Cathy Parrish

OK for all the -" it's too easy for a Friday " folks . I am a veteran solver - my current streak is over 6 years ( crazy I know ) . I am not young . I have never had a MOCHI DONUT , was unfamiliar with ROC nation , and I thought some of the cueing in this one was terrific - Bands together for AMFM ? Awesome . I am not obsessed at all with level of difficulty but this one made me think a bit and I love that . Enjoy the ride team and harken back to the archive if you need more !

Five years ago my son was in a really bad bicycle accident -thankfully he recovered and is a practicing PT :) I also started a puzzle streak at his bedside and today marks puzzle 1825 completed correctly ! My own rare feat .

Today was puzzle #2000 in a row with a gold star for me :) Just back from the ACPT - puzzles are definitely my happy place right now .

I had the pleasure of working with Natan Last in a JASA puzzle class on Zoom during the pandemic . So happy to see his puzzle today and what lively cluing ! From Kabuki to non starters ( Bullpen ) to " later " and even the Cheshire Cat a wonderful blend of trivia , old KULTUR and new culture . Thanks Natan- great solve !!

Hands up for BEST SELLERS before BANNED BOOKS. Our society has become truly misguided when we ban dictionaries and children's hidden figure books ! OK - rant over . I did really enjoy this solve - clever long entries :)

As a budding constructor I am in awe of the beautiful theme and grid today . To those who thought it was too easy for a Thursday - just enjoy the beauty of the puzzle . Stats like speed of solving are truly meaningless if you can't enjoy the process . Now to have some pie ! As an addendum , this year I enjoyed my first slice of huckleberry pie right outside of Glacier National Park - best slice of the year !

Great solve - wonderful idea . Keep 'em coming !

Hi all - Had a tough time with the Northeast corner - held on to REED THIN way too long , and NO DEAL ( I've seen too many commercials lately for DEAL OR NO DEAL ) . Finally broke through with ascetic. Challenging fun puzzle - loved CULT CLASSIC in the middle . As a budding constructor at age 66 I am astonished, amazed and impressed that a high school sophomore is constructing- way to go Grace ! Hope to see you at the ACPT .

Fun puzzle . Had FRUITS before GRAINS , then realized MIMEOGRAPH had to be the invention . As a long time baseball fan OREL Hershiser was a Cy Young ALL STAR pitcher - sad to see him reduced to sportscaster in the puzzle . REPINE ? RENOWNS as a plural ? A little awkward to say the least . Overall excellent idea for a puzzle - my favorite part was the grid art !

Wonderful construction ! Hands up for ALPACA instead of VICUNA which sent me down the wrong path for way too long . TIL about HOLI the festival of colors - thanks for a fun Saturday morning !

VERY clever puzzle . Good distraction from real life. Thank you NYT.

Just want to say I thought this was very clever . The puzzle was solvable without understanding the theme - but the AHA moment was sweet . Great job .

Hi- Popping in to say I was disappointed that the center clues self populated when I finished the puzzle without giving me a chance to fill them in . Would have been fun if when the two sides were complete EMPTY squares appeared in the right spots so you could at least have the joy of answering those clues . Obviously on paper this puzzle would have been harder . Interesting solve.

OK my streak is at 2166 and this one nearly broke it. Has anyone who doesn't live in Florida heard of St.LEO's college ? A total guess thanks to our current pope . Tons of misdirection . I was a chem major in college - albeit over 40 yrs age - but OSMIC acid - really ? I finished this one , and I'm a purist so I hang in and never look anything up till after the puzzle is done , but this was the hardest puzzle I've done in ages . Yikes.

Easy for some , harder for me . I had ComicCon instead of Nerd fest for too long , and Moon instead of Moth . I eventually got there . It felt more like a trivia fest for me - scratching my old head to think of Fortnite -LOL .

First and foremost Happy New Year fellow puzzlers - you are my people ! Am I the only one who had BLACK party before BLOCK ? I just thought the partying seemed to be happening in the black squares -LOL . I thought this was fun- but I ,too was hoping for confetti or balloons or maybe even horns ! Let us go forward in peace and love , and hope for a brighter more benevolent New Year - Happy 2026 all.

I am certainly in the " puzzles are getting easier " camp . I do understand the need to keep this revenue engine going - but why not have one puzzle a week that is really tough ? I started doing some archive puzzles- whoa Nelly SO much harder . If you are up for the challenge go ahead and try Friday Jan 7,2000 . I will admit some of the trivia might have been more timely then . Today's puzzle a leisurely 16:28 over a cup of coffee . The Friday Jan 7 puzzle 52 minutes ! with one look up . Quite the difference . I do subscribe to Fireball crosswords and agree they are tough as well -but for me great fun.

I love when a crossword teaches me something . Fascinating that the places mentioned are just the name of the geographical feature in a native language . Great work Jeff !

Challenging , but doable . Best puzzle of the week by far . Are we there yet ?? - I tried not to laugh - but failed :)

Great Friday . I nominate the " evening out " - ie Creased - for clue of the year . Can anyone help me with the origin of Bowdlerize ?? I got CENSOR from the crosses but never heard of that word. TGIF .

Rarely do I laugh out loud while solving a puzzle - great rhymes ! Thanks for a fun solve- hope you create more :))

Wow - what a Friday ! A ton of misdirection. Ada Lovelace instead of Grace Hopper ; Coax , lure - nope BAIT ; execs - nope - SUITS ; send - nope SHIP .. and I could go on ! This one took way more time than usual for me - but a great solve none the less. Ready or not - I finished .

So recently we've had a fair number of puzzles where the theme does not facilitate the solve , and is even an afterthought that you discover reading Wordplay . I LOVED this puzzle because you really needed the AHA moment to solve the puzzle . Wonderful and fun . Happy 17th Zhou and Kevin !

WOW - just WOW . Again as a budding constructor I am so impressed ! Unlike some of the comments below , the rotating concept actually helped me solve this one . Interesting mix of new ( SOLAR PUNK ) and old ( Gatsby's - OLD MONEY ) trivia . Wonderful and so fun to see the end result . Definitely hit the Jackpot ! Great puzzle .

Yes it was tough- but if you can do it - WOW for a Saturday ! Thanks to Aunt ELLER and ETA plus STOP WATCH I found my way in and moved along . Streak intact at 1781 and going . Sam's brain - absolutely on a different wavelength - but if you can't try to think out of the box what's the fun ?

Fun puzzle ! No surprise this doc thought delivery person was a doctor ! LOL . Stacking up my thanks for the goodness in my family and my life . Peace to all and Happy Thanksgiving .

Fun puzzle . Never watched or read Dune so Arrakis was impossible for me to suss out . Pouffe was also a stretch . Had Logy instead of POKY forever . Can't win 'em all - otherwise excellent puzzle .

Ok for what it's worth I thought this was the best Saturday puzzle in a while . Yes some of the answers were obtuse - but fair once you got there .I'll admit even with the explanation I don't understand RECALL for Take it off-road , but other than that it all made sense to me . Not knowing things like the lingo for a CARD SHARK is part of the fun- ie learning something new . If it was straightforward and easy it wouldn't be a real NY Times Saturday . Check out the archives if you don't believe me. Years ago when I started doing the Times puzzle daily I couldn't do a Saturday at all . Now I finished this one in about 22 minutes without look ups . It's just a matter of doing enough tricky puzzles to get the hang of them and ultimately enjoy them . Good job Fritz and Happy Birthday Kate .

As a PCP I would just like to say you take shots in the ARM , and get blood taken out of a VEIN . You don't take shots in a VEIN . Other than that loved this puzzle and had some words that we don't often see - FORSAKEN , CASSIS , the name JESSE . Very neatly crafted . Keep it up !

So I wanted Dorothy or at least Toto to be in this puzzle - but the grid art was excellent - loved it . Agree totally about MIA and AWOL not being the same at all . As to the comment about Stewie and Cynthia Erivo - I think the latter is incredibly well known and currently everywhere in commercials , bus ads , magazines .. so an antic but really not impossible at all . Happy Thanksgiving to all - let the fun of puzzles take you up, up and away from the chaos of daily life !

Tougher than usual for me . Loved the clue for Lapel Mics . Galba not in my wheel house - but guessed correctly . For some reason I confuse ACER and ACIS all the time - so that was a hang up . SURE CURE was also new but Alas YORICK got me to the end . Thanks for the challenge Ryan!

So sorry for your loss Deb. So many of us have connections to loved ones through crosswords . For me it will always be my Uncle Joe and Aunt Ruth - both gone too many years now . Sending hugs from Maryland . Know that your Dad will be watching every time you solve a puzzle and may occasionally send you an inspiration .

OK I admit I am not a gamer or a coder - so I really thought BOSS LEVER ( a tool -right ? ) and ART TEXT made sense . Took forever to find my mistake . Fun theme but out of my range.

Loved this puzzle - so much misdirection and fresh cluing ! Was I the only one that thought of BODEGAS for cubans ? Or MIAMI DELIS ? Wanted it to be a cuban sandwich . That's what I get for solving over breakfast !

Crunchy Tuesday for sure . Dire wolf and Remy Ma not in my lexicon before today . I enjoyed reading about Dire Wolves - apparently they appeared in Game of Thrones and were commonly discovered in the LaBrea tarpits . Also got hung up spelling AriEl until I realized of course it was Amy Schumer !! Happy Tuesday , Happy Passover and Happy Easter to all who celebrate :)

Hands up for BOOKINGS before BOOTLEGS - didn't change it till I got all the way to ONE L and realized it had to go ! Amazing puzzle - as a novice constructor I am really impressed with the fill . Looking forward to more from Marshal with one L !

Hi Deb - Second hardest of the week ?? Woof this one was tough ! Felt very accomplished when I finally got there ! Decided to leave -STET - but stayed with it and finished in my longest time for a Friday in a while . Amazing cluing . I laughed when I finally got IS PEPSI OK ? - almost my last entry . I continue to be amazed at constructors that can think this way ! Way to go Kate .

Thank you Sarah for brightening my day with a great solve and a barbershop Valentine :) Sending you sweet valentines this morning in thanks !

Really love a puzzle that makes me start the day laughing out loud . This one did the trick !

Wow - quite the challenge . I actually had STRETCHES before SCHMEARS , and SPARSE before SUBPAR . But then OK CHURRO and ELSTON ( long time baseball fan - that was a gimme for me ) sent me in the right direction. This was tough - came in at just above 32 minutes for me which is significantly longer than my Sat average - but I think Saturday should be hard . Might be in the minority here but thumbs up from me !

Challenging , yet awesome . Loved the clue for ARM WRESTLE . Had OKAY fine before YEAH fine , SOOTHE before Solace and thought we all lose at least one HAIR a day . As a non gamer hung on to OWN way too long - I was looking at the trees instead of the forest :) As another pediatrician on this thread , didn't even blink before writing in POLIO as the oral vaccine absolutely is still used by the WHO worldwide .

Excellent puzzle - most enjoyable solve in a while . No gimmicks , clever cluing . Especially loved the vessel that hasn’t been in Canada in a while :) More like this please Mr. Collins !

Fun unique solve . I finished the grid quickly enough , and got the X as the second letter in the key right away . Should have had TEE easily as well , but after being dumbfounded by END OF THE ROAD ( yes I had a D ) I tried EXIT and got the gold star . Not the first time I guessed at a word in a puzzle I wasn't sure of and got it right - so I'll take it as a win. Brilliant construction in actuality.

Happy New Year Deb Amlen and best of luck with your new endeavor ! You and your excellent columns will be missed .

Fun puzzle ! Streak reached 2400 today ( 6.5 years ) ! Does the TIMES track streaks ? Is there a Guiness record for longest ? Just wondering . Maybe I'm getting there -lol .

Tough one ! Had INTROACTS instead of IN TWO acts FOREVER ! Tricky solve for sure !

Oof . IZZATSO , YHEAR and then a full themer of latin that lawyers and debaters would know but the rest of us would just say HUH ? and get from the crosses ( and a little Latin from somewhere deep in my brain ) . I finished this puzzle , no errors , got the star but truly felt the theme was a reach . I could construct a puzzle with obscure medical terms but would that make it a good puzzle for the general community ? I think not - LOGICAL conclusion .

This was a toughie but I got there despite never hearing of soupçons or idempotent . Anyone else think it should be CHOMPING at the bit instead of CHAMPING ? Apparently both phrases mean the same thing- I checked after I got the gold star . Feeling good about finishing this under 25 minutes . Whew .