Caroline Kearney

@Norman I am also a septuagenarian. Rap, by the way, celebrated it's 50 year history last year, with concerts, museum exhibits, and other festivities. I often know the answers, even if I don't really know the musician's work. I think your reaction is curmudgeonly, not just age-related.

@Nick Simon I still call it Denali (and the gulf is still Mexico)

@Andrzej I join others in hoping you reconsider. I really look forward to your comments.

@john ezra I haven't done the puzzle yet, but was alerted by a friend that our mutual friend Anita Borg was in it. She was a brilliant, wonderful woman who died, tragically, at 50, of a brain tumor. I'm glad to see her honored.

@Robin J. Hi Robin - As I mentioned earlier to John Ezra, Anita was a good friend of mine as well. We were in a feminist study group (which devolved into a dinner party group) when she lived in NY. We celebrated her PhD award by spending a few weeks at her parents' house in Hawaii. I know it is contrary to our feminist beliefs, but I have to say, she didn't fit anyone's stereotype of a computer scientist: She was blond and looked terrific in a bikini!

@J.S. I am surprised at the number of people who were unfamiliar with Zadie Smith. She has won a number (there's that word again!) of awards, and if my memory serves me, her first novel, "White Teeth" was a best seller and was adapted for television.

@Paul R I don't understand how you can refer to 109A - Ellen Johnson Sirleaf - as a "random first name." As the clue said, she was the first woman elected head of state in Africa. I think that's kind of a big deal.

@HeathieJ My sister-in-law had it done and has been very happy with the results. I can see how it sounds scary, though.) Good luck!

@Hope Levav My son used to help me a bit when he was small. One time, there was a clue involving the Red Sea. I think the answer was "Ethiopia," but he thought it should have been "Eritrea," or the other way around. This was before we could comment online. He wrote a letter to Will Shortz, who very kindly send a handwritten reply, explaining the answer and encouraging him to keep doing the puzzles. He didn't, but he educated me about rap, metal, and video games, so he's still helping.

@Warren - I love being tucked in, so disagree that hospital corners are just for looks. I do remember a Danish friend recounting to her friends at home after her first trip to the US that Americans sleep in envelopes!

@G - We defrosted 2 bottles of broth from our month in Maine - one from steamer clams, the other from shrimp shells. We invited friends over for seafood risotto, adding shrimp, mussels, and squid to the rice cooked in the broth. Served with 3 kinds of tomatoes from the farmers market, dressed with basil from my husband's garden. One of the friends brought a peach-ricotta cake. Yay summer bounty!

@Nick I'm sort of envious of those of you who never heard of AZT. It means that you didn't suffer through the worst of the AIDS epidemic and weren't losing friends and relatives. AZT was one of the early bright spots.

@Lewis As I mentioned once before, when my son was about 10, he was helping me with the puzzle and concluded an answer was wrong. (It had to do with Eritrea and Ethiopia.) He wrote to Will S. about it and received a had-written explanation of why the puzzle was correct. I still have the note, 25 years later. So yes, thanks, Will!

@Adrian First year law students are referred to as 1 -Ls

@dutchiris When I was growing up in rural NY, we acquired a big slate board when a one-room schoolhouse was torn down. It was installed in our kitchen and was a great resource for family communications and reminders.

@HeathieJ I didn't have a Raggedy Ann, but my sisters and I each had a Ginny doll. (Does anyone remember them from the '50's? They were like little girls - not baby dolls and certainly not like Barbie.) Each of us had one with hair that matched our own: blond for the eldest, brown for the next, and a redhead for me.

@Momerlyn The daughter of a friend of mine, who had strict limits on sweets, went to her first birthday party when she was around four years old. She came home and told him, "Dad, I discovered a new food. It's called cake!" (Years later, she converted him to vegetarianism.)

@Aly I wrote once before about engaging my 8-year-old son by asking if he could tell me the answer to a clue. In the 11/8/98 puzzle, the clue was something like "Country on the Red Sea." He said Eritrea, but the answer in the puzzle was "Ethiopia." He wrote a letter to Will Shortz about what he thought was a mistake. I just looked to see if I could locate the hand written reply. I found it! "Dear Ian, ... You're right that the modern country of ETHIOPIA no longer borders the Red Sea. However, the ancient land of ETHIOPIA did - and it was this meaning I was using...Keep helping your mom with the crosswords." He didn't for long, but taught me lots of stuff (video games, heavy metal, basketball) that continues to help me.

@HeathieJ - I used to go to a great diner in lower Manhattan with colleagues for lunch. Oddly, my colleague from a working class Jewish background made fun of me, from a lace curtain Irish background, for ordering corned beef hash. She seemed to think it was declassee.

@Sam Lyons I've always wondered whether Senor Don Gato was named for the song, which I remember my little brother singing long ago. I often catch it as an earworm after reading your posts.

@Helen Wright I have only 10 siblings - my mother practiced medicine full time, so she was indeed run ragged!

@Times Rita - I just copied your comment to send to my sister Sheila, who talked about the "Shelia" problem just a few days ago.

@RichardZ I sent that to an ex when he asked my if we could have lunch.

@Eric Hougland I only had the "a" of 46A and was sure it would be Lhasa - but obviously it didn't work with any of the crosses. Like you, I had no idea how mountainous Yemen is.

@Steven M. Gimmes for me and I suspect for many others

@Nancy J. Re 67A - I was proud of myself for immediately filling in "hangar" until it didn't fit with any crosses. (On Tuesdays, I try to do all the across clues without checking the downs.)

@Mean Old Lady I won't go back to check, but I wonder if all of us who are still spitting after rinsing are New Yorkers. Who knew we were so out of date?

@Nancy For Halloween the year of swine flu, my husband and I created costumes based on that theme (for handing out candy with our apartment building neighbors in the front yard). He had a pig mask handy, so I went to a costume store to find a nurse outfit. To my astonishment, they only offered "sexy" ones. I ended up borrowing a white jacket from my dentist (the one with the office spittoon) and a doctor's kit from a neighboring child.

@Steve L Volodymyr is so much in the air that he recently appeared in my dreams, throwing a companionable arm around my shoulders and inviting me to call him, "Harry" for some reason.

@Andrzej I once had to text my son the name of our pharmacy, so he could tell his doctor. The pharmacy was "Neergaards;" it was autocorrected to "beer garden!"

@KarenE That's hilarious!

@coloradoz My husband and I were in Chile about 5 years ago. We were asked to sign in before beginning a hike to a volcano. The person signed in ahead of us was a member of my college commune in the '70's, whom I hadn't seen since graduation.

@Hello World How on earth was Barry insulting someone's intelligence? He was curiously asking which clues the OP objected to, as far as I can tell.

@BR I couldn't remember Elphaba until I had some of the crosses, but, although I didn't see the musical or he movie, there was so much coverage of the Oscar nominations, etc. that just casually flipping through the Arts section of the paper, I saw it many, many times.

@CCNY My son is a rock drummer. When he was in high school, we had fun at dinner coming up with names for heavy metal bands. Unfortunately, I can't remember any of them. I did mention to him my surprise at seeing a lengthy article in the Times Arts section recently about the 40th anniversary tour of Mayhem, who I knew for their suicide, murder, and church-burning days. I guess things have changed.

@Times Rita My brother always says that when asked if he speaks Spanish. (He doesn't.)

@Helen Wright Even though we are about 80% vegetarians, I agree with you about kale and love few things more than potatoes roasted in duck fat.

@Paul I recently had a phone conversation with my sister in which I suggested that she get a dress from Rent the Runway. She had never heard of them. She reported a few days later that an ad for them appeared on her phone!

@Warren There was a big story today in the Arts section of the NYT about the concert

@Geoff Offermann - When I went to the post office to mail cookies to my son and his fiancée and to my brother, the clerk asked if I wanted to pay for insurance. I asked her if she could insure that the cookies wouldn't crumble en route. She replied that they would not honor such a claim. I don't know if she didn't get my joke or was making an even straighter-faced joke in return. (You're right about the cost!)

@HeathieJ _I have a great niece, Evie, who just turned one, so it was what immediately popped into my mind. (It's also the name of a trad wife magazine!)

@Andrzej @Francis I have come to love your bromance!

@Helen Wright : the "sprogs!" That's a delightful British-ism I didn't know. Can hardly wait for it to appear in a puzzle

@Steven M. I got it all from the crossings, with the exception of the "h" in 6 D, but "h" seemed most likely. A "big fail" seems rather harsh.

@Marshall Walthew We saw puffins on a trip to Scotland. They are even cuter when you call them by their Scottish name: "wee tammie norries"

@Andrzej - By coincidence, I learned the Polish word "pan" today, while reading a book called "Remembering Peasants."

@Andrzej - I am lucky to live near a Polish shop that smokes its own meat. I've learned that what we call kielbasa is wiejska, as Hardroch gathered from Wiki. The shop sells several other types, but always suggests wiejska when I tell them what I'm cooking.