The reference in 17A to STARS ON ICE reminded me of an episode of "Frasier" in which Martin (Frasier's dad) wants to take him to see a show called "Chimps on Ice." (Frasier wants to stay home and watch a Mozart opera on TV). A bit of dialog from that episode: Martin: Duke said, in the finale the whole cast skates to the top of this ramp, and then splat! Right into a tank of whipped cream. Bet they don't do that at your opera. Frasier: No, and Mozart's still kicking himself.
Great Saturday puzzle. What was impossible yesterday at 10 pm was entirely doable at 5am today.
@Esmerelda My solve exactly. I went to bed with the bottom half complete but very little up top (with pLuG instead of FLOG slowing me down a bit) . Woke up and zipped through in <10 min. Slower than my average for Saturday with one confirmation look up for NEZPERCE of which I was not familiar.
@Esmerelda There has GOT to be a name for this phenomenon. I've looked. It's like our brains continue to solve after we have taken a break. Like a background app. Anyone know if there is a psychological term for this? It's really uncanny!
Because I'm old, Ice Capades was the first ice show that popped into my mind, so that slowed me up a bit. I also wanted my shades to be slatted rather than pleated. So much to like here in a solid, classic Saturday puzzle. Particularly enjoyed the clue for street taco.
@JBW Those were the same two that threw me as well!
The many options in the NW made that section the trickiest for me. EbaY, or ETSY, one SPEED or TWO SPEED, poinT or TREAT, cEnT or SECT? So many choices! It finally came down to one letter. Is it mOREYS or COREYS, BISmAY or BISCAY? My gut says BISCAY. Yay! A lot of great clues. [Supreme leader?] for ROSS, [Horses around?] for CAROUSEL and [Characters in "300"] for ZEROS were favorites. Nice job, Ricky!
Two puzzles into the NYT, it’s clear that Ricky is a wordplayer. In his first puzzle last November, a Monday, his four theme answers were two-word phrases, both words starting with B, such as BEAN BURRITO. The revealer was TO BE FAIR, meant to be read aloud. Hah! Today, the play abounded in the clues. I marked eight wordplay clues that struck my fancy – eight! – such as the stellar question mark clues [Beat poet?] for RAPPER, and [Horses around?] for CAROUSEL. This was a TWO SPEED solve for me. Most of it was fairly steady, but with enough delicious resistance to keep me well engaged. But then there was one area like a block of ice that I had to keep chipping away at, where I kept coming back with futile results, where it laughed at and mocked me for my incompetence, until finally, finally, I cracked it open, happy and grateful. Three reactions. First, much to my amazement, BUCKET LIST has never appeared before in the NYT puzzle! Second, the black squares dominating the center of the grid look like a giant S, and even though it’s backward, I couldn’t help but think of Superman. Third, I loved the P fiesta in the clue “Place to pick up a puppy, perhaps”. Sweetness all around, Ricky, in your sophomore NYT creation. You can be sure I’ll be looking for your name ahead, as I relish wordplay. Thank you for a sublime outing!
@Lewis Ricky mentions in the constructor notes that he agonized over what letter to place atop 53D -- and perhaps that's the purpose of the proliferation of Ps in the clue for 52A.
Hmmm… CAROUSES vs CAROUSEL Oh well…
A very tough Saturday puzzle, needing lots of help as always, but I did find it useful to take small breaks. Each time I did I noticed something I’d missed before when I came back to it. Now I’m ready for a nap.
Got 'er done. That was fun! Even if I did try CAROUSES before figuring out my misconception. (What about all the other animals? and the Wuss Bench?) THESEUS? No Minotaur? I'm 'The Cutting Edge' of the BABY BOOM...and retired quite some time back. The good thing about retiring from teaching is that the pay is so poor that you don't really miss it when it's gone. Medical report: Making strides with the R hand/fingers; elbow still giving me some grief, but incision finally settling down after massive swelling and horrible itching. (I'd take pain over itch any day.) Saved by the stash of prednisone, OTC benadryl, a good night's sleep, and finally some relief. A couple of staples are a bit loosened, but oh well. It was Friday after hours. No clue about what set the reaction off. (A large adhesive patch on my back attached to monitors left a fair amount of irritated skin; it's still red these 4 days later.) On with the show!
@Mean Old Lady Glad to hear your recovery is going well. I hope that continues. Try not to overdo it. >>>>>>>
@Mean Old Lady Thank you for the update on your recovery. What a ordeal! Rooting for you and wishing you well! 💕
@Mean Old Lady I retired from teaching, too, a long while ago. But I crossed into software development. A recruiter told me he wouldn't work with me, that I wouldn't make it because teaching was so easy that teachers became soft, couldn't deal with the pressure of software development. Oh, how wrong he was. Sure, there are some tough moments in coding, but *nothing* like the constant demands and deadlines of teaching. And the money was way, way better, as was the geographical flexibility.
Great puzzle today! I suppose we're more likely to recall the items we had trouble with, but the Spanish province and the French disc jockey didn't make me think this was U.S.-centric. Loved [Supreme leader?] (nice veiled capital!) and CAROUSEs/EEsY had me shaking my head for a while. Oh, and here in Vermont we're less likely to talk about the ship of THESEUS than my grandfather's axe. It's been in the family for generations and we've only replaced three handles and two heads.
@Jack McCullough Love the story about grandpa’s axe! Someone mentioned that the THESEUS ship idea had been in puzzles before, and that is my recollection as well. However, even though this answer has appeared 18 times, I don’t see it previously referenced to the ship. Anybody know otherwise? — — — — — — — —
I got the SE in a flash and the rest was tougher. The NW was a bear for me! I got COREYS and ETSY and nothing else wanted to come to me. I couldn’t get ICE CAPADES out of my head, so that slowed me down. Definitely a challenging puzzle, but I enjoyed it!
@Jen Ditto for me, same order. I was also stuck on ICECAPADES plus had MARTYS instead of COREYS ( and the YS didn’t disabuse me of it)
Thanks, Ms Lovinger, for mentioning the Theseus. I had never heard of it until about a year ago, when Deb Amlen or one of the commenters referred to it. Of course, I didn’t remember it tonight, and got most of it from the crosses. The puzzle felt like it had a lot of answers that we don’t often see, which I enjoyed. I was surprised to get David GUETTA from just a few letters, since I don’t listen to much dance music. I wish I hadn’t needed as many letters as I did to get NEZ PERCE, but I think I had always assumed that tribe was from what’s now Montana or Idaho, neither of which fit my idea of the Pacific Northwest. Thanks, Mr. Sirois!
@Eric Hougland I had the same thoughts about the Nez Percé. I believe they were on the eastern side of Washington and Oregon, not on the Pacific. A very fine museum I visited in Vancouver, BC included many native peoples of the Pacific Northwest, but the Nez Percé were not among them. That was my trouble spot in the puzzle which I finally got with the Z.
Thanks Caitlyn for the Theseus explanation and reference. This is the kind of thing that educates and makes the Th, Fri and Sat puzzles in the NYT well worth the subscription
Ooh, that NW! Everything else fell as a Saturday generally does for me... but confidently sticking in oneSPEED was my undoing for quite a long time, because of course it absolutely prevented me from seeing any of the crosses. Once it occurred to me that TWO fit just as reasonably in the space where I'd had one, this section fell smoothly as well - but that was by far the closest I've come to a look-up in a long time! Thanks for the extra chew on this first morning home from the hospital... I will be leaning more heavily than usual on the crosswords for entertainment over the next few months as I work to repair my horse-induced broken pelvis 😅
@Regine Ouch! That sounds painful! I hope you have a speedy and complete recovery.
@Regine I second EH's "ouch!" Please take good care as you recover, and trust your body's intelligence to do so. Wishing you a full healing in the shortest possible time!
How can sooooo many wrong answers feel so right???? and FIT!
@Joya That's the evil genius inherent in crossword constructors and cluers. I had one recently, either current or in the archives, clued something like "Till I see you again". I was so proud of HASTALAVISTA. It was HAVEAGOODONE.
Glad I’m not the only one stuck on Ice Capades!! And I was so pleased with myself for a minute, too.
A lot of things in this puzzle I didn't know, or that I didn't realize I knew until I figured out the clue. And all of it gettable by the crosses. Great puzzle! Soon, I am traveling to the Deep South. I leave in about an hour, which explains why I am here earlier than usual. I haven't ventured into the Southern realm in many months -- the last time Hardroch may recall, because I landed in Harpswell, at the famous cribstone (or cribworks) bridge between Bailey and Orr's Islands. I won't have time to get to Harpswell today, as I have pressing business in that loveliest of Southern cities, Portland. Home by dinner, if I'm lucky.
CaptainQ, Deep South indeed! In Seattle, the 34D would be described as living Back East. #####
@CQ How funny! When you started in on your trip South I thought maybe you were headed toward us here in the Low Country…..guess not this far South. Dare I mention that the last time I was in Portland (ME) I stopped in at the famous Eventide Oyster Company. Great experience for many of us chordates, but I’m sure not your cup of tea! Safe travels! — — — — — — — —
@CaptainQuahog good for you…lots of southern hospitality at Hot Suppa (and pimiento cheese, probably)
Icecapades and STARSONICE have the same number of letters, to my consternation. Been puzzling about "Supreme leader?" = ROSS. Can anyone help me out?
@Dan I think it’s referring it Diana ROSS, lead singer of the Supremes
For some reason I found the NW section about twice as hard as the entire rest of the puzzle. Maybe I shouldn't be trying to solve when I have a headache.
I have a lot on my BUCKETLIST but bungee jumping isn’t one of them!
Anyone else desperately wanted the answer to 27D to be ALIEN? Just me?
@Veronika If it weren't for the "maybe" in the clue, my first thought was STING. Same number of letters! <a href="https://youtu.be/d27gTrPPAyk?si=4N_RtdBx-X92ax5A" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/d27gTrPPAyk?si=4N_RtdBx-X92ax5A</a>
@Veronika Yep, that was my first though. The question mark made me hesitate, the x of EXXON solved it.
Deb, I couldn't get to Thursdays puzzle until this morning. It was beyond fabulous. Don't let those cranky people complain about Thursday puzzles. There are different kinds of brains and we quirky Thursday solvers deserve our day. You linear types can have the rest of the week.
I'm going to the doctor; we all know I have a "crosswords make me think of music" pathology, but now it's obvious I also have a Gordon Sumner problem: An Englishman in New York just *had* to be Sting! <a href="https://youtu.be/d27gTrPPAyk?feature=shared" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/d27gTrPPAyk?feature=shared</a> I'm sorry I ultimately had to delete you, Sting. But I still wanted to honor you with "alien." (Yes, doctor, it took me a while to get him off my mind and finally get to EXPAT, at long last breaking open that corner of the puzzle.) It's no wonder I also put in "spells" before CHARMS. (Yes, doctor. No doubt about it, I'm under one.) I loved this solve, Mr. Sirois. It was an UNTOLD story of many other hiccups along the way, ONE BY ONE wrestled and cleared up. Thank you for a puzzle that CHARMed me and gave me a workout. What a TREAT. And now I'm off to the doctor. Ta-ta.
@sotto voce I referenced the same in a reply earlier today. And while I didn't say it aloud (I mean, mention you by name), I was thinking of you from the moment the tune popped into my head last night! Do you have a good referral for a "crosswords make me think of music" pathology?? 😘
@sotto voce I also had Sting there for a while :). The "maybe" maybe made me do it. Also I thought of you the other day because I had an interview with a UK company in the wee hours of the morning. I had to get up 2 hours earlier than normal to trick my brain into thinking it wasn't as early as it actually was. it worked!
Am I the only one who had major trouble with the NE corner? 11, 16, and 18A took me forever.
@Eliza None of it was easy, but for me the North West was very white for a very long time. The dam finally burst with BUCKETLIST and STARSONICE.
Nice puzzle. Tough one for me, of course and had to cheat a bit in a couple of places, but that's typical for a Saturday. At least I did remember NEZPERCE with a couple of crosses, but also realized I've never known exactly how that's pronounced. And... couldn't help but notice the extended symmetry of this puzzle with the layout of triple stacks both across and down matching the opposite corners: NW to SE and NE to SW. e.g.: three 10 letter across answers and three 6 letter down answers in both the Northwest and Southeast. Maybe that's more common than I think, but don't recall seeing that a lot. I'll shut up now. ..
@Rich in Atlanta Nez per-SAY, French for “pierced nose” but up until today had mentally had them vaguely in the plains/southwest! Happy to have had that corrected today.
@Emma S The tribe pronounces it as “nez purse.”
Impressive. If you told me to make a 15x15 puzzle that includes THATTRACKS, NEZPERCE, STREETTACO, THESEUS, BUCKETLIST, INHOTWATER, and BABYBOOMER, I'd say that with that level of optimism in my skills, you're about eight speeds shy of a ten-speed.
Love some of the visuals in this grid, like the unusual repetitiveness of double letters in the bottom stack: BABYBOOMER STREETTACO THATTRACKS And seriously, when a boomer gets the munchies (antojito) , what do they really want? A street taco. That totally tracks. Similarly, THEEYE EXXON has something elegant about it, THEEYE looks like two obsolete forms of "you" smooshed together. What's good enough for thee is also good enough for ye. And there is a real paucity of dos-equis words. Maybe EX-XYLOPHONIST. It doesn't surprise me that this puzzlemaker regards Gerard Butler's Leonidas and the rest of the OVERDONE cast of moody Spartans as ZEROS, not HEROS (or WINOS, my first choice). I do, too. And to those who say David Wenham and Lena Headey were excellent, and that I should revise my rating, I would reply, "No can do: guetta life!" TIL that my bucket list includes dumping a bucket of hot water on the Stars on Ice. Not too hot, mind you, I wouldn't want an OVERDONE Brian Boitano or Apolo Ohno, just enough to make them hoppin' mad. I'd better map out a plan to evade them, otherwise I'll land on my spine and find myself rather pleated from the pro tips of their skates. That tracks. Now that I've thought it over, it's no longer on my bucket list. Or put it on the list below the one where some of the people in the news these days get entombed -- natural causes, picnic-lightning -- ere long, one by one, gardened over. Bless them one and all.
@john ezra In Caitlin's column, she says 42A isn't about the movie, but the number: "In this puzzle, “300” is just a number, containing two ZEROS."
Z! I have a feeling that this will be a common refrain for today's puzzle. Double checking every entry didn't help me find my one mistake because I had no clue about the name of the [Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest] and hEROS seemed perfectly correct for 42A. It was only when I finally used Google to double-check the spelling of NEhPERCE that I was shown my missing Z. I was particularly perturbed at myself because my original thought about 42A was that it was a reference to the number and not the film, but I eventually forgot my first impression. Rats. Still proud that I (almost) got it!
@Gregg HEROS are sandwiches. More than one person of bravery and value are HEROES. <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heros" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heros</a> ZEROS/ZEROES can go either way. <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/zero" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/zero</a>
I’m going to give myself a break and say that today’s grid was particularly US centric. (Put the pitchforks down, of course it’s a US publication and has every right to be US based. Just giving myself an out). That was one of the toughest grids I’ve attempted for a long time. Total unknowns/impossible from the crosses for me: 46D, 34D, 16A, 61A 63A. Phew. Left a whole chunk of wide open space, tumbleweeds skittering through. Didn’t help that, like others, I went for high bridge,Marty and icecapades right at the top, which totally messed up that corner. A few rare gimmes at GUETTA, ROSS, BABYBOOMER and BICS, stopped me from throwing the towel in early. But I needed all the help I could get from Caitlin and the commentariat. Thanks guys. Looking at the finally filled grid I can appreciate the elegance of the spans and the work that’s gone into producing it. It’s left me with a headache for the day, but nobody said crossword solving was easy. It has to be earned.
NW was the easiest for me, how interesting how brains and clues work as a lot of folk had trouble. NE on the other hand stumped me and a few slightly wrong answers in the other corners left me staring. I’m always curious to see the tricky clues and how many of them were gimmes for me with me googling other clues far trickier (imo) to see WHY.
You can only complete this puzzle if you’re prepared to turn HEROS to ZEROS. It took me a while. I blame THESEUS for putting the ancient Greeks in mind. Got there in the end, having meandered through “Titanic” and “caroused” among others… oof!
CAROUSEs/xEsY defeated me. Even after I looked up the last letter of NEZPERCE, I still couldn’t crack EEsY.
@Shimmer Me too! I had CAROUSEs for the longest time, but EEsY did not sit well with me. Plus, I felt "carouses" was a bit of a stretch for someone who was horsing around... I finally ran a bit of the alphabet, cross-checking [Horses around], and found the L. Then it all clicked. 36A: Brilliant clue!!!
@Shimmer That was the last to fall for me. Had to rethink the meaning of the CAROUSE* clue. What cracked it for me was brainstorming what would turn EE*Y into a sensible word.
@Shimmer I actuary didn't like that one, because "Horses around" is the same part of speech as "CAROUSES". If it can fit as a clue for "CAROUSEL", it's only via a tortured use of the word "around" that it maybe fits. Too artificial, in IMHO.
Nice, solid Saturday puzzle. Solved it unaided, but took me almost half an hour. Characters in "300" misdirected me, and for "An Englishman in New York, maybe" I was very tempted to enter ALIEN (a legal one, of course). <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d27gTrPPAyk&ab_channel=StingVEVO" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d27gTrPPAyk&ab_channel=StingVEVO</a> Condolences to those who knew neither the French DJ nor the noted Gal. Fortunately for me, I knew the latter. If I hadn't, the TENOR of this post might have been quite different.
@Xword Junkie "...but took me almost half an hour." I am quite envious. I was happy to get it under two hours.
Oof, that NW corner! I went nowhere fast, despite getting KOREA and COREYS right off the bat. I had a one speed Schwinn, and then a three speed Raleigh, and finally a twelve speed, but a TWO SPEED bike just seems silly. I distinctly remembered Jill St John in her tiny bikini, but LENA Wood, not so much. I also briefly wondered if EnrON was descended from the Rockefeller empire. Fine Saturday-level puzzle, all around. I'm a Space Cowboy, I'll bet you weren't ready for that.
@Grant I’ve never even HEARD of a two speed bike, and I’ve been an avid rider all my life.
@Grant It was LANA Wood. She is the sister of Natalie And pod, but has had a long acting career in her own right. !!! !!!!
I had a TWO speed bike when I was a kid and longed for a ten speed. Needless to say, I was the only one in the neighborhood who had one but that didn’t make it cool. Great puzzle!
I'm happy to have finished this very nice Saturday puzzle. Grateful for the forum to wind down with the comments. Had a few lookups, I had Basque for Bilboa instead of Biscay. But found the corner not so bad once I corrected that. "The eye" totally baffled me and held me hostage in that NW corner trying to find my crossing mistake. Ironically, I just couldn't see it until I aha'd it. I had to correct many of my incorrect first fills. The wordplay was genius and above the norm. (Maybe not for a Saturday.) In any case I got baby boomer immediately. I learned about an Indigenous people I didn't know, and a philosophical question I couldn't answer, so it was a good day! Cheers from an oldie from Texas. Stay chilled y'all! We have emus in Texas. I wave at one on my way to the park with the pups. Just a little FYI
A friend of mine went on a kick the bucket tour, seeing old friends he thought unlikely to be with us much longer. I was happy to be excluded. Nez Perce was easy having spent time in Imnaha in eastern Oregon, a tiny town close to the start of their flight towards Canada, where, a century on, they still talked fondly about the tribe. Nearby Joseph is named after their chief. Lots of smiles in these clues.
Little did I know when I threw on my Mizzou t-shirt before heading to the farmer's market this morning that I'd be treated to a puzzle by my fellow Mizzou fan Ricky! The SE was the first section to fall for me, followed by the NE (minus two squares), then the NW, and the finally the SW. Of my two sticking points, one was common (CAROUSEs) and one seems to have been a personal misfire. The "we'll update you" waylaid me, because I think of TBD as "we'll update it". Fair for a Saturday, but enough to throw me until I realized that THEEYE had to be right and started plugging in letters. Good for me that B is the second letter. Ultimately, I finished a little under my average, so for me at least, an appropriate Saturday challenge.
@Eric TBD annoyed me to no end. There is no implied promise that the information will be shared. TBA implies the information will be disseminated. The cluing is not a mislead. It’s inaccurate.
Enjoyed this one. I won't ever set a record for completion time because I enjoy the activity so much I try to drag it out as long as possible. This is the perfect puzzle to take your time on. No tricks or rebuses or circled letters to keep track of... Just the normal everyday Saturday Puzzle to savor ... Almost nothing bests it. Thanks Ricky, it was a perfect puzzle to sink one's curiosity into ... You're a keeper... Already waiting for another RJS construction.
The 300 clue had me confused for a very long time. Once I got it, the SW corner fell into place!
@Katie I did so much research on the "300" movies as I was cocksure it had to do with one of them. D'oh!
@Katie Took me forever to get from hEROS to ZEROS. I almost felt like I was dissing those valiant fighters.
My first entry was KOREA since I had heard about Hangul, but in the end, the NW corner was the last to fall. For UX all that came to mind was “unexploded” after that great decades-old British WWII TV series called “Danger:UXB”. And where THESEUS was supposed to be, I had the T and an E and I so I put TrirEme but of course that IS not an eponym. Nevertheless I patted myself on the back for remembering it was an old ship. Isn’t it great to be able to feel smart even when we are wrong LOL.
Nice puzzle, Mr. Sirois! Folks are saying the NW was tough. I got that first, and then absolutely stunk on everything else. Humbling.
A very difficult and cryptic crossword. I did about half. Maybe I will come back to it tomorrow, or maybe not.
Great puzzle. I actually thought it was easier than the Friday. Was held up for a bit convinced that the “U” in UX was Uber X.
“Twospeed” is textbook crosswordese…
@Steve TWO-SPEED has been an answer a grand total of three times. It’s also a type of bicycle that exists and that is the everyday way to refer to it. I don’t see how that particular entry could be considered “textbook crosswordese”.
Properly difficult. I agree with Deb that the upper left (what's with the compass direction stuff hereabouts; left/right/up/down is SO much more self-evident and useful) was what killed me. One-across was quite easy but the rest depended on sports knowledge (grr), Spanish geography, and realizing Ice Capades was no longer a thing. I guess I kind of enjoyed it? Had to do a fair amount of "fly specking" in the end. Not in love with this use of "eely", but it was my own fault I had carouses for so long.
@B What’s up with you taking issue over using Compass directions to identify an area of the puzzle? seems clear enough to me
I started out thinking this was extending a relatively easy week, until the NW corner, for which I could not get any kind of foothold. So bye-bye happy week streak. The rest of it went as easily as Friday, and almost as much fun. Oh well, tomorrow. In chicken news there is one gray Americana who has learned to escape every morning, and has managed to not yet be eaten by our family of Coopers Hawks. We cannot figure out her escape route. Perhaps I would solve the crosswords better if I was smarter than this chicken is?
@Crevecoeur I'd pay to see a chicken do a Saturday crossword puzzle.
Boy this was just tough! No gimmicks or trickiness, just clues that were elusive. Until they weren't. I shut it down two times and returned to complete on the third pass. And yes I had to look up Bibao province and the actors Feldman and Haim, so it wasn't really a true solve. It took and hour and a half to boot.
"From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever." Chief Joseph Watching a documentary of the Nez Perce in high school history class some 40 years ago has deeply affected me and my understanding of U.S. history ever since. Needless to say, I suppose, and not in a good way. But I shall not belabor the point here. It was good to see the Nez Perce represented! And it made me think a rewatching of the movie might be in order. As for the puzzle as a whole, I loved it! As I approach one full year of doing the puzzles next month, this is now my second Saturday with absolutely no helps and in above average time, so that has me happy! That was my goal for within a year. And that's not to say that I found this one easy, because I didn't. The south came pretty easily for me but sections of the north were pretty darn difficult with lots of deletes and rewrites. And occasionally rewriting some of my deletes. But I can see myself being a lot more flexible of mind and quicker to release what isn't serving me at the moment, as I go on--and that is helping me. Favorite clue was, "Supreme leader" for Ross! Better yet, I got it on the very first pass! Huzzah! There are plenty of other great clues and answers though! And I enjoyed the stacks. Very enjoyable all around!!
"(...) more flexible of mind and quicker to release what isn't serving me at the moment (...)" Wow, that's a great lesson for everyone and life itself, Heathie! Heartfelt congrats for having an aim and the determination to accomplish it, and for your ensueing achievement. Brava, and onward and upward! . . . . P.S. From this side – and even if you were still using auto-check – it's just been really great having your daily postings. 😉
@HeathieJ What @sotto voce said!! 100%!! And I'm SUPER impressed with your accomplishment for today's puzzle!!! I confess to being too impatient last night -- sleepy + impatient, never a good combo -- and did a lookup on Bilbao. (I knew it's in Basque Country. And I knew the Coreys, like I said earlier... They just. Didn't. Mesh! And my maps app didn't help.) Also Ms. Ross was one of my LAST fills. [Tired] just wasn't clicking! (This morning, plenty caffeinated, so no irony there.) I kept looking at O for overdOne and NOT getting the wordplay. Sheesh, they'd kick me out of the Gen-X club if they could! Congratulations!!!
@HeathieJ Congratulations on your almost completed year of puzzle solving! I’m sure that by this time next year, you’ll be breezing through puzzles like these without breaking a sweat. Learning when to let go of that answer that just has to be correct (but isn’t) is one of the most important things to learn. I make a bazillion typos, and it never fails to amaze me that having an R where I meant to put an E can make it virtually impossible to see what word crosses there. But if I have a correctly spelled but completely wrong answer, it’s that’s much harder to see the answers I haven’t yet figured out.
On a terrible Tuesday a couple of weeks ago, I was stymied by a cross between BELA Fleck, banjoist, and LENAPE, indigenous people of the Delaware valley. I got uncharacteristically (I hope) snippy (in my defense, I was having problems getting my Prozac prescription filled) about how well-known the Lenape people were. There was a huge divide, with people in the Northeast finding it very easy, and people from other parts of the country utterly stumped. In one diatribe, I asked how many people knew about indigenous people of other parts of the country, and one of the ones I mentioned were the NEZ PERCE people, which I had read about in "Undaunted Courage" by Steven Ambrose about the Lewis and Clark Expedition. So I find it mildly odd and a little disquieting that the Nez Perce show up in this puzzle. And I *still* couldn't quite get it, needing some crosses to help.
@Francis Cut yourself some slack, we humans all have those moments we aren't proud of.... Grace is always in season, whether extended to others or ourselves. And I hope you were able to get your prescription issue worked out and are feeling better. And on a completely different note, I wanted to check if you caught my little joke to you yesterday... About a donation to the Human Fund in your name. I remembered you're a big Seinfeld fan so I just couldn't resist that one! ☺️