Persephone
Minneapolis
Was slightly disappointed to realize that "statement of resignation" was IMDOOMED instead of okbOOMEr. 🤣
From the TENOR of the comments, I am apparently alone in finding this an incredibly easy Saturday. I would've pegged this for a Wednesday puzzle.
Fun and fast for a Saturday, in a way that made me feel smart rather than cheated out of a harder puzzle. One of my few Saturdays completed with no Googling!
@John oh! I solved it in the puzzle but I'd didn't *get* it until your comment. THX!
@StevenR Fellow Minnesotan, and I had OJIBW(e) early on (as well as MISSE(d) instead of MISSES), and spent some time trying to shoehorn a logical answer into "_ ELTED." Eventually I came to the same reluctant conclusion as you.
ESAU is (by my observation) the most common four-letter Biblical name to show up in a crossword, presumably due to the usefulness of the plethora of vowels. But I'm familiar with the story of Jacob and ESAU entirely from having read "Jacob Have I Loved" (an allegorical novel featuring two sisters, set in the 1940s) in middle school.
It physically pained me to accept TAN for "Palomino", but other than that, I loved this puzzle.
@Janine 59D had me stumped for a while because I, too, grew up mucking stalls yet have never heard stable hands referred to as MUCKERs!
@G I had ICECAP before backing it out when I started filling in the downs.
@Brad of all the theme clues, IMO Elle's was the most apt - she was president of her sorority. 😉
@Jim same! The doubling of letters felt frustratingly random right up until the reveal after solving.
@Times Rita the puzzle reveals the answer if you fail to guess it.
@Suzie M yes! Thank you. I'm surprised no one else pointed this out earlier.
@Francis I input MIL (for "million") on my first pass and there it stayed until the very end when I couldn't make the crosses fit and *then* realized my place counting was wildly off.
@Nick hoe-er, as in someone who wields a (garden) hoe.
@Steve L interesting stats! I wonder what the distribution over time is; I'm a relative newbie and as I've been working backwards through the archives (into June 2022 currently), I feel like I've seen Mauna KEA a lot more often then LOA, and never the "New Zealand bird" clue.
@Marshall Walthew "can you [task] for me? I'm trapped under a cat" is a common refrain in my house.
All 17 comments loaded