Crevecoeur

This brought back a memory. My late father used to say that “ain’t” makes conjugation easy: I’m not—I ain’t You aren’t—you ain’t S/he isn’t—S/he ain’t We aren’t—we ain’t You aren’t—you ain’t They aren’t—they ain’t

Well I did have to give up today but I just want to say that I think it is a shame there are some mean personal criticisms either to constructor or editors recently. Maybe there always were. Maybe I’m just too sensitive these days. But just because our comments are virtual, the people are real.

Nice and fun. This brought back the memory of my 11th grade Chem teacher having us stick our fingers in a beaker of mercury to demonstrate its surface tension. I used to also break thermometers with my friends so we could watch the little balls of mercury roll around. This make account for why it sometimes takes me a while to finish puzzles.

Adding my thanks for all the hard work in making these puzzles available to us, and also to this friendly community for being, well, friendly. A small haven in a tough year. May 2026 bring kindness, strength and hope. Whoever you are.

“The hazards of decaying infrastructure” —loved that. Very quick Monday, nice clean clues. Thank you for a good start to the week.

I really loved this one, and though I don’t often notice the constructors, I’ve learned that if it includes the name Jeff Chen it means a good puzzle. I was ok with “the euro” because that’s the way we talk about it. And maybe not intentional, but for those of us who don’t drink, the “recipe for disaster” has a double meaning.

Wow, faster than Monday OR Tuesday this week—I guess because so few proper nouns? And I did know Xmen, though Halle Berry is an X woman, as are others. It is because of older children that I know this, and because of a grandchild that I filled in “lava” right away—I have spent some considerable time arranging towels on the floor to provide safe passage across the livingroom.

Oh my this was amazing, I loved it!

Great puzzle, and interesting clues, but a couple of clusters on names that I decided not to struggle for. Once you have to run the alphabet for more than one square, its not practical. My naticks were Raoul and Orel, and that group at the bottom, Ramos, Osiris and Tojo. Starting a new baby streak tomorrow. Happy Superb Owl Sunday.

I do think maybe at least Thursdays are getting easier—the only trouble I had was the cross of Ivey and TCBY, whatever that is. But I had all but the Y so I took a wild guess and got the music (well not actually, I have my sound off, but I can hear it in my head). The revealer was a big help in filling in the sides. Fun and clever. I liked the clues for acne and decoy. I thought of Dewey, he was a bit odd.

Enjoyed the puzzle, but didn’t catch the “berries” theme even though 1)to me “bury” and “berry” are indeed homophones and 2) I have just made a lot of elderberry jelly. And before that, strawberry. But it was fun. I had to read the column to understand the Fiji clue. Thanks for a good Wednesday.

My mother always used to tell me about a song they sang in church, “Gladly, the cross-eyed bear.” Thanks for the Wednesday fun. Although how can you have Booboo without Yogi?

I’m one of those who got a smile from this, though I figured my age had a lot to do with it, and others might be frustrated. I mean, I saw The Who perform I Can See for Miles in 1971. I watched Captain Kirk. Normally I’d be grumpy about a puzzle like this, so I understand if some didn’t like it. But I had fun with it. Some memories here. I even remember Prell.

I was enjoying the puzzle til the top right—ended up just giving up: hand hold, fanduel, tinct/tinge and matchmakers did me in. I think fixer-uppers are more likely to cause breakups, frankly. They say if you can build or add on to a house without divorcing you have a strong marriage. And hold isn’t taking, i tried palm but that didn't work either. I thought it was unfortunate that this puzzle had a lot of potential but too many slightly sloppy clues. The theme was cute. But Tao? Seriously, Wounded Knee? I’m sorry I hate to gripe because I think the constructors are amazing.

I came to the comments expecting a barrage of gripes because rebus on Wednesday—so happy to see others felt as I did—just plain fun. Great Wednesday level. Pure luck that I didn’t have to run the vowels on Odom/Jonas, guessed right, but I wish there weren’t crosses like that. And yes I know I live under a rock. But this is one of my more favorite recent puzzles.

Ha! Finally got it, and since I use an ipad the potato was the right color. TIL that Potato Head no longer has a gender. Frankly, potatoes really don’t, so it makes sense, and I love it. But when I told my husband, he said “but you’ll always be Mrs. potato Head to me.” This is a long-standing joke about my lumpy head. So you can figure I enjoyed this puzzle. When I was young, you just got the add-ons and you supplied your own potato. My natick was Suzie and Uzi, and Tsai took me a while. Loved “bank deposits” 🙂

Glad you all liked it. So much trivia, I can’t even come close.

Well since I live 5 minutes from an amusement park, this one came pretty easy, in spite of the fact that my adventures on rides are limited to our porch swing and even then I get seasick. Like others TIL enneads, always fun. Sadly, our park now finds bumpercars “too dangerous” so you don’t actually get to ram your friends, you just have to have a stately little excursion around the floor. They took away that one where you got thrown off the spinny center, too, and also the big barrel one that pasted you to the walls and then the bottom dropped out. A great lesson in centrifugal force. Granted, my childhood included some park-related scraped knees, but it also included more fun. And since they took out the Ben and Jerry’s, the park altogether has lost its charm.

I gave up. I can attest that not all doctors make six figures.

Nice steady fun puzzle. I like Sundays if nothing else for the extra size. If it were not for the natick bundle at Alou, MARC and Rory in the central north I would have had it. Rory, Cory, Tory, MATT MACT (I thought that one might be it, metro area capital transit?) and what do I know, maybe theres such a thing as a tee card. Oh well. It was still back to the fun after the slap-down yesterday.

Today when I gave up, again, almost done, as often,, but not quite, I began to wonder if I’ve just aged out of the NYT crossword. Don’t know the current phrases, don’t know actors (even if I’ve seen the movie), I’m learning things, but its not as fun. I was always the party pooper in Trivial Pursuit and I guess I still am. My good categories were science and nature. And luckily I know some French. I love word games. So I guess I’ll hang on for the Bee and Connections and Wordle, but I’m bugging out of here for a bit. Peace and good words to you.

Really enjoyed this one! I agree a bit harder than a usual Tuesday but in a good way. Esp liked cedars and pole. Everything accessible by crosses for the “you either know it or you don’ts” Thank you.

I’m always happy when the birds show up, and stilts are one of my favorites. Thanks for a fun Wednesday.

Sounds like people had tech issues, but I didn’t, I could see the funny boxes fine, though I wondered what “light mode” meant in the notes. Anyway, a little easier than usual for me on a Thursday. And I mostly filled in everything before finding the theme, which was cute. I love the “tilting at windmills,” though who needs imaginary enemies when there are so many real dangers out there?

In awe of those who finished this. “That’s impossible” is what fit best for me. I liked trying, (nomanisanisland is the same length as ittakesavillage btw) but I had so few ones I was sure of that I couldn’t get in. I knew Hoth, which nixed the above that I was so proud of. And I knew Enya. Other than that the trivia gave me nothing. I’m not sure I’ve stopped trying this early for a long time.

Paternity, which fit for 1a made for a very tough time in the nw. Especially since some of my crosses worked (pump, tine)! Couldn’t make a go of this, I knew none of the trivia. In awe of those who could fill this. enjoyed yesterday, looking forward to Sunday.

Yesterday was fast; today was fast too—I enjoyed this but its already over! Nice all around. 🙂

Delightful puzzle, thank you!

Loved the clever theme. Thanks for a fun Thursday

Well I love rebuses, and especially when they work both ways. So I really enjoyed this in spite of all the things I didn’t know. Somehow I found them. And I thought maybe you really had to be in certain parts of the US to know all the stores. Fave fill was Vivaldi.

No way. So many names.

So good. The cluing is so clever, I really felt accomplished when I finished it. Had geek alert in there for way too long and didn’t know Brenda so I made up someone named Bianka. So that was my last corner. This was a really fun puzzle.

Thank you for this so relevant theme, and a great Monday puzzle. Since we have signed up for all renewable electricity, my iPad used no coal to solve it. Here’s a program that has a lot of potential to regenerate wildlife habitat in North America, a spin-off from Doug Tallamy’s books Bringing Nature Home and Nature’s Best Hope. Excellent science-based work. <a href="https://homegrownnationalpark.org" target="_blank">https://homegrownnationalpark.org</a>/

Pretty quick though I had to guess on Weist and Ani, lucked out first try. I liked the reference of Earthrise in here. The theme of signs helped me with a fill, but I had no idea why “yes” was being pointed to, having never heard that expression. A good Tuesday. TIL cranachan.

Loved it. Step by step, slow but sure. In the end I was thwarted by one letter: I had lead instead of lend for 44D, seemed ok. I wasn’t sure how Gianni was spelled so I didn’t catch it. But great puzzle, even with no music.

This one was a really good example of what I think I’ve said before—the puzzles seem to be getting easier…until they aren’t. I breezed through, loved the theme, and then got stuck in the sw corner on what was a little natick cluster for me. It seemed a very quick Wednesday til then.

12 trivias, not counting history and classics. Took the fun out. I’m either going to have to change my rule about lookups or bail. Love Connections and Wordle but I liked the xwords better when they were more word-oriented. Sorry, don’t dis me it’s just me, I know I’m not culturally up on things.

Really loved this puzzle, so fun. Leonardo was my foot in the door. One of my recent favorites, and I loved the cleverness of the sneaky clues. One of my faster Fridays. But it was definitely a Friday because of the stacks, I just figured I was on the right wavelength.

I love Thursdays like this and thought the theme was super clever. I’m still trying to figure out my error, I haven’t gotten the gold star yet. A lot of things obscure to me so several places it could be. So many negative comments—but Thursdays are supposed to be this kind of fun. And some great clues here, it is fun to figure them out.

Wow. I guess my ability threshold is below this one. Could not figure out so many answers, and tried a lot of wrong ones before giving up. I’ll try Sunday. Applause to those who finished.

Really enjoyed this one, and loved the vicious cycle. Seemed like a perfect Wednesday. I didn’t know most of the names, but no bad crosses so it was all good. And TIL hoosegow, what a great word. Unlikely I’ll ever get to use it though. I only had one glitch, which I easily discovered—snit instead of snot, which I didn’t catch, not knowing Italian, but decided to try, and it worked. Did you know that if you look at aerial photos of the Susquehanna River, north of Harrisburg, PA, that you can see the underwater eel weirs built by Native Americans to funnel the eels to a point where they could be easily caught? One form of eeling, I guess.

I started out thinking this was extending a relatively easy week, until the NW corner, for which I could not get any kind of foothold. So bye-bye happy week streak. The rest of it went as easily as Friday, and almost as much fun. Oh well, tomorrow. In chicken news there is one gray Americana who has learned to escape every morning, and has managed to not yet be eaten by our family of Coopers Hawks. We cannot figure out her escape route. Perhaps I would solve the crosswords better if I was smarter than this chicken is?

Ever since I learned that ?! Is called an interrobang, I have loved to think of it that way. But I have to confess that I didn’t realize that the acrosses needed exclamation points so I didn’t fully get it til I read the column. Very clever. Sneaky clues. The week is looking good so far.

Solid Monday, I thought, except for the maligned jabber, which slowed my time considerably. I finally just went with it and was surprised by the success. I didn’t get how “slant” was a literal right angle, but “bottom line” was clever. Nice start to the week.

Not hard for a Thursday but I didn't have the pleasure of struggling with the theme, since I just filled everything in without understanding it. Had to go to the column for the explanation. Clever clues, that was fun.

This was a real Thursday and it got me fair and square. I filled in quite a lot before understanding why the fill didn’t make sense—but i didn’t get the whole thing, and couldn’t fill some that I just didn’t know. But I thought it was brilliant.

I just want to say that for the clue about taking charge, “the light brigade” fit perfectly and I was pretty proud of myself. Until I wasn’t.