This first Saturday in May marks the 145th Run For The Roses in Louisville, Kentucky. Not only is it a showcase for beautiful 3 year-old thoroughbreds competing to don the famous wreath of roses, it also a opportunity to imbibe mint juleps and display charming millinery. The favorite Omaha Beach has been withdrawn from the race and so I am rooting for the new favorite Game Winner who is owned by an Omaha couple. The Derby proclaims itself to be "The most exciting two minutes in sports".
The constructor today is our retired organic chemist, now living in New Mexico - Pawel Fludzinski. Here you see him with his lovely 12 year-old daughter in Hawaii last Christmas.
I asked Pawel for some inside info on this challenging puzzle and he was very generous in his response: In constructing a themeless, I always start with 2 or 3 seed entries. In this case, I very much wanted to use PERFECT CRIME and FARM TO TABLE. I had those "in pocket" for a while, and were in several puzzles attempts that were rejected - not because of the seeds, but the rest of the fill. I then found 2 other 11-letter entries that would work in the puzzle, and then spent a great deal of time working on creating 9-stacks that are interesting. I thought HEDGE FUND and WOLVERINE were interesting enough to justify ANTIVENIN (not a first choice), and HERBARIA was the only thing that would work as I was getting close to the end in the fill. Not an obvious answer, but perhaps a good challenge for a Saturday.
He added: PS - I always look forward to seeing which of my clues survive - especially for the seed entries and longer entries (i.e. 9-stacks). I never see the final clues until the puzzle is published.
Now let's get in the starting gate (flamboyant headware optional) for our run for linguistic roses:
Across:
1. One of the X-Men: WOLVERINE - Front and center
10. Prior's superior: ABBOT - ABBOT Michael is on the right. Prior Delisi is on the left in this Georgia monastery
15. Essential supply for an ophiologist: ANTIVENIN - Alternate name for ANTIVENOM which I first wrote in and which Pawel said was not his first choice 55. Less-common spelling: Abbr.: VAR - ANTIVENIN for ANTIVENOM?
16. Home of Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights": PRADO - Madrid, Spain's famous art museum
17. Vehicle in the 2012 film "Arbitrage": HEDGE FUND - Rotten Tomatoes opinion
18. New Mexico school athletes: LOBOS - In his last puzzle Pawel referenced Alamogordo, N.M. and today he uses the mascot of his now home state, The University of New Mexico
19. Italy's equivalent of the BBC: RAI - Radio Audizioni Italiane is the national public broadcasting company of Italy
20. Some necklaces: CHOKERS - Also athletes who fail at the end of a game
22. Its solution refutes its existence: PERFECT CRIME - The man on the bed (and his girlfriend in the background) thought they had committed the PERFECT CRIME. The man tried to cover up the murder by shooting himself, but Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov to the left) saw right through them in Death On The Nile
27. Not on edge: AT EASE.
28. Collections of plant specimens: HERBARIA and 31. Canonized Archbishop of Canterbury: ANSELM were my downfall as I chose an "E" at their confluence
32. Flow __: CHART.
33. Fill a hold: LADE.
34. Ireland's __ Féin: SINN - English: "Ourselves" or "We Ourselves") is a political party active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland (Wikipedia)
35. Follower of the old school?: MARM - Here's a School MARM and her charges on the treeless prairie near Dundy, NE
36. Favor, slangily: SOLID - "Hey buddy, would you do me a SOLID (favor)?"
37. Jokers: WAGS.
38. "Everybody Loves __": Johnny Cash novelty song: A NUT - Here sung with 3/4 of the Monkees
39. Pound, e.g.: POET - Ezra. UNIT felt the fury of my delete key! Do you think Pawel did that on purpose? 😏
40. Brawl: MELEE.
41. One with a family practice?: NEPOTIST - An interesting take on the word
43. Gap-related: HIATAL.
44. Becomes an overnight sensation in: TAKES BY STORM - Yeah, I'd say they did!
46. Department store staple: APPAREL.
49. Names: IDS.
50. "Grand Hotel" star (1932): GARBO - Yes, Rotten Tomatoes reviews older movies too
51. Like 24/7 news channels: ITERATIVE - Over and over and over...
57. Listing: ATILT - Leaning like a boat
58. Erin Brockovich, for one: PARALEGAL - real and reel versions 59. Classic battlers: SEXES.
60. Reacts to a blow: SEES STARS - A comic book staple
And down the stretch we come...
Down:
1. Nursery noise: WAH.
2. White Monopoly bill: ONE.
3. Inc., in Ipswich: LTD.
4. Bookie's cut: VIG - Wazzat?
5. High point of Hillary's career: EVEREST - Sir Edmund and his sherpa Tenzig Norgay
6. Put a new front on, as a building: REFACE - Voila!
7. Nunavut native: INUIT.
8. "Under a Glass Bell" author: NIN.
9. Where a gaffer or grip is recognized: END CREDIT - From the funniest movie ever made - Airplane. Who is that worst boy?
10. Equanimity: APLOMB.
11. Started to perspire: BROKE A SWEAT -
12. Diamond immortal, with "The": BABE - Last Saturday it was Babe Ruth Day
13. Fridge-cleaning motivation: ODOR - This milk smell bad to you?
14. Not sleep well: TOSS - Let Bobby Lewis tell the melodic tale
21. Took on: HIRED.
22. Iconic dot-eater: PACMAN - Trapped!23. Flammable gas: ETHANE.
24. Rise on hind legs: REAR UP - Hi Yo Silver!
25. "Knowing where your food comes from" movement: FARM TO TABLE - Info
26. Aspen abodes: CHALETS - Not A-FRAMES as it turns out
29. Grand Canal span: RIALTO - Our gondolier took us under the famous RIALTO Bridge in Venice 30. Ready to roll: IN GEAR.
33. Part of a blabbing metaphor: LOOSE LIPS - "LOOSE LIPS might sink ships" from WWII
36. Abrupt increase: SPIKE - Have you bought gas lately?
40. Prayer books: MISSALS - Our paper MISSALettes are now both in English and Spanish
42. Occult decks: TAROTS.
43. Hard-to-overcome evils: HYDRAS
45. Brew in Brest: BIERE - How BEER is spelled in this French city that is 400 miles west of Paris
46. Ottoman officers: AGAS - Prince Shah Karim Al Hussaini became the Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims or Aga Khan IV in 1957. Here he is shown in the celebration of his 60th yr in that capacity
47. Crown: PATE.
48. Grand __: PRIX.
52. Inventor's monogram: TAE - The Wizard Of Menlo Park
53. Hanoi holiday: TET
54. Franchise-based supermarket chain: IGA - Here is an Independent Grocery Association store in Nyah West, Victoria, Australia (pop. 552)
56. Local boundaries?: ELS - Yup, LocaL starts with an "L" and ends with an "L". No Ernie Els for our friend Pawel! (Jeffrey had 62. Divided trio?: DEES yesterday)
Now it's time to comment and have a mint julep!
39 comments:
It seems the only way I can keep from being near the bottom of the comments is to do the puzzle before I go to bed. So...
When I saw it was a PF themeless I nearly didn’t try it; I always like his puzzles but they often beat me up and take my lunch money. Not tonight though; I must have been on his wavelength. And Husker, an outstanding effort as usual.
I can’t believe it, but I actually FIR in a little over 20 minutes! Did not expect that. My favorite was “vehicle in the movie Arbitrage” —HEDGE FUND. Chuckled right out loud, I did.
This might be the first time I’ve ever seen the word VIG in a puzzle. I have known it (and its big brother VIGORISH) for years, owing to my predilection for cheap trashy crime novels.
I didn’t care much for ANTIVENIN (whoa—my spell check actually came up with thar spelling as a suggestion while I was typing). I know it’s a VAR of antivenom, but it just sounds weird.
Okay—I’m officially ready to go to bed. G’night, all.
(And some folks wonder why I take naps...)
FIWrong. Straightforward misspellings of a couple foreign words: ReALTO + SeNN. The SW corner also had me hornswoggled until after I turned red letters on to confirm I didn't have anything wrong, and once I had that assurance, I managed to fill it in without further assistance. FARM TOTABLE* (that's a term? I've never seen it before!) began as FARAVORISM (based on locavore + ism), but I'd already erased that from the grid (tho not my memory) before I went to red.
*I see from the expo that I parsed that wrong. Oops.
Lots of w/os, a-frame > CHALETS, MARy (of the little lamb) > MARM, ST.MORE > ANSELM (who he?) Wild > WAGS, unit > POET. More misleading stuff than seems normal, e.g. "White Monopoly bill" I thought had something to do with racism or Jim Crow laws. Been reading too much INTERATIVE news lately.
He thought he'd done the PERFECT CRIME,
Til Shylock Holtels came on the line!
"The most likely perp
Is the least likely perp!
It's the ABBOT who was in NUNAVUT at the time!"
The POET relied on his HERBARIUM
To inspire his metrical cranium.
He could rhyme about thyme,
Or ode about the ODOR of lime,
To earn a mint for his honorarium!
{A, C-.}
Hi Y'all! Always count on Pawel for a great learning experience. Thanks. Always count on Gary for a great explaining session.
Lucked out: Only Xman I knew was WOLVERINE. By golly, it was right! Surprise!
Had to look up ophiologist to come up with the also unknown ANTIVENIN to correct ANTIVENom.
Also unknown: RAI, ANSELM, ITERATIVE, HERBARIA (got the HERB part okay).
Some real tough fill but kept plugging things in and doing the old perp & WAG.
Funny thing: Pawel doesn't look diabolical but his puzzles tend that way.
HIATAL hernia: I didn't need a diagram for that. I learned 40 years ago about that. Fortunately, I was at a party in the same room with a psychiatrist when I had a fierce HIATAL hernia attack. He taught me to inhale while pooching out my abdomen to force the diaphram down and suck the hernia back into the stomach. So simple and effective. At the time, I was eight months pregnant with what ended up as a 9#12oz. baby. Man, did I need that HH exercise!
Good morning. Thank you Pawel and Husker Gary.
WikWak, I did pretty well this morning too. Only I'm waking up, not going to bed.
Not a speed run for me. I liked that there were some easy answers, and some that I really had to work to get.
ANTIVENIN, HERBARIA and HIATAL gave pause as they filled in, but I was confident that the perps were correct. Except for that A at the intersection of ANSELM and HERBARIA. Husker, I guessed the A just because I know the name Anselmo.
OKL, I had the opposite with FARM TO TABLE. Read the clue and entered the answer sans perps. We watch a ton of food cooking shows, and most notably in this case, "A Chef's Life" on PBS.
AFRAMES went in at 26d "Aspen abodes" on the first pass, but only the S stayed as the solve unfolded.
Don't know why I first thought that THE OSCARS might be the answer to 9d, but it was way off. Probably because the number of letters req'd was correct.
Great job as the docent, Gary. Loved the review !
Good morning! (And happy Star Wars Day.)
Yes, I fell into the ANTIVENOM trap, but that was nothing. I tried BEYS for AGAS, but that was nothing. I was certain of MAKES HISTORY -- now that was something. TAKES BY STORM was slow to appear. Yay for Wite-Out! Despite the setbacks, my train came into the station right beside WikWak's, so life is good. Thank you Pawel -- loved the fill. Husker, excellent tour, as always.
NIN: How many days in a row does that make?
WOLVERINE: My first guess, because it's the only X-man I know (Hi, PK).
ANSELM: Remembered him from my Intro Philosophy class lo those many years ago.
Thunder-rumblers marched through overnight, but it looks like it'll be OK for our morning bike ride through the 'hood. This is only the second Saturday this year when we've deemed it warm enough and clement enough to ride.
Can never do Saturday as yet! Keep trying but it’s the hardest ones for me
Got it all except one letter-G. Never heard of VIG. I just WAGged R for a HED-REFUND, when I threw in the towel. Had to change ANTIVENOM to ANTIVENIN to almost make that section work but it was an ultimate DNF. Did I BREAK A SWEAT on this one? Hell yeah.
But I should have known HEDGE FUND because 'arbitrage' is how they play their game. Known as the 2&20 crowd; They take 2% of your total investments yearly and 20% of the gains ( if there are any).
New words worked out this am. HERBARIA, RAI, ITERATIVE, ANSELM, and of course VIG. Couldn't determine if it was SEIN, SIEN, or SINN, SETTO or MELEE, and REALTO or RIALTO before I finally got 'IN GEAR' and finished that section.
SOLID as a favor was unknown to this guy as was A NUT.
D-otto, as far as consecutive NIN days, don't be a 'NINnie'.
This puzzle went more smoothly than some Saturdays- probably because some of the fill was in my wheelhouse, like HIATAL and ANTIVENIN. It helped that it started out with WOLVERINE - -which I second PK- is one of the only X-men I know! WEES about VIG! Another learning moment was RIALTO being in Venice- which I think of as an old time movie theater name. I wanted REPETITIVE before ITERATIVE but it was too many letters.
I was slowed down by SET TO before MELEE came in after I stepped back to figure out why I was at a dead end.
The picture on the prairie of the schoolhouse on the blog reminded me of my husband's grandfather who was THE teacher of a one room schoolhouse in Waco, NE for 45 years!
Thanks HG and Pawel!
FIR in 70:22 min.
And they're off! Happy Derby Day!
May the 4th be with you, and may your three year old win.
Thank you Pawel Fludzinski for this Saturday masterpiece which was at once crunchy, and easy. There were cells where I was sure I would have to reveal a letter, but I WAGed each one.
Thank you Husker Gary for your excellent review.
Ðave
Good morning everyone.
Glad to see another offering by Pawel. He is an RPI Grad; Class of "78.
I got most of it without help so I'm a happy camper. Thought 15a was ANTI-VENom. Help with VIG and NIN straightened that out. WOLVERINE and HEDGE FUND followed easily. Had wits before WAGS. Wanted Thomas á Becket before ANSELM hove into view.
A good Saturday stumper; but fun to suss. Thanks Pawel and to Husker for another fine intro.
True Saturday stumper from Pawel. Red Letters had to be turned on early to even have a chance at filling in the many blanks. Gary's tour provided the V-8 can head slaps today.
Officially a DNF even though I ultimately turned all the Red Letters to Black.
I had LET IT SLIP vs LOOSE LIPS for a long time before perps showed the error of my ways.
Even though it didn't fit, I wanted REPETITIVE before ITERATIVE. Like the motto for the WINS radio station in NYC, "Give Us 22 Minutes, We'll Give You The World." Over, and Over, and Over, etc. Same goes for WCBS radio, WTOP radio and a myriad of other News Radio stations across the country.
And as far as the clue about Family Practice goes I spent a long time trying to fit some form of Doctor or Physician where NEPOTIST ultimately went.
As I said above, A true Saturday Stumper.
Have a great day everyone.
Good Morning:
Hand up for the Antivenom error but Ms. Nin corrected that quickly. Perps were needed for Anselm, Rialto, RAI, and Iterative. I finished in 22 minutes which means the puzzle was relatively easy for a Saturday. Much of the long fill was straightforward and just fell into place. For some reason, I love the word Aplomb.
Thanks, Pawel, for an enjoyable solve and thanks, HG, for the delightful and informative tour.
FLN
Lemony, thanks for enlightening us about Jeffrey W's impressive credentials. No wonder he is such an accomplished wordsmith.
Ferm, hope you're going to join us more often.
Have a great day.
Hola!
Many thanks to Pawel Fludzinski and Husker Gary for this challenge!
Most of the way I was on PF's wavelength and filled the grid quickly until I hit a blank wall at HERBARIA, then couldn't for the life of me recall the spelling of SINN Fein so LIU.
Hand way up for knowing only WOLVERINE as an X-man.
HIATAL/HYDRAS was almost a Natick.
BECKET was my first choice, too (hi, Spitz) until ANSELM emerged.
I have my own Sunday MISSAL so that was the easiest for me.
Pound, e.g., did not fool me.
ANTIVENOM did me in so I FIW.
Book club meeting today. We'll discuss Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens.
Have a splendid day, everyone!
Good morning, folks. Thank you, Pawel Fludzinski, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, Husker Gary, for a fine review.
Cruciverb worked again today. I am glad.
Nice to see you, Wik Wak. I left you a birthday voicemail a few weeks ago. Hope you got it. Hope you are doing well.
Puzzle was tough, but it is Saturday. Some easy ones and some tough ones. Perps and Wags saved me.
Got enough of the easy NW words that the long ones kind of stood out and became easier.
HERBARIA took me a while. I had the HERB but needed four Perps to get the last four letters. Finally got them.
Same with the SE corner. Got enough short answers that the long ones were solvable. Once I figured out BIERE and the A in MISSALS, ITERATIVE worked.
As someone else said, SOLID made no sense to me. But, with five Perps I left it sit.
Sunny day today. I think I will set out my seedlings. I only have two hundred. Might try to cut some of the grass.
See you tomorrow.
Abejo
( )
Loved “Crawdads”! I was totally taken in by the twist at the end.
Well, Saturdays are always toughies for me and this one was no exception. But still, thanks, Pawel, for some interesting items along the way. I actually got the northeast corner right away because I knew BABE (even though sports are not my thing) and that gave me ABBOT and then PRADO and then the rest of the east began to fill in. I got SINN immediately (I'm pretty good at Irish items) and then remembered RIALTO (I used to love to visit Venice). In the end there were some words I never knew, like VIG, and ANTIVENIN and SOLID as a word for 'favor.' But, hey, still fun, and Husker Gary, I loved your contrasting pictures of that REFACE.
PK, your hiatal hernia story is fascinating. Hard to imagine surviving such an experience, but thank goodness it all turned out all right for you.
Have a great weekend, everybody.
Very hard -- I'm impressed by the rest of you.
Wendybird:
Yes! I loved Crawdads, too, and was mystified at the ending. I can't wait to hear what my fellow readers have to say about it. There are too many gaps and unanswered questions in the story.
Alice, Saturday puzzles are always tough for many of us--so you're not alone.
I can't believe I solved the whole thing! Well, actually, I can believe it because I just did it. Like Lucina, hand way up for knowing only WOLVERINE as an X-man. Also didn't know the term VIG and the word SOLID as clued. I spelled SINN right, but took it out because I had WITS instead of WAGS and FIGHT instead of MELEE. Once I sorted those out I put SINN back in again. I mis-recalled RAI as REI which blocked my getting REFACE for a while. STOW before LADE misled me for a while too. But I wasn't fooled by Pound :)
I sorta chuckled to fill ANUT after having filled INUIT above. Loved the clues for NEPOTIST and SEXES.
Good wishes to you all.
Fun puzzle for a Saturday,
50% very easy
(Wolverine, never saw an X-man movie)
I refuse to watch the series unless I can watch them as
they were meant to be seen. Meaning I must see the 1st Movie 1st!
What, does Disney own this Franchise or something?
The 1st movie is unavailable for love of money!
(ref: Netflix/Hulu etc...)
50% impossibly hard!
(Hedgefund? Did not see this movie either, but Hedgefund was impossible to deduce...)
Speaking of deduction, 22a perfect crime,
reminded me of the BBC Sherlock with Cumberbach & Freeman episode
where he tries to solve the perfect crime of the murder of a soldier
in a locked room (shower). Daughter #2 introduced me to this series
and I have been grateful ever since...
I just watched highlites of season #1 thinking to post it,
but realized (deduced...) that it would be a terrible spoiler
for anyone who had not seen the series.
So, the best I can offer without posting too much would be
Sherlock & Johns 1st meeting...
Followed by how he deduced after 2 minutes/poorer vid quality...
Unfortunately the sun is not shining bright on My Old Kentucky Home today. Hoping the rain holds off for a few more hours. The Garland of Roses was constructed last night at Kroger which is less than 3 miles from me. It has been made there every year for at least 25 years. It’s fun to watch. There is always a crowd. It got a police escort to Churchill Downs today.
Happy Derby Day to all. Went for 20 years but so glad I don’t have to go anymore. It was fun though. I pass on the Mint Julep & opt for just the bourbon with a splash of water. Cheers!
I picked Alan up for the weekend at 7:30. I filled in parts of the puzzle between various jaunts with him. I didn't really concentrate until just now. Then I FIR.
Alan is happy and doing well, but was very eager to come back to visit. We had breakfast at his favorite "Cheers" style coffee shop to say hello to the waitresses. We went to the church rummage sale where I bought him a used TV stand and a used TV brought in by a friend. Alan took his old TV and table to his new home. We ordered him a birthday cake for next week, had lunch and did a lot of laundry because the washer at his home was on the fritz.
As for the puzzle, I waited to choose antivenom or antivenin because I thought it was a 50/50 choice. The same with WIT or WAG. I thought of ANSELM immediately, but didn't trust it until I had 3 perps. RAI was ESP, as was SOLID. But now I remember having seen SOLID here before and I remember the discussion that ensued.
Waiting until there is an odor in the fridge is way too long to procrastinate. Still an obvious answer.
The V gave me VIG for VIGORISH. Crime novels to the rescue.
I always struggle with spelling FEIN or SINN.
Fun puzzle, Pawel and great blog, Gary.
Wow, this was a tough Saturday puzzle, tough but fair.
Thought I got it, but had a bad cell.
Markovers...POE/NIN (total guess), SUMOS/SEXES, ENSELD/ENSELM.
Bad cell....HERBARIE and ENSELM....the E is an A where they meet.
Enjoy the weekend, see you Monday.
Thanks all for the positive feedback.... and a special thanks to "Husker Gary" - I very much enjoy his writeups. He does a terrific job. Until next time....
A very classy puzz from Mr. Fludzinski!
Tough as nails. I doubt I would have completed it if I hadn't seen part of the final grid by accident!
"SALANIO: Now, what news on the RIALTO?"
My first show as a professional actor was this one, at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. I was Lorenzo, so I wasn't on stage for this opening scene. But I remember listening to it backstage on many nights. Years later, when I was in Venice, my favorite foreign city, for the first time, I rushed to the Rialto bridge.
What a great lifting rise it has! I stood atop the arch and reflected that Shakespeare probably never saw the actual bridge--and how privileged we are to visit the historic sites he only read and heard about.
~ OMK
_____________
DR: A 3-way on the flip end, with a central anagram that celebrates the fine study of clumsiness, the major high school subject of many an adolescent, the...
"MALADROIT ARTS"!
Good afternoon everyone! Pawel sure made me BREAK A SWEAT with this Saturday challenge. Thanks for the workout, which ultimately resulted in a FIR. Great expo, Gary. I got a laugh out of the Worst Boy END CREDIT for “Airplane”, one of my all-time favorite comedies, right up there with “Young Frankenstein”.
WEES about VIG and ANTIVENIN. Misread the clue for 29D, which had me wondering what kind of structure could span the Grand Canyon – doh, time for new glasses. Hand up for thinking of Hercule Poirot at PERFECT CRIME. I’m currently working my way through a boxed set of the David Suchet series. He’s the definitive Poirot for me.
We stopped by our local racino to place a modest bet on the Kentucky Derby. It makes watching the race more fun when you have a horse to cheer on to the finish line. Got a tip on a long shot from SIL, who is a big horse racing fan. Here’s hoping she’s right!
Lucina & Wendybird: I also enjoyed "Where the Crawdads Sing" some time ago. Really different read. Been long enough, I think I'll go back and read it again.
Misty: hiatal hernia won't kill you (that I know of). It just feels like it will. Often mistaken for a heart attack the first time. I tell the story in case someone has HH and needs relief. That was a strange pregnancy because he was so big and I also had a kidney stone which went undiagnosed until after he was born. Add HH and it was one of the most miserable times of my life. I made surgically sure it didn't repeat.
PK, we have twin sons. Identical, born nearly 35 years ago. My long suffering bride, after full term, realized that they weighed 7 lbs 10.5 oz and 7 lbs 6 3/4 oz. So just over 15 lbs. And individually they were the largest infants in the nursery at the time, also the only multiples. We found out about them 2 weeks before delivery. Needless to say, it was an interesting pregnancy.
What a slogfest
Well, in my inimitable way I've managed to FIR the weekend after some FIWs early in the week.
The outlook wasn't brilliant as I tried to find a foothold. VIG and PACMAN were two. I worked from the SW corner up to the NE. I gathered steam but had the NW still to conquer. Hilary-EVEREST was s biggie
NIN is becoming the OTT/ORR of LAX- word-dom. I had ATREST as well as the VENOM thing.
Satisfying win and not a long time although I have no idea. 1/2 hour?
WC
We had a lively discussion of Where the Crawdads Sing. Everyone had a different theory about the ending which in itself was mysterious. If you read the book, you know what I mean. Lots of food for thought there. Our next book will be The Island of Sea Women by Lisa Lee. We've read some of her books and they always provide a perspective on Chinese life with which we are mostly unfamiliar. I'm sure I'll think about C.C. as I read it.
So Java Mama did your long shot win? I had a tip on the winner but at 60-1 I did not bet it. He paid 132.00 for a 2 bet
Lemon @ 9:09 - No, sadly, he did not. We had Cutting Humor, ridden by Mike Smith. Smith had originally been slated to ride the favorite, Omaha Beach, until he got scratched. Too bad you didn't have any money on Country House. People will be talking about that finish for years to come.
Yellow Rocks!
You bought my TV stand from Holy Family Rummage Sale!
(just kidding)
I donated a Tiffany style ceiling lamp, & Misc. other odds & ends,
all of which were gone when I went to visit around 12PM.
(We might have just missed each other!)
Small world...
Thank you, PK. Glad to hear that.
Hi All!
Folks are probably already solving Sunday by now but I finally got to The Corner after my last chance at a solve after the Gala we attended for DW's College.
Fun puzzle Pawel but above my pay-grade. I couldn't suss the East-side below PERFECT CRIME and above TAKES BY STORM. I had WitS not WAGS and ShiN Fein.
Great expo HG. Thanks for the images esp. Airplane!'s END CREDIT.
Fav: PAC MAN. I'm fairly certain I paid for one of those machines over the summer at the arcade.
{A, C+}
LOL on the DR OMK.
Susan, Alice - Not everyone at The Corner is Saturday-worthy yet. Five years ago, I wasn't Wednesday-worthy.
CED - Cumberbach is brilliant in that BBC version. Not only is it his speech-patterns and smug look but the subtle wit comes through with barely a smile.
With all the talk of betting on the Horses, I'm surprised so many don't know VIG. Pop (who's not a gambler either) taught me that when I was a kid - "What's the VIG?" he asked when I was selling Cub Scout candy-bars; basically asking how much Cub Scouts get v. the company that made the candy.
Speaking of VIG, the Gala was a fundraiser for scholarships and DW's Honors College's capstone. [capstone: Every year ~60 students are given a free trip to Italy - or, for the ones who may not be allowed back in the country (Dreamers) Washington D.C.] One guy, at a table near me, bid (and won) $9.5k to throw out first-pitch at an Astros game + Skybox for him and 20 friends. That breaks down to ~$450 a seat. I'd say the school gets a good CUT of that money :-)
Cheers, -T
Lucina: The Island of Sea Women is about Korea before and during the Korean Conflict. It’s a great historical novel. You will enjoy it.
Hi! Sherpa is an ethnicity, not a trade. So Tenzig Norgay was not a sherpa, but rather was a Sherpa.
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