Cindy
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15D PALM OIL was a wheelhouse gimme for me because I spend a lot of my time on conservation issues and have a passion for orangutans, who are particularly affected by unsustainable palm oil plantations. Palm oil is in about half of the household products in the U.S., including foods like crackers, ice cream, and candies and toiletry items like soaps, lotions, and cosmetics. The good thing about palm oil is that it is a very efficient crop, yielding much more oil per acre with less water and chemicals than other oil crops. This means that banning palm oil isn't the solution. Furthermore, it is often impossible to determine if palm oil is in a product because there are dozens of substances derived from it and, in the U.S., it can be simply labeled vegetable oil. The best approach that I know is to press for certified sustainable palm oil made by producers committed to ending deforestation. You can use the free PalmOil Scan App, created by the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums with the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, to scan or type in products as you shop. See <a href="https://wazapalmoil.org" target="_blank">https://wazapalmoil.org</a>/ and <a href="https://www.zoo.org/palmoil" target="_blank">https://www.zoo.org/palmoil</a> for more information. If you’re buying candy for Halloween, take a look at the list on the latter site. Thank you for reading this. It means a lot to me.
Wow! If I loved this puzzle any more, I’d have to be twins! An absolute gem—right up there with the legendary November 5, 1996 Schrödinger puzzle, and that is my highest praise. The moment I cracked the trick, it unlocked new pathways, adding even more joy to the solve. Thank you, Dylan! It was happy solving indeed!
I got a big smile from 14D Top guns? Nice one.
Chiming in from the IRL meetup in Seattle with @Seward Parker, @Mean Old Lady, and @Sotto Voce—what a delight! I’m amused that it took MOL and her husband coming all the way from Mississippi to get us together here in the Pacific Northwest. We worked on a few puzzle sections together which was a lot of fun. The two husbands got along great, and it was especially nice to get to know the son of MOL and her husband. The puzzling connection is clearly strong—I felt right at home from the start. Meeting in person really underscored something about the Wordplay community: this group of solvers and commenters is full of interesting people who make my life richer. It was a pleasure to see this so clearly in real life.
I especially loved 52A CROW. Some amazing research on crows has been done by Professor Emeritus, John Marzluff, and his team at the University of Washington in Seattle. See his books, including “In the Company of Crows and Ravens” for some fascinating reading. There are a couple of huge crow roosts in the Seattle area. I frequently visit the one at the University of Washington’s satellite campus in Bothell, about 20 miles northeast of Seattle. As many as 14,000 crows commute from surrounding neighborhoods to the roost each night. When I’m home, I watch for what I call the crow commute as daylight is coming to an end. The crows in my neighborhood are winging their way to the Bothell roost, somewhat less than 20 miles as the crow flies. I don’t think many people look overhead and see that the crows are all flying in the same direction. At the roost, they are all crowded together and they make a big racket as they arrive around sunset. Then, in the morning, they return to their own little plot in their own particular neighborhood and are very territorial. City crows, who have abundant food, have pretty small territories. The tales of their intelligence, alluded to in the clue, are wonderful. “Crow Planet” by Lyanda Lynn Haupt, another local author, also provides an interesting look at these intelligent animals with whom we share our home.
This was in my wheelhouse and I loved it! One of my favorite memories during COVID was attending an online conference called “A Tall Order: Securing a Future for Giraffe in the Wild”, presented by the Giraffe Conservation Foundation. At the end of the meeting, we did a global speed chat in which we were put successively in groups of three for about ten minutes then automatically popped into a new group of three. It was a feel-good small-world moment. There were lots of technical difficulties with the chat (although the conference went off without a hitch), but I have fond memories of the people I met and how hard we tried to connect even when the sound cut out, seemingly randomly. Sometimes we would write on a piece of paper and hold it to the camera. I was impressed with the good work being done on behalf of giraffes and their habitat and the work being done by and for their human neighbors. It was a welcome reminder of the good in the world. I find that in so many spheres of my life when people with a shared passion get together, like here with you, my fellow cross-nerds. So, thank you for being your smart, funny selves. When I started following WordPlay many years ago, I enjoyed the intelligence, humor, and kindness of the people who posted. I felt we lost some of that or, more accurately, that it got drowned out a bit during COVID but I think, I hope, we are returning.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphid" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphid</a> Wow, APHIDs are really interesting! I went down a bit of a rabbit hole: Populations are often entirely female and they can give birth to pregnant females. And some species … “can produce up to 41 generations of females in a season. Thus, one female hatched in spring can theoretically produce billions of descendants, were they all to survive.” (A generation typically living 20 to 40 days.) I know they can be a pain in the garden, especially if you love artichokes, but it’s hard not to give them some respect!
16D was a delightful gimme for me. PAOLO is a relative of mine!
What a seasonal delight and I’m happy that it leaves me time to return to advance prep of my pies for Christmas Day. Merry Christmas Eve to those who celebrate, happy return of longer days to the northern hemisphere, and general good wishes to our southern hemisphere friends! I’m grateful to all of you for providing a reliably happy and interesting close to every day.
Both 33D “Most likely to succeed?” = SOONEST and 40A “Crushing, in a way” = MOONY don’t make sense to me. I can sort of get that having a crush on someone means you are mooning over them, but it seems a stretch even for a Saturday. Maybe it’s generational or regional? So far, even though I’ve read a few ideas posted here (as of 12:47 am NY time), I can’t convince myself of anything to make sense of SOONEST. I’m U.S. born and have lived here almost my entire life. I pity our non-U.S. solvers on these clues. I enjoyed the Marioverse clues even though I know almost nothing about that game. They took me down a rabbit hole that led me to learn that a local Seattle-area guy was the inspiration for Mario and I’m pretty sure I went to school with his daughter!
I enjoyed the puzzle as it unfolded and the constructor’s comments are delightful! I hope she enjoys her subway riding and finds lots of solvers to surprise.
@Dru I thought Britishism, too, and I’m an American. I never had heard of BRITICISM until today. I see both in the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
Phew! I almost broke my streak by accident. Being in the U.S. Pacific time zone, three hours behind New York, I usually solve the night before the puzzle’s actual date. However, on Friday night, I realized that I had not solved Friday’s puzzle so I quickly dashed it out and finished at 8:45 PM Pacific time/11:45 PM New York time. So I was a mere 15 minutes away from losing my streak which is now over seven years. Now, I suppose I should put streak in quotes because I allow myself to do a little bit of research, such as looking at a map or the Wikipedia page for a movie, occasionally. I know that some feel that this doesn’t “count”. But it’s my streak and I’m always happy to complete the puzzle. I learn more when I let myself do research but I like the challenge of avoiding it. When I started solving, no amount of googling would have allowed me to finish a Friday or Saturday puzzle. This experience is a reminder to me not to borrow trouble. The reason I forgot to do the Friday puzzle earlier is that I got anxious about the doctor’s appointment I had today which, thankfully, turned out to be no cause for concern. Once again, I proved Mark Twain correct when he said, “I've had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.” How many times must I re-learn this? The puzzles continue to delight me. Oh, and I solved Saturday’s puzzle and enjoyed every minute of it, (no lookups). “Wrigley field?”, at 27D, made me smile. Happy weekend, everyone!
Nice one, Deb: “You will see butts emerge from your puzzle, which, for my money, is worth the price of a subscription alone. It’s not as if you’re going to get this kind of highbrow entertainment from The Washington Post.” I absolutely loved the puzzle! Tricky, yes, but so satisfying to finally solve and figure out the four words outside the puzzle. Once I figured out the trick, some of those four words helped me figure out areas where I was stuck.
That was a fun, satisfying puzzle. I saw an 8D ORCA POD from land at Golden Gardens park in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle a couple of weeks ago! Rare and such a thrill! Today I saw about 30 sea lions basking on one of the piers and last night I saw a beaver at the same park. This is my idea of a celebrity encounter! My husband got up close and personal with a pod when he was a 17-year old camp counselor on Orcas Island in Puget Sound / the Salish Sea. He was taking about eight 8- and 9-year old boys out in a little boat. A pod of orcas surfaced a few times about 10 feet away from them! The kids thought it was great fun but it was pretty scary for my husband. The orcas surfaced about three times, just checking them out, then moved along. I can only imagine how the kids’ parents, including Brad’s, would have felt if they were witnessing that event!
I certainly knew THETHREESISTERS - so delicious! - but got tripped up by not realizing that the lower three sisters’ names all began with a K rather than a C which, I’m sure, shows how nerdily out of step I am with popular culture. I just asked my husband if he could name three Kardashian sisters and he floated “Kim?” I replied, “Good! And… ?”. He said, “Bethany?”. Ha ha! I said, “They all start with a K.” and he replied “Karen?” So at least I’m not absolutely the most out of date person on the planet!
@Michael and @john ezra Thank you. Here are the links for the articles @Michael mentioned. Will Shortz is back editing as of Monday’s puzzle (12/30/24). Welcome back, Will! Many thanks, Joel! Happy new year and happy puzzling, everyone! <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/29/crosswords/editors-note-guess-whos-back-back-again.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/29/crosswords/editors-note-guess-whos-back-back-again.html</a> <a href="https://www.brainandlife.org/articles/crossword-editor-will-shortz-says" target="_blank">https://www.brainandlife.org/articles/crossword-editor-will-shortz-says</a>
@Brandon Please don't judge your ability to solve a Saturday puzzle based on this one. It was challenging for many of us. I appreciate @Leontion’s approach of looking things up indirectly, as it fosters learning. As you gain experience, just work your way up through the week, or simply solve the puzzles on the days you enjoy.
45D The sun emerging from the clouds at exactly the right time happened to me at this April’s total solar eclipse, my third, which I observed from the chimpanzee habitat at the Dallas Zoo. I reasoned that if I couldn’t see the sun, I could still observe what the animals did. The sun emerged just before totality. I didn’t see the chimpanzees do anything that was a definite reaction. When I observed the 2017 eclipse from Stanley, Idaho, we had clear skies. There were cows in the distance and lots of dogs immediately around. I didn’t see any of the cows react but the dogs’ reactions were all over the place, from nothing noticeable, to shaking and vomiting but very quickly recovering. At an elevation of 6290 ft, the temperature plunge was dramatic. My first total solar eclipse was in February 1979 and my father and I saw it from a plane chartered for the purpose. It was the only way that we had much of a chance of clear skies. I remember the shadow speeding across the tops of the clouds. Breathtaking! Each one is a fond memory. Feel better, Deb. Hope you’re well enough to self-medicate with a bit of chocolate.
“Syzygy, inexorable, pancreatic, phantasmagoria – anyone who can use those four words in one sentence will never have to do manual labor.” — W. P. Kinsella
Recently, I’ve been off by one on the day of the week, a phenomenon which was rare before retirement. I was just getting properly aligned when this puzzle came along and had me thinking, waaaiiittt just a darn minute, is this really Wednesday and I’m doing the Thursday puzzle the night before, because I really thought it was Tuesday and I was doing the Wednesday puzzle the night before. Even emus confuse me.
@Andrzej - 39A Katie and Allie was the name of a TV show. I never saw it, but I knew the title. - 38D I never heard of ECHOISM and it wasn’t in my online Merriam-Webster dictionary, but apparently it is the opposite of narcissism. Think of the myth of Narcissus and Echo. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism</a> - 54D CSA is Community Supported Agriculture. Customers buy a share of a farm’s produce and periodically receive a delivery. It’s a great way to support small farms and to have a reason to explore a multitude of zucchini recipes in order to keep up with the onslaught.
I love the picture of the tree kangaroo at the top of the column. Woodland Park Zoo, here in Seattle, has long partnered with the people of Papua New Guinea to save the endangered Matschie’s Tree Kangaroo. On May 1st, a new building will be opening that will allow zoo guests to see them. Here’s some info: ITree Kangaroo Conservation Program: <a href="https://zoo.org/tkcp" target="_blank">https://zoo.org/tkcp</a>/ This 9 minute video about the program, including the coffee the people there grow to sell here: <a href="https://youtu.be/iFhYdYjmPWY" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/iFhYdYjmPWY</a> Want to see video shot by a tree kangaroo? There’s a bit in this 10 minute video: <a href="https://youtu.be/9cXdtS8qNnc" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/9cXdtS8qNnc</a>
I had an unexpected advantage. My husband was watching the women’s Big Air Skiing competition at the Olympics while I solved. I’d look up occasionally and that’s definitely a case of everything being downhill from there. And what a hill it is!
@Coriander I guess it’s a case of YMMV. The two ID clues close together struck me as delightful.
@Joe If it was x *or* y on a graph, it would be axis, but x *and* y on a graph requires the plural, so AXES.
@BR Just humming a few bars of “What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor” usually fixes an ear worm for me. Well, at least replaces it.
@DZ Congratulations! No apologies needed in this group as we understand your joy! Love your well-deserved location! Keep up the fun!
I came within 23 seconds of beating my best Friday time.
@Joseph C Even if you think of it in terms of babySIT or petSIT?
@Mike I grew up in an Italian-American neighborhood with a bocce court. My sister and I were the only females around. We were the unofficial scorekeepers, moving the pegs on a wooden board. The bocce court was in the back yard of a player who lived high on the hill, and he would ring a bell to get a game going. Almost every man kept a vegetable garden, so it was likely that most of them would be outside to hear the bell. I don’t know if they had planned game times, but I suppose they did. They spoke English, mostly, but used Italian for some elements of the game, particularly to swear at bad shots. At home, my parents didn’t speak a lot of Italian because they spoke different dialects and teased each other about their accent. (My grandparents grew up in northern Italy but my parents were born in the U.S.) At home, we used Italian words for a lot of foods. As a result, I could be fluent if served bad food. Regarding the spelling question, I only know bocce but, with almost all things Italian, I figure there is a lot of room for creativity. I worked there briefly and that was even true in banking and the postal service.
@SonOfSJ Please give your mother my best wishes. I have fond memories of her posts here and have missed seeing them, but I am happy to hear that she is still solving. Her posts were always interesting and kind. I have a connection to Yorkshire through my husband and fond memories of beautiful Harrogate. I’d always hoped to take your mother up on her suggestion that we meet the next time I returned but, unfortunately, I haven’t been back. I’ll raise a toast to her and your family tonight.
@Dave K. I think that while Sunday puzzles are often described as oversized Wednesdays, they can really be anything we encounter on the other days of the week. Since Sunday is the only day that gets a larger grid, I like that it can offer something for everyone. I’d put today’s puzzle at about the level of a tough Thursday. As a Thursday fan, I found it a delight. It was chewier than most Thursdays in a very satisfying way, and exactly the kind of puzzle I needed to take my mind off an especially engaging week.
@Steve L We’re the 21st century version, too.
@Becky I’ve heard keas referred to as can openers with wings! And a group of keas are called a circus, a well-earned name. Here are three short videos of the kea’s capacity for problem solving and mischief. <a href="https://youtu.be/bxoCuRuHlt8?si=GwfYOHs2ByWqhe3S" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/bxoCuRuHlt8?si=GwfYOHs2ByWqhe3S</a> 2min 31sec BBC Earth <a href="https://youtu.be/fBdvRCkCNfo?si=HkaUnmQX5oMGsKN5" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/fBdvRCkCNfo?si=HkaUnmQX5oMGsKN5</a> 1min 30sec destroying police car <a href="https://youtu.be/7W7hEUGtv4U?si=Pz6OsaA26SOzlCjU" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/7W7hEUGtv4U?si=Pz6OsaA26SOzlCjU</a> Nat Geo 2min 16 sec
@sotto voce I hope your drive home was a good one. We must have MOL to thank for bringing the nice weather with her! Will we be back to rain now that she’s leaving? Regarding ants, quit reading now if you’re squeamish. About a month ago, I went to a visiting exhibit on Nordic cuisine and aesthetics at the National Nordic Museum here in Seattle. I was looking through a cookbook, from the Noma restaurant in Copenhagen if I remember correctly, and one of the recipes called for a particular flavor of ants. Actual ants. I guess they serve them alive on some dishes at their restaurants. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/29/twitching-live-shrimp-covered-ants-dish-noma-restaurant-japan" target="_blank">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/29/twitching-live-shrimp-covered-ants-dish-noma-restaurant-japan</a> That exhibit has moved on. The current visiting exhibit in the same gallery is on Moomins and their creator Tove Jansson. She lived a very interesting life.
@Anthony It’s an old-fashioned term for an adage or maxim.
@Julia Gerson They do look like holes to me at normal size. If you zoom in, they look like curlicues.
@Andrzej I know almost nothing about American football but I’m sure your wife is correct.
I shared this video a few years ago, but it’s so delightful and fitting that I wanted to share it again. Enjoy watching the singers from Seattle Opera’s production of “The Turn of the Screw” perform our puzzle’s theme song: <a href="https://youtu.be/SEiN-Bn7_3o?si=3qll_MTQOAgIWkfo" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/SEiN-Bn7_3o?si=3qll_MTQOAgIWkfo</a>
@MExpat Thank you! It’s about 2 a.m. and we still haven’t got the windstorm that was expected to arrive at about 4pm. We stocked up on candles and flashlights, charged our devices and power banks, made and ate our dinner early, and settled in for a cozy evening, and … nothing. I’m hearing some noises now so it might be starting but I’m not going to disturb the cat to get up and look.
@J.S. No kidding! Not fair to deny us that smile while solving.
Fabulous! Just my cup of 76A phonetically!
I got a PB today by three seconds over my previous one. I’ve been solving so long - over 3400 puzzles since using the app - that PBs are very rare for me any more. I don’t usually pay much attention to times, other than on Sundays, but this one zipped by so fast for me that I had to look. I enjoyed the snappy fill! This puzzle put a sweet cap on a fun day. Thank you, Ms. Ziegler!
@Cindy Here’s one crossnerd :) term that crops up occasionally and may be new to you: “dook”. It’s when the parsing of the fill gives one pause as in “what the heck is a dook?”, when it is meant to be read as “do OK”. HANDYNASTY has caused some confusion until parsed as HAN DYNASTY.
@katarina Thank you. I certainly should have been clearer. Here is what I meant: I googled estoques to find pictures of bulls being stabbed multiple times. I thought the NYTimes generally tried to avoid unpleasant images in the crossword puzzles they publish, which is one of the reasons that the word urine never appears in the fill of a puzzle, despite having letters that are extremely useful to constructors. (I imagine if it were allowed, it would be overused, and we would be treated to lots of creative clues for it.) But estoques? If they couldn’t come up with a better clue for TOROS, I think they should’ve modified the fill. I understand that this is a cultural practice, but I’m sure I’m not alone in finding it upsetting.
@Chris I almost went down that road, too, but then remembered that it is spelled aghast, which wouldn’t fit, not agast.
@Steven For me, it was the combination O or A at OHH/OTRO crossing plus the I or Y at the ELI/STEADICAM crossing. So I had four possibilities. This sort of thing can take me a very long time to uncover but, luckily, I got it pretty quickly this time.
Here’s the official Call Me Al video with Paul Simon and Chevy Chase <a href="https://youtu.be/uq-gYOrU8bA?si=WVwWjIw8L1nZ5cYd" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/uq-gYOrU8bA?si=WVwWjIw8L1nZ5cYd</a> … and from a concert in Hyde Park: <a href="https://youtu.be/PS-sE9xCb-g?si=g8SktFDSZ1ttUtjr" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/PS-sE9xCb-g?si=g8SktFDSZ1ttUtjr</a>
Nice one! 79A had me scratching my head until I read Caitlin’s comments. The theme helped me find the error I had made with a Y at the crossing of 76D and 92A. I could have got it from the nonsense I had for 92A but it was fun to let the theme guide me.