that while we may have sidewalks in our neighborhoods, we don't have public trash cans.

We have to take care of our own trash. I use an outdoor bin in the backyard. Another family I know leaves the waste bags hidden behind the bushes until trash day. Another family keeps the garbage can outside all the time for that purpose.

Not to belabor a distasteful topic, but I had to think about how to deal with it. Of course if I speak with her again I'll suggest she follow my lead on this. Meanwhile, there was a dog waste bag hanging on a fire hydrant in front of the house of my despised neighbor, the dog hater, the one who I have mentioned will probably be led out of his house by the feds one day.

I told my wife about this situation. She thought that it was hilarious, but I knew we'd get blamed for this. And really, I don't want any confrontations with the unpleasant occupant next door. I don't want any contact with him at all.

So, while walking Nipper later, under cover of darkness, I took the bag off the fire hydrant and put it in my holding pen. The lady will probably think the garbage men picked it up, that it's part of whatt they do -- so if I'm not astute, the fire hydrant could turn into a veritable Christmas tree of dog poop.

The moral of the story is, I guess, comes from the old Town Mouse and Country Mouse tale by Aesop, or maybe the Town Mouse, Country Mouse, and Suburb Mouse by Roz Chast. Or something. The point is, moving from one kind of place to another is a culture shock. First thing to do is find out how to get rid of your garbage. It's not the same everywhere.

Seventies revival.

Don't you make him come down there!

Fred's Book Club: President Jr.

Hello, everybody, and happy Hump Day! That means it's time for another installment of the Humpback Writers, the Internet's favorite book feature hosted by me on Wednesday, as opposed to the other book features I host on Wednesday. (NB: No authors thus far have been known to have any back issues whatever, let alone hunchbacks.)

With Presidents Day coming on Monday, it seemed like a great time to look at this nifty history book by historian and editorialist Noemie Emery -- Great Expectations: The Troubled Lives of Political Families. 

"This is a book that defies definition, in a genre few words can explain," she writes in her preface. "It is a social, political, and family history, but it is not the tale of a man, a movement, or a family. Rather, it is a story about a phenomenon -- the pressures placed on young men in a specialized setting -- as it works its way out over time."

I first encountered Emery in the pages of Russ Smith's NYPress, a free weekly that I looked forward to every Friday. Smith, a libertarian by nature, made this paper a fun read, filling it with local talent like Slackjaw, great cartoonists like Tony Millionaire (Maakies) and Ben Katchor (Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer), and opinion writers like Emery, Taki, and Toby Young. Of them Emery was probably the least flip and the most solid, an architect of prose with serious intent. I was thrilled to see that she'd published this book, back in 2007. (The NYPress folded in 2011.) Emery currently writes for the Washington Examiner.

The book focuses primarily on the fortunes of American families who had more than one family member at least take a shot at the presidency -- Adams, Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Bush are the primary names featured, and reading it makes me glad that A) George Washington had no direct descendants and B) that so few of our chief executives really tried to get their kids to follow in their footsteps, or had children that really wanted the office. If nothing else it's a terrific lesson in the problems with hereditary succession.

Take the Adams family. We know that John and son John Quincy were brilliant but unloved one-term presidents. And the rest of the family was at various levels of screwed up, right down to petulant writer Henry Adams.

John Quincy Adams followed his father's path precisely, but his brothers, Charles and Thomas, were nothing like their father. "Charles showed a tendency to break under pressure," Emery writes, "as his parents pushed him along in his big brother's footsteps. John Quincy had been taken abroad at the age of eleven and rapidly dazzled the great men of Europe. Charles, taken abroad at age nine, had cried, become homesick and sickly, and been forced to go home. Sent to Harvard (of course) in the wake of his brother, he had begun to drink heavily and had shown his reaction to his parents' strict lectures by joining in some kind of campus disturbance, in which he had run naked through the college square." This kind of behavior would not be such a problem for later political families from Massachusetts, but they were of grave concern to the Adamses. Charles would die of cirrhosis at thirty. His brother Thomas just preferred to eschew everything and stay with his aunt and uncle on their farm.

Henry Adams, the grandson of John Quincy and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, may have been a fine scholar and reporter, but Emery has no patience for the man's smug self-pity as the tag-end of a waning family, "marginalized by no one but themselves":

Henry had the harder job of reconciling his belief that he deserved to hold power with the fact that he lacked the will to fight for it, and with his resentment of people who did. Raised to believe, as he wrote, that "a president was a given in every respectable family," he gave rise to stories while he was at Harvard that he sat in his room waiting for someone to draft him for office. When nobody did, he sulked.

The chapter on the Roosevelts was quite informative as well. I was especially taken with the plight of Theodore Roosevelt Jr., who was anointed by fans of his dad to be the man's successor, but while he had more will and drive than Henry Adams, he never had the political gifts of personality and charisma, except in military service. Plus, while Ted was in the army in World War I, his cousin Franklin grabbed the Roosevelt baton and started running with it:

Ted had the name and the descent from the hero, but Franklin was not without things that had evened the score and perhaps reversed it; he was six crucial years older; he had a history of working with TR in politics; he had run on a national ticket and had also held two public offices; he had a soothing, mellifluous baritone, whereas Ted had the high-pitched squeak of his father; and he was tall, slender, graceful, and almost too handsome. Ted was smaller and always looked agitated, with overlarge features in too small a face.

I've lost nearly all respect for FDR over the years, for the way he helped keep the economy lousy through stupid, socialistic ideas and for his disrespect for American political traditions, but this book also shattered the halo of his long-suffering wife, St. Eleanor. When Ted Jr. was running on the Republican ticket to be New York's governor in 1924, Eleanor attacked him, and with gusto, at the state Democratic convention. She also personally arranged for a "car dressed as a papier-mâché 'teapot' in which she trailed Ted as he made campaign speeches," trying to tag him with the Teapot Dome scandal from the Harding Administration, with which Ted Jr. had no direct involvement. And this vicious treatment of her blood relative was not even in direct aid of her philandering husband, but rather to promote Al Smith, Franklin's political patron.

Ted would wind up dying of a heart attack at age 56, a month after leading troops on D-day. Brigadier General Roosevelt proved to be a smart, courageous, and popular leader, and is buried with honor in Normandy.

If you think this stuff is interesting, you ought to see what Emery has to say about the Kennedys. Too hot for this blog! Nah, just kidding -- she's a clear-eyed reporter with a talent for marshaling facts with brevity and wit. I only wish this book had been updated after the 2016 election, so we could have more from the Jeb! side of the Bush family tale. Not to mention the latest Great Kennedy Hope, pipsqueak Joe III, cooling his heels in the House since 2013 (but planning to take on Ed Markey for his Senate seat this year -- guess he got tired of waiting).

Unlike that Dickens book of the same title, Emery's Great Expectations is a brief tome, a mere 235 pages, but is packed with great stories and fascinating insights into politics, personalities, and the pressures of great families. But it's not a mere recitation of scandals; Emery weaves the tales to create a larger tapestry, following the theme of great political expectations in American history. As with most of the books in Fred's Book Club, I recommend it without reservation. In fact, I'm sending copies to Donald Trump Jr. and the Obama girls!

Can I trade teams?

Yesterday in Florida the pitchers and catchers reported for the Beloved Mets. And I think the season is already over.

Not that, as far as I know, anyone got hurt already, although I think the Trojans had fewer injuries in The Iliad than the Mets do in an average season. And it's not that there were any tremendous changes to the squad, which was very competitive in the latter half of 2019, when it was already too late. And it's not that I disagreed with the dismissal of manager Mickey Callaway, who racked up the streakiest W-L record I ever saw.

And no, it wasn't even the fact that new manager Carlos Beltran was sacked before day 1, because of his involvement with the Houston Astros cheating scandal.

No, it's because we almost pulled off a major trade, and it looked like it was in the bag, and it all fell apart a couple of days ago.

I am referring to the trade of our owners, the Wilpons.

The Wilpons have a bad rep for spending money stupidly, not spending it where it would count, charging fans for everything short of the air they breathe while watching the games, for falling for two pyramid schemes including Bernie Madoff's, and mostly ignoring the team until they bumble in and do something dumb. Aside from that, they've been great. As Rolling Stone of all places noted five years ago, "the Wilpons have lived on a shoestring budget for six years, taking profits from their ownership in SNY to make up team shortfalls and hoping that a tight budget and crossed fingers can arrest the team cratering that began in 2009. The Wilpons have seemingly never met a problem for which an absence of a solution will do, unless they have a solution worse than the problem, and that solution is invariably 'them.' As a distraction, they've repeatedly used the Daily News as their mouthpiece to trash players and deflect attention from complaints."

Apparently what screwed the current deal to sell the team to Steve Cohen, according to the New York Post, was Jeff Wilpon, heir of the family, who for some strange reason had to hold on to operational control of the team for at least five years after the Wilpons sold the majority stake. Which is like saying, "Okay, Turnaround Artist, I'm glad to sell you my interest in Amalgamated Widgets for a tremendous amount of money, but I will continue to run the company into the ground for five more years."

Which is a little strange.

Now they claim that they won't insist on maintaining control of the team -- but why say that now, when the deal has fallen through? Did they just use that as a torpedo to sink the Cohen deal for some other reason? Don't tell me that it's because the Wilpons are such good judges of character.

Further, they want to keep hold of SNY, the Mets' cable channel, which by many reports is more lucrative than the team itself, probably because the expenses are so much lower -- but without the team it would be a really poor sports channel. Anyone else would sell the channel and team as a package deal, but not this bunch.

And so now we're stuck with them again.

We're certainly not alone in the world of sports for having hated ownership. When the Yankees fell into a funk in the eighties, fans wanted Steinbrenner's head on a pike. Dan "Chainsaw Dan" Snyder of the Washington Redskins is loathed -- well, pretty much by everybody, not just Redskins fans. Mark Cuban of the Dallas Mavericks sometimes acts like he ought to be locked up somewhere before he hurts himself or others. And there are many others.

Probably everyone who loves a team has had to hate the management at some point. But to have the bright sunshine of a new Mets era blackened over by the storm clouds of Same Ol' Crap at the last second truly is hard.

Oh, well. Wait till next year!

Big words, little trouble.

Author K'Anne Meinel issues this challenge:

Are you kidding?

Here we go:

I am continually flabbergasted by your shenanigans. You seek to get me bamboozled and discombobulated with this codswallop, you young whippersnapper, while you lollygag around the place, playing with that whatachamacallit, that iPhone thingie. Well, you may seem like a mere fast-talking flibbertigibbet to others, but I suspect your malarkey has more of a insidious intent. I'm not looking to cause a kerfuffle, dust-up, or brouhaha, but I will not be treated like a nincompoop. In fact, I'm gobsmacked that a dingleberry full of poppycock thinks he can come in here, eat my pumpernickel, try to canoodle with my daughter, and whatnot, and then just skedaddle, leaving our family all cattywampus. You will cease all that codswallop, put down that doohickey, and get to work, you beggarly excuse for a factotum! You think you've flummoxed me, but I've been on tenterhooks waiting for you to do something useful, and I'm not even persnickety about what you do. Now, get in the stockroom and separate the thingamajigs from the whatsits, and do it now before we open the store!

Feh. Who got next?

Cord, cut.

So we did it -- something I advised a junior colleague against years ago. But yes, we have joined the legion of people without a landline telephone.

This feels weird.

The bracket and jack gape from the wall in silent accusation.

Since I was a kid, we had the phone on the kitchen wall and the phone in the master bedroom. When we moved, there was a phone on the kitchen wall and one in the master bedroom. When I had my first apartment. When I had my second apartment. When we bought the house. You get the idea.

I can remember the phone number we got when I was four years old. The phone numbers changed but the phone followed us everywhere.

And now? Phoneless.

Of course, we're not phoneless; we have cell phones. All our business calls are done through the cells; now, all our personal calls too. This is a change I wouldn't have expected. We got our cell phones back in the day because they were great for emergency use, especially when we were commuting to the city. It could be really tough to stay in contact in the pre-cell days, as anyone over thirty probably knows. My wife sold me on the idea -- "What if the car breaks down? What if you miss your train?" Memorably, the day we needed them the most -- the day those hell-bound bastards took down the towers -- cell phones weren't working at all.

Nevertheless, they have indeed been very handy at all other times.

I had told my young associate to get a landline because I felt cell phones were not reliable. You could run out of power. You could drop and break your phone! It could get lost or stolen! You could miss an important business call! But over the years I have found that these things didn't happen, or when they did could be rectified quickly. So we finally decided to eliminate one monthly bill and cut the cord.

I used the Christmas cards to alert everyone: "Don't call that old number! Ixnay on the olday umbernay! Just don't do it!"

Not that they were. Except for two aged relatives, everyone else who wanted me used e-mail or the cell phone. And the scammers. Oh, yes, they checked in on the landline once a day or so. And I have always suspected that we're one digit off from a kosher pizzeria, because the caller ID might have names like Shlomo Kritchenschmeir, and they'd just hang up when they got the voice mail.

I won't miss them. However, in addition to personal contacts, I made a list of all the businesses and utilities who had our home phone number that would have to be alerted to the change. Insurance companies, banks, utilities, clients, and so on. It was a long list, and I'm inching through it.

One that won't be alerted is the phone company. I thought when I called them (because you couldn't cancel service online) they would make the Big Pitch as to why you should stay. You know, offer to throw in free services, or cut the ever-increasing bill (over $100 monthly!), but no. Just, "Okay, sure, bye," and the phone went dead that same day. It was like breaking up with an angry girlfriend. I'm not good enough for you? Fine. Just fine. You're dead to me.

And that's fine.

Got the final bill yesterday. I owe $0.00. And that really rang my bell.

The name of the game.

We can't shame 'em, but we can make fun of 'em.

The more you know (dog edition).

25 Things You Would Never Have Said Before You Got Dogs

1. "Don't lick the driveway."
2. "No, no, poop over here!"
3. "Don't eat that, it's dead!"
4. "Please stop scratching the carpet.”
5. "Oh, no, he'll fight you if you try to put clothes on him."
6. "Well, let's face it, at this point he'll probably die before he gets any serious tooth decay."
7. "Why is this entire yard no good to pee in?"
8. "Well, you enjoyed the same food for the last 346 days, so why is it a problem now?"
9. "Stop sniffing butts!"
10. "We don't bite the mailman, sweetie; there might be a check."
11. "You don't like where he peed? Call a cop!"
12. "Bedtime! Into the crate!"
13. "No, don't scratch that rug! Scratch the cheap one!"
14. "Don't eat mud!"
15. "He's running around naked, but that's okay."
16. "Skunks are worse than bears, man. At least my boy doesn't think he can beat a bear."
17. "It's the middle of the afternoon; why aren't you sleeping?"
18. "Don't put your nose in my mouth."
19. "Just show me where you pooped."
20. "Don't jump on your brother's head."
21. "How much more trouble would you be if we hadn't had you neutered?"
22. "No cheese for you!"
23. "Whoa, you need a bath! Come on outside."
24. "Who's a good boy? You you you you!"
25. "Does baby want a nice piece of cheese?"

Unitard!

In yesterday's book of the week, 2007's Where's My Jetpack?: A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future That Never Arrived, author Daniel H. Wilson discussed all sorts of things expected by the year 2000 or a little later, like the titular jetpacks, and cryogenic freezing, and holograms. Also included was a chapter on unisex jumpsuits. As Wilson wrote: "First you put on your underwear, then your pants -- modern life can be so difficult. In the future of the past, however, life was as simple as sliding into a snug, velvety unitard."

Well, I look around and I see lots of sweat pants and cargo shorts and T-shirts and ball caps, and precious few unitards. But my wife told me she heard that jumpsuits, which enjoyed a vogue in the eighties, are making a comeback! I immediately thought of all those cool eighties rockers, like Jem and the Holograms.

But are jumpsuits really making a comeback? Worse, will I have to get one?

One of the earliest popular one-piece articles of clothing -- not togas or loincloths, but things with sleeves and legs -- was the union suit, patented in 1868 as a means of freeing women from the restrictive misery of the underwear at the time. Men came to like them as well, and soon they were worn by all sorts of people.

And soon after that they were a sign of laughable hokum. Put a cartoon character in a union suit and he immediately looked like an ignoramus. Extra points if you show the butt flap.

Even inner-city characters like Ma Hunkel, alias the original Red Tornado, was given a union suit costume for comic purposes.

And yet they are still worn today, because of their warmth and utility. But that's underwear; what about one-piece outerwear?

The word jumpsuit dates to 1944, according to Merriam-Webster's, when for some reason large numbers of American men were being taught to jump out of airplanes. Of course you wanted (and still want) one-piece outerwear for that kind of behavior. You don't want the rushing air to whip off your shirt, and maybe take the harness of the parachute with it.

But the one-piece outfit was older than both these accouterments, according to those pests Merriam and Webster. The word coverall goes back to 1824, they say, and thus described the protective full-body clothes needed for dirty jobs in the Industrial Revolution. Now, of course, coveralls are seen on prisoners, some police and military officers, crack-avoiding plumbers, car mechanics, and others.

But the jumpsuit as a science fiction craze came from real pilots and astronauts. The safety precautions and technology available for these daredevils made the one-piece uniform equivalent to space exploration, and since future = space, the adult onesie became what we expected the people of the future to wear. Plus, most space travelers seen in movies and books, and later on TV, wore uniforms, as space travel was expected to be a military-type job, and they would wear jumpsuit-type things. Thus the expectations that in the future we would all dress in utilitarian one-piece unisex clothes. Call it a jumpsuit or coverall or even unitard -- on second thought, skip unitard. While the word leotard comes from the name of the famed French acrobat Jules Léotard (whom I have written about before), lopping off the last syllable and adding to the uni from uniform makes it sound like clothing for the mentally deficient, at least if you went to my public schools. Maybe it's the name for particularly stupid unicorns. Never mind.

Whatever you call it, the unisex jumpsuit never caught on. Why? Wilson writes, "Designers used aesthetic symbols and technological advancements to envision a beautiful future populated by slim, graceful humans wearing silvery, sexless jumpsuits. Do you think it will ever happen? Fat chance."

Yeah, we're not all slim, it's true, and few of us would look good in skintight anything. But I maintain that we're just not unitard people anyway. The unitard is a uniform, and an American wants a damn good reason to have to wear a uniform. That kind of thing is popular for people who like to think of the surging mass of humanity as ants, an army ready to tackle things as a single horde, dealing with everything as the moral equivalent of war. Revolt or fall behind and it's the gulag.

But if anything we're sliding off too far in the other direction, where communities, fraternal organizations, societies, families, everything involving human connection is fading, like we're all negatively charged and repel each other. Which situation has its own flaws, obviously, but at least it doesn't require that we wear identical unitards.

On the other hand, it gets pretty cold up in the north sometimes, and if we get a good enough spell, maybe we will all be wearing adult onesies ...

... but hopefully under our clothes, where others don't have to see them.