CatMomAF

Enjoyable puzzle. Another reminder to check the title before I start! I’m curious whether 116A (ERUPT, clued with “Blow”) was an intentional homage to Mount Saint Helens? Today is the 35th anniversary of its eruption in 1980. It was a Sunday morning then, as well!🌋

After finishing today’s puzzle and listening to the continuing slog of awful news on this one year anniversary of DT’s inauguration, I was ready for another puzzle. So decided to go to the archives & do the puzzle for January 20, 2009 = Barack Obama‘s inauguration day. Such a nostalgic, welcome, palate cleanser—Highly recommend!

This puzzle was a thing of beauty!

I loved this little gem of a puzzle! Yes, the revealer was pretty obvious… But then there was the hurdle of the gravity – defying starred clues… And the green circled letters went over my head until I read Deb’s Wordplay column (duh!). Two weeks ago I got back from an Adult Musical Theater Camp in San Diego, where Wicked was a favorite among participants… And Wicked: For Good comes out in a couple weeks, so the timing was 👨‍🍳’s 😘!!

14A (“it has its X’s and O’s”) tripped me up! My first answer was “ENVELOPE”… because I immediately thought about receiving handwritten letters from my grandmother as a child, how she would write X’s and O’s on the outside of the envelope, along with “SWAK” (“sealed with a kiss”) or sometimes “SWABHAK” (“ sealed with a big hug and kiss”). The 2D crossing of “EVIAN” made me absolutely sure I was right for a long time!