Margaret

I did half of the puzzle this morning, and then had to take my old girl to the vet. She was 14 and time to go,. So I came home and finished the puzzle, very cute. Just a hard day in other ways.

TIL that condors don't kill for prey. That is super interesting to me. Last year my puppy killed a squirrel in the driveway, and I fretted over how to get rid of it. But amazingly, I was outside and watched a hawk pick it up and fly off a little way with it. Also, I like the word "snarf," it is just fun to say.

I can smell that blue mimeo ink as I type. And I can see everyone in my row sniffing the papers as we passed them back. It must have happened thousands of times a day in the 1960's. So that was fun. Also, for 69D, at first I tried "Victorola," and then I knew it had to be "gramophone." Fun Sunday puzzle.

I wish there was a puzzle this much fun for dogs. I have two blueticks, it is 7 degrees outside, and my dogs are bored. They live to smell things, so while we walk a lot, it is often slowly because they are busy reading the news.

How do people get this clever? This was super fun.

This was a fun Friday. My first answer for 27A Lab Container was FENCE though.

I thought this puzzle was clever, and it was fun to finish. Yesterday, I restained my deck,and last night I was so sore I thought I would never walk again. So this puzzle was a happy experience.

This puzzle had some nice clues, but the word "sammie" makes me cringe. I suspect it is an overreaction, but I hate that word so much, I almost skipped today's puzzle. The is a small deli in a village where I spend some time in the summer. They have that word written on the window, and I just can't.

I liked this puzzle, and didn't think it was too hard. Of course, I was won over by the Stax clue. I drove my family crazy playing Booker T and the MGs on repeat, <a href="https://shorturl.at/MrRtt" target="_blank">https://shorturl.at/MrRtt</a>. But then, I am a resident of the Republic of Slowjamistan.

"Hold on to your hat" always makes me think of Young Frankenstein. I had fun with this puzzle. Happy holiday to all, I plan on spending some of it in a hammock

"Is this your homework Larry?"

I thought this was super fun, and very clever. I enjoyed solving it. It also reminded me of one very wild, and embarrassing weekend I spent at Pismo Beach. Listening to Fleetwood Mac "Tusk" on 8-track. So a really long time ago. Fortunately.

This puzzle is amazing. And it was fun to solve too. You know what also gas one "L"? Snowblower. Yay.

My mother enrolled me in children's theater when I was a kid, and I hated it. HATED it. Being a tree in a play sounds like heaven. That said, this was in southern Illinois, and my father adored Carl Sandburg. At that time my father was aa Unitarian minister, and he read Sandburg poetry sometimes during the service. LITTLE CAT FEET was a thrill.

Esme always makes me think of Salinger.

TCM, Hercule Poirot and Lon Chaney all in one puzzle makes it perfect for me. And some laugh out loud clues. This was really fun

Any puzzle that mentions Nancy Drew is aces with me!

Some of these clues and answers were laugh-out-loud funny to me. Very fun Wednesday.

So much fun!! Great animation! What is it about Zambonis that people are so mesmerized by them? Myself included. I remember Charles Schultz had a soft spot for them too <a href="https://shorturl.at/FFVgX" target="_blank">https://shorturl.at/FFVgX</a>

This was a really fun puzzle. I often enter answers that are so wrong, they make me laugh. I was sure that SHORT SHORTS had something to do with jorts. And for COPY, at first I had "mimeo" and could smell that blue ink. Both of those answers were so off the grid, I knew they had to be wrong.

Fun puzzle! Hard in a good way. Years ago, after they retired, my folks had a gift shop that they filled up with their favorite stuff. I remember Leatherman tools, Hoffritz knives and Vietri pottery. They had Galileo thermometers too, but my mother kept breaking them. So they stopped. We all used to laugh about that, no mercury though!

I'm worried about microplastics in the water supply, and I am upset because I love those little poly-vinyl alcohol pods. I liked the little tiny circles in this puzzle too, it was fun. This week, one of my dogs killed a squirrel in my yard, and I was happy for the dog, but annoyed that I had to clean it up. It was the only time recently that I wanted to get remarried. Until I walked outside and saw a hawk pick it up and fly off a way with it. It is so amazing how that works.

I have camped on Isle Royale and it is so beautiful. One of my best memories is walking through a huge field of wildflowers, and how sweet it smelled. It was a fun puzzle too, and I love that clue every time.

My night is planned now, since I will be watching "The Triplets of Belleville." There is great animation coming out of France, i.e. "The Secret Life of Pets,"and "Sing." Thank you for this. I also flipped on the TV to watch the Tour, the scenery is so beautiful.

Once when I was younger, I was standing on the sidewalk in front of a drugstore, and someone knocked the gumball machine over. It smashed open, and all the gum and little trinkets flew out everywhere. It was thrilling for me, since I can still remember it so clearly! But the owner came rushing out and yelled at us. He let us take what we could though. This was a fun puzzle too, fast finish.

Years ago, like the 80's, I loved this band called "Kid Creole and the Coconuts." One of the musicians was named Coati Mundi, which, of course, helped me today. They are still around I think, but they are solidly an 80's band, if you are curious <a href="https://tinyurl.com/y2f242v3" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/y2f242v3</a>

How about a Conga Line from the Pink Panther? <a href="https://shorturl.at/hHidU" target="_blank">https://shorturl.at/hHidU</a>

I liked this puzzle. It was hard, but it was fun. Some of these puzzles at times seem so difficult, and I suspect that it is to show us how clever the maker is. I didn't get that sense today. But here is what my brain did, after the answer GALOP and dancing: it flashed on an old MGM Miss Marple movie starring Margaret Rutherford titled "Murder at the Gallop" ( I know, two L's) where she dances the Twist with Mr. Stringer <a href="https://shorturl.at/w3Vxq" target="_blank">https://shorturl.at/w3Vxq</a>. Different "gallop."

This was so fun! I got tripped up on the Pacific Coast clue. Being from Northern California, I put Big Sur of course.

My aunt had a big boat car that everyone called "a deuce and a quarter" so that kept coming up for me. It was a big Buick Electra, and she was a very small woman. It had shiny plastic bench seats and I remember sliding around hard in the back on sharp turns. This was a fun puzzle.

I was hoping 2D was fainting goats, <a href="http://tinyurl.com/mr2jd822" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/mr2jd822</a> which would have been fun. I did enjoy it though, possums are pretty wonderful too. OK, I am off to snow blow.

There is a hilarious movie called,"Dick," about Watergate. And there are pot brownies called Hello Dollys, that have an important role in the Vietnam peace accord, <a href="http://tinyurl.com/3kcm8upk" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/3kcm8upk</a> The movie is built on a lot of innuendo, which makes it so watchable.

This was fun. Some great clues, especially BOOHOO which reminds me of a scene from, "The Last of Sheila," with Ian McShane and Raquel Welch, <a href="http://tinyurl.com/mv25bdef" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/mv25bdef</a> Fun movie for mystery buffs, if you haven't seen it.

I really enjoyed this puzzle. I thought it was really clever! I have heard that it is just as difficult to create an easy puzzle as a hard one, though. Very fun for Monday.

I would have been faster at solving this puzzle, but I fell into the Wikipedia hole of DeGaulle. I liked this puzzle, interesting clues too. And there are words in the English language that make me squirm, but they are perfectly fine in a puzzle.

There is a children's book called, "Churchmouse Stories," by Margot Austin. It has a series of stories about three silly kittens named Tom, Dick and Harry. <a href="https://shorturl.at/Kdbo7" target="_blank">https://shorturl.at/Kdbo7</a>

I enjoyed this puzzle, and didn't stumble with the math, which was nice. My dad and my uncle were math nerds, and did math problems for entertainment. Beyond me for sure. But the "brush wolves" reminded me of a hike I was on last spring. My dogs and I ran into a coyote with pups on the trail, she chased us for a long while and scared me quite a bit.

I started wearing Ray Bans because of Don Henley, so I went in the direction of Miami Vice. The 80's were so iconi.

I remember learning about pig-latin when I was a kid and I was so, so excited. It was a new world that grown-ups knew about and didn't make a fuss. My family were big on word games, so we played them a lot. It was a fun Sunday morning.

I enjoyed this puzzle! Still in recovery from appendectomy, but doing great. There is a movie about Bill Withers, called "Stiil Bill," which is one of the best biographies ever. He was a remarkably wonderful person, and it is worth a watch.

Good Monday. There is a movie called F/X, from 1986. It is really fun, and I couldn't help but think of it when finishing this puzzle. I remember Siskel and Ebert raving about it. <a href="https://tinyurl.com/y4rdztmt" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/y4rdztmt</a>

I loved F Troop, it was a funny show. I remember watching it in reruns after school. Though at first I couldn't remember the title, only Larry Storch as Agarn, and Forrest Tucker, so I had to start there. Three days now of snow blowing, today it is 13 degrees.

The word "magenta" always makes me think of Rocky Horror. And I knew it was too long, but I kind of hoped for Apple Pan Dowdy, at 21A, which reminds me of June Christy. Fun puzzle today.

This is so clever it makes my brain hurt. It was so fun!

This was very fun. I really love print newspapers, and it breaks my heart that we have mostly lost them. Also, my hillbilly dogs, (two blueticks) belong to a fancy dog park called the Dog Star Ranch. So Sirius is a familiar word around here. Really satisfying puzzle.