Suzanne

A nice Sunday morning wakeup activity. Enjoyed this, for the most part. It appears I'm not the only one who didn't care for the SISI/ORRIS/IOLANI crossing. Never heard of any of them, so I couldn't finish without a lookup. But hey, now I've learned something for the next time we're clued those.

I flew through most of this fairly happily... lots of lucky guesses with the obscure American stuff I don't know. But I really got stuck in the NE, knowing nothing about Queens and thinking the Damn Yankees actor must have been OWEN. Eventually had to run through the alphabet to get a solve, but solve it I did. I have a warm, happy feeling from the Emmylou Harris clue, having been raised listening to the Luxury Liner album on repeat. What a voice she has. Named my beloved cats Pancho and Lefty after her version of it.

Love the challenge of this one. Needed my daughter's religious studies knowledge and my son's science brain to unlock the NW and NE. But then got stuck on ROMAN and couldn't figure out what a MARIMAS was nor where my mistake was. Then my daughter sat down for two seconds and said, 'it's probably MARINAS'. Head slap and a solve. I love this kind of family time.

Was great until SE... saved by my teenage son, who threw me SAMESIES. (I was trying hard to make SAME HERE fit). That opened it all up and I had a great laugh at IT'S HOT. Didn't see the Aurora last night, but my other kiddo works in Northern Ontario and was treated to the show of her life.

I really liked this! I've been blitzing cryptograms all week while I had the flu, so I didn't have any problem 'imagining' letters where there weren't any. 'Alee' put one of my fav Tragically Hip songs in my head and made me wonder if that's where I first learned the word, decades ago. A nice way to spend a cozy hour on a bleak ol' Sunday.

I enjoyed this a lot. Started with WAS IT A CAR OR A CAT I SAW, which fit perfectly as a 'starter'... having never heard the other, I spent a long time convinced it must be this. When I finally erased it, it all came together nicely.

A slow start, but once I got going, it was all right. Like others, I was second-guessing myself on about 5 answers that I'd never heard of before, but got the W anyway. Thank goodness my kiddo knows more about Star Wars and dinos than I do, or I wouldn't have: the Star Wars planet was the only way the NW was going to open up for me, considering how it was clued.

I liked this. A stress-free and relaxing but satisfying Sunday puzzle. Didn't see the title until the end and then I had a good smile while I read all the themed clues out loud.

A much quicker finish than usual on a Saturday. Nothing was too challenging here, but if I didn't know that rascal Waluigi, I would have had a much harder time. I can thank my kids for making me play lots of Mariokart... without ever actually getting good at it.