The Legislature is headed into its final stretch, a time when annually Sen. Vince Illuzzi kicks it into another gear and wheels/deals left and right, doesn't matter what the topic is.

Not this year, at least not yet. Illuzzi is recuperating from surgery done Monday to repair a torn retina. He's under doctor's order to lay low, and for the moment he is sort of doing that, checking in with his colleagues by phone with a patch covering his eye.

Illuzzi said he was having eye trouble and went to Dartmouth-Hitchcock on Monday, where an ultrasound revealed the problem. Surgery was a no-brainer, Illuzzi said, but not no-pain.

"It felt like somebody drove an ice pick through my eye yesterday," he said today. The pain has subsided some.

It's painful, though, for him to be away from the political action. He is the Dennis Eckersly, the Mariana Rivera, the Jonathan Papelbon of the Vermont Legislature. He wants in the game.

- Terri Hallenbeck