Beans, Beans ...
If you listen carefully to the bassoon bursts in Schmelzer's sonata you'll
hear that school boy humor was alive and well back in the Baroque Era. 😀
Like last week's puzzle, today's theme is all about food. I wonder if Patti considered that the proteins provided in the LEGUMES of our 4 theme clues today, complement the proteins in the BREAD GRAINS in last Thursday's puzzle, to provide the nearly complete protein needed to sustain a vegetarian diet 😀. For more on this topic see Frances Moore Lappé's Diet for a Small Planet first published in 1971.
We'll start with the reveal ...
36A. With 40-Across, a punny title for this puzzle: HUMAN; and 40-Across See 36-Across: BEANS.
Thus the themers are all HUMANS, whose last names happen to be a type of BEAN ...
17A. Actor who voices the panda in the "Kung Fu Panda" films: JACK BLACK.
29A. Brazilian supermodel who's a face of Maybelline:
ADRIANA LIMA.
45A. "Slumdog Millionaire" actress:
FREIDA PINTO.
59A. "Family Guy" voice actor who co-created "Robot Chicken":
SETH GREEN.
Like last week's puzzle, today's theme is all about food. I wonder if Patti considered that the proteins provided in the LEGUMES of our 4 theme clues today, complement the proteins in the BREAD GRAINS in last Thursday's puzzle, to provide the nearly complete protein needed to sustain a vegetarian diet 😀. For more on this topic see Frances Moore Lappé's Diet for a Small Planet first published in 1971.
We'll start with the reveal ...
36A. With 40-Across, a punny title for this puzzle: HUMAN; and 40-Across See 36-Across: BEANS.
Thus the themers are all HUMANS, whose last names happen to be a type of BEAN ...
17A. Actor who voices the panda in the "Kung Fu Panda" films: JACK BLACK.
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| Jack Black |
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Adrian Lima |
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Freida Pinto |
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Seth Green |
... the constructors really used their beans to come up with this theme 😀. In fact I'm surprised that they didn't include a 5th themer, e.g. EINSTEIN'S BRAIN, a rather miraculous BEAN don't you think (as are yours and mine!)?
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Einstein using his BEAN |
Across:
1. Calibri, Arial, et al.: FONTS. Blogger provides a default font for these reviews plus 7 others, but as I understand it, if I change the font, it reverts back to the default at publication time.A CSO to TTP to verify this.
6. Early show featuring Robin Roberts, for short: GMA. Robin Roberts (born November 23, 1960) is an American television broadcaster. Roberts is the anchor of ABC's Good Morning America.
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| Robin Roberts |
14. Childish retort: ARE SO.
15. Sought office: RAN. In most cases there are ALSO RANS.
16. Not just in one's head: ALOUD. Hand up if you talk to yourself? ✋ (well no one else will talk to me! 😎)
17. [Theme clue]
19. Layered dessert: TORTE. Last Thursday's TORTE was un-layered. Here's the Skinny Chick's recipe for Layered Chocolate Cream Torte.
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Chocolate Cream Torte |
23. Source of an oil with medicinal properties: TEA TREE. Tea tree oil comes from steam distillation of the leaves of the tea tree. The tea tree grows on the swampy southeast coast of Australia.
The aboriginal people of Australia have traditionally used tea tree oil as an antiseptic (germ killer) and an herbal medicine. Today, external use of tea tree oil is promoted for various conditions such as acne, athlete’s foot, lice, nail fungus, cuts, mite infection at the base of the eyelids, and insect bites.
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Tea Tree |
32. Original Beatle Sutcliffe: STU. Apparently there are 3 extant recordings of bassist Stu Sutcliffe with the early Beatles (I believe they may have still been called the Quarrymen). From the Beatles' album Anthology 1, here is Sutcliffe on bass with the instrumental Cayenne (very hot!) ...
34. "Queen Sugar" creator DuVernay: AVA. Queen Sugar is an American drama television series created and executive produced by Ava DuVernay, with Oprah Winfrey serving as an executive producer. DuVernay also directed the first two episodes. The series is based on the 2014 novel of the same name by American writer Natalie Baszile.
35. Flying Cloud and Royale 8: REOS. Classic vehicles created by automotive engineer Ransom E. Olds ...
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| Flying Cloud Royale 8 Speedwagon |
36. [Theme reveal]
39. Some amount: ANY.
40. [Theme reveal
41. North Carolina university: ELON. I'm glad it was this ELON and not the other one! 😀
42. Org. that approves cosmetics: FDA. Food and Drug Administration.
43. "U slay me!": LOL. Not IRL of course. That wouldn't be very funny. 😒
44. "I'll take that as __": ANO.
45. [Theme clue]
50. Vex: RANKLE. Yep -- there it is ...
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56. Sat. antecedent: FRI. And FRI is the antecedent of THU, i.e. TODAY!
57. Wake-up call, for many: ALARM.
59. [Theme clue]
62. Leads: HELMS.
63. Mature: AGE.
64. Meaningless: INANE. Not always -- I've met our resident HIKER, and she is very meaningful!
65. Fine and dandy: A OKAY. All systems go -- 10, 9, 8 7 ...!
66. Walk very quietly: PAD. Or a hippy ABODE?
67. Pop-__: TARTS.
Down:
1. Sizzling serving: FAJITA. -- Our introduction to Tex Mex food was in San Antonio. Here's Robyn's recipe.
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| Steak Fajitas |
3. Hummingbird's drink: NECTAR. And they drink it beautifully ...
4. Sound of shame: TSK.
5. Blubber: SOB.
6. Primo: GRADE A.
7. Spice related to nutmeg: MACE. Wow -- this word really gets around!
8. "Diana" singer Paul: ANKA. The song that made 16 year old Canadian singer/songwriter Paul Anka a millionaire, and it's based on a true story. And it's a CSO to CanadianEh!
9. Cuban woman, perhaps: LATINA. Internationally, the most prominent Cuban woman these days is probably Ana Celia de Armas Caso (born 30 April 1988), aka Ana de Armas. We first saw her in the role of nurse Marta Cabrera in Knives Out, but she has acted in many other roles in Cuba, Spain, and the United States.
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| Ana de Armas |
11. Water between Antwerp and Aberdeen: NORTH SEA. Kinda' sorta' -- the North Sea also lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France (not sure why Scotland and Belgium got the honors). An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Sea in the north. It is more than 970 kilometres (600 mi) long and 580 kilometres (360 mi) wide, covering 570,000 square kilometres (220,000 sq mi).
13. Loving words: ODE. -- particularly loved by crossword constructors.
18. Property claims: LIENS.
22. Title in Tibet: LAMA. We were visited by LAMAS just last week.
24. Nashville athlete: TITAN. The Tennessee Titans are a professional American football team based in Nashville, Tennessee. The Titans compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) South division. The Titans play their home games at Nissan Stadium and are building a new stadium in 2024. It will be completed in 2027.
27. Hugh Laurie's alma mater: ETON. 4 letter school for an English actor -- an EKTORP? But then Hugh Laurie, CBE (born June 11, 1959, Oxford, England), despite being a British comic actor, is perhaps best known here for his role on the television series House (2004–12), where he used an American accent. But he can do dramatic roles as well. The only thing we've seen him in is The Night Manager, a thriller series where he plays a ruthless international arms dealer. He was so terrifying that we had to stop watching it!
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| Hugh Laurie |
30. Hawaiian island: LANAI. Lanai is the sixth-largest of the Hawaiian Islands and the smallest publicly accessible inhabited island in the chain. It is colloquially known as the Pineapple Island because of its past as an island-wide pineapple plantation. A LANAI is also a name for a style of front porch popular in Hawaii.
35. Artifact: RELIC. My favorite relic is the Shroud of Turin. While it is surely debatable whether it is the burial shroud of Christ or not, there are two things about it that are absolutely certain: (1) it is undoubtedly the most studied artifact in the world; and (2) no one has as yet discovered how it was made -- despite there being dozens of claims to the contrary. Any one who can demonstrate how it was created can make an easy million bucks by contacting these folks (there is a catch however). I've been studying this relic off and on since the 1970's, have actually seen it in Turin, and would love to have all of my questions about this enigmatic artifact answered one way or another.
36. Try, as a case: HEAR. I HEAR there's a lot of them being heard these days.
37. Radius neighbor: ULNA. All you need to know about both bones.
38. Excursion during a lunar landing: MOONWALK. The very first MOONWALKS occurred from July 16–24, 1969, and inspired this video ...
39. Beverage suffix: ADE.
40. Good songs, casually: BOPS. This calls for a good song. Rolling Stone rated this one as number 26 in the 500 Best Songs of All Time. IMHO Joni Mitchell is one of the greatest songwriters of all time -- certainly the equal of the great classical songwriters Schubert and Schumann -- but then they used other people's poetry for their songs, while she wrote her own lyrics ...
43. Close securely: LATCH.
45. Floppy: FLIMSY. Like the old 8" floppy disks. I once overheard a conversation on a train platform about these disks, and other storage media. One lady worked for the National Archives (much in the news these days), and she was telling another woman that an enormous number of historical documents are stored on tape, magnetic disks and other digital media and that the Archives has to maintain working versions of all of the corresponding peripheral devices for reading them. They simply don't have the resources to offload the documents to paper in anticipation of such requests.
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| 8-inch, 5¼-inch, and 3½-inch floppy disks |
47. Daredevil quality: NO FEAR. The quintessential daredevil was Evel Knievel, who, contrary to what you might expect didn't die in an accident.
48. Sign in an apartment window: TO RENT.
49. QB protectors: O LINES. Offensive linemen. The eleven players of the offense can be separated into two main groups: the five offensive linemen (Left Tackle, Left Guard, Center , Right Guard and Right Tackle), whose primary job is to block opponents and protect their quarterback, and the other six backs and receivers, whose primary job is to move the ball down the field by either running with it or passing it.
51. Factor in Hindu reincarnation: KARMA. Here's an explanation of KARMA by an Indian MD.
54. "Quickly!" letters: ASAP.
55. Video game giant: SEGA. Sega Corporation is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. It produces several multi-million-selling game franchises for arcades and consoles, including Sonic the Hedgehog, Angry Birds, Puyo Puyo, and Super Monkey Ball.
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| Sega Headquarters Tokyo, Japan |
58. Summer fire sign: LEO. As I asked last week, has anyone seen LEO III?
60. "Scram!": GIT.
61. Molecule in some vaccines: RNA. Click on the embedded video in this link for an amazing animation on How mRNA Vaccines Work.
Cheers,
Bill
And as always, thanks to Teri for proof reading and for her constructive criticism.
waseeley
A somber epilogue ...
Today marks the 80th anniversary of the
World War II D-Day invasion. Teri's family lost a dear uncle in that war, and we offer the following video commemoration of those who died that
day and are buried in one of several American cemeteries in Northern France ...
33 comments:
Sometimes, I leave a clue partly unsolved, then come back to it after I get the reveal. That’s the way I ended up getting “Freida Pinto,” for example. My “strategy” in this case, turned out to be a successful one. FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
Like SubG, that southeast area was a tad thorny. Wasn't familiar with that actress. Asked myself, "Now what sort of bean would fit there?" AHA, PINTO. Waseeley, thanx for 'splainin' OLINES -- no idea. Hats off to Paul and Katie for a fun outing. Thanx, too, to Waseeley and Teri for the expo? (Is she really "meanfull?")
D-O @5:37 AM Thanx for that catch D-O -- I fixed it, but she's an early riser and I hope I got it in time!
Here is David Alfred Bywaters' rather dark comment about today's bi-weekly puzzle ...
In my remarks on my last puzzle I had occasion to mention my alienation from alienation; today I recommend a better reaction to a sense of personal difference and exclusion: adaptation. It’s what allows us individually to survive and collectively to evolve. If you don’t fit in, if you’re different from other people, change! Nonconformists, mavericks, contrarians—who needs them? Join the herd! And if that herd is stampeding over a cliff, you’ll live a little longer by stampeding with it than by falling beneath it, and die maybe a little less unpleasantly.
I hope he's not having a bad day!
Took 5:53 today for me to refry this one.
I didn't know today's actress, but fortunately, the reveal/theme made that clear.
I was delayed by the plural "O lines" for a singular QB protector. "QBs' protectors" seems like a better choice. But what do I know? I didn't go to either Elon or Eton.
I've seen "Ava DuVerny" more in the LAT Crossword Puzzle than in all other sources combined.
I offer my delayed but sincere condolences and appreciation to Uncle Vincent's family.
FIR, but for let-->TO RENT.
Today is:
D-Day (I flipped on a news channel this morning and heard announcements from Normandy in English and French. At first I thought that I was watching a hockey game replay)
NATIONAL EYEWEAR DAY (My new contact lenses will be fitted Wednesday)
NATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION DAY (nearly everybody gets high in college)
NATIONAL APPLESAUCE CAKE DAY (applesauce is good, and cake is good. Are these things good too?)
NATIONAL GARDENING EXERCISE DAY (bend and stretch, reach for the stars…)
NATIONAL DRIVE-IN MOVIE DAY (I got a lot of exercise at these things back in the day)
NATIONAL YO YO DAY (no, no, no. Not National Cello Day)
FOUL – Illegal use of obscure network and show – Queen Sugar on Oprah – 5 yard penalty and repeat the down.
Who are your favorite pop TARTS? I’ll vote for Paris Hilton and Miley Cyrus. They are getting a little long in the tooth, tough.
The best known MOON WALKer - by far – is the late Michael Jackson.
Thanks to Paul and Katie for the fun. I would never have FIRed without the theme giving me PINTO x BOPS. And thanks to Bill ‘n’ Teri for the fun review. ‘Cept you might want to rethink the antecedent relationship – looks back-asswards to me.
The rhythm of this solve for me was fast/slow/fast
I had a co-worker at a summer job who always called people decent HUMAN BEANs
I thought FREIDA PINTO was a LATINA actress - but she was the girlfriend in Slumdog Millionaire and is from Mumbai,India.
Thanks Bill & Teri for the blog, enjoyed the musical numbers and the CSO, and to Paul & Katie for the puzzle!
Good Morning! A few bumps in the road today in an otherwise easy puzzle. Thanks, Paul and Katie.
Of the themer names, I only know of JACK BLACK. The others I got with perps. Cute theme in the end but too heavily relied on with obscure people.
ASAP. Finally!!, an appropriate clue to go with this fill.
BOPS seems to me there could have been a better clue.
I was out of commission yesterday. I had an A.M. eye appointment and my eyes were all whacky the rest of the day. I had most of the puzzle done, but there was no finishing it.
Thanks, Bill & Teri, for your fun commentary with a solemn close in honor of D-Day.
Jinx, If I remember correctly, applesauce cake is essentially a spice cake heavily seasoned with cinnamon and nutmeg. My aunt made it deliciously and often.
FIR. It's Thursday so no one should be surprised at the difficulty level, but I found this to be a little much. Now we have proper names in the long answers? Yuk!
I would never have finished this puzzle had I not gotten beans at 40A, because two of the four long answers were a mystery to me.
Overall, I'm not impressed with today's presentation. Glad it's done.
I would normally agree with the obscure name comment, but found it kind of fun being able to solve them through the theme.
RosE, sounds like something I would love. I'll look for it.
Good Morning:
I loved the theme's play on words for the spot-on, fun reveal. I knew Jack Black, as he played Kate Winslet's love interest in The Holiday, a very cute and charming Rom-Com. That movie introduced me to the "Meet Cute" concept, as described by the marvelous Eli Wallach. Freida Pinto was a hazy memory but Adrian Lima and Seth Green were completely unknown, but the theme itself helped parse their names. Tea Tree was new to me and, being geographically challenged, I had to correct the Irish Sea to the North Sea. I also erred at Argot/Lingo. Any other iffy areas were tamed by the generous perps. A Okay vs AOK looked odd, but not unacceptable.
Thanks, Paul and Katie, for a Thursday treat and thanks, Bill, for the fact and fun-filled review. Andy Williams was one of my favorite singers years ago and Paul Anka was a major presence in my youth. I enjoy Mr. Bean's comedic talents, but I find his skits exaggeratedly prolonged. I also enjoyed hearing Ireland's national anthem and was grateful for the English subtitles; Irish/Gaelic must be one of the most difficult languages on the planet. Thank you for honoring Uncle Vincent and all those to whom we owe so much. This is truly a somber day of remembrance and gratitude. 💐🇺🇸
Have a great day.
Musings
-If you knew Ms. LIMA and Ms. PINTO, you were far ahead of me
-An amazing rendition of an ANTHEM
-STU AND PETE BEST missed the Beatles boat
-Some want to change masculine LATINO and feminine LATINA into neutral LATINX
-Michael Jackson’s Earth-bound MOON WALK made it seem he was in 1/6 gravity
-I remember my first 5 ¼” disk. I thought it was magic!
-Successful O-LINEMEN need “quick feet”
-I rely on ANKA’S Eso Beso when Spanish for that is required for fill
-Joann’s uncle landed in Normandy two days later and was sickened by what he saw.
waseeley, RE: Antwerp and Aberdeen (not sure why Scotland and Belgium got the honors): I'm guessing they just went for the alliteration, to me a fun occurrence when it appears.
Not sure what you mean in your comment on 41 across. No politics policy?
RosE @9:58 AM Perhaps that's it. I'm a big fan of alliteration myself.
Terrific Thursday. Thanks for the fun, Paul and Katie, and waseeley and Teri
I saw the theme early in the solve, which helped immensely with those BEANy surnames.
But officially a FIWed since my “loving words” were I Do, which I changed to iDE with TORTE but never corrected the I to O. TSK!
We had a geography lesson today with the NORTH SEA, just above the English Channel crossing for DDay. Thanks to Teri’s uncle and Joann’s uncle, and all who served.
I’ll take my CSO with ANKA since the ANTHEM was not O Canada today.
This Canadian had to wait for a perp or two to see IVY.
I can never remember if it is Ida, Ada or AVA.
MACE is used in my pumpkin pie recipe.
Just A SEC changed to WAIT.
I am more familiar with TO Let and For RENT. (Hi Jinx)
AOK left two empty spaces. AHA no abbreviation! (Hi IM)
Like Jinx, I noticed waseeley’s THU-FRI antecedent inversion, and like RosE, I liked the more appropriate ASAP clue.
Wishing you all a great day.
Oh, no. Another crossNAME puzzle. Saw the names, TITT. Better things to do today.
Hola!
i finished this but was stymied by so many names. I only knew JACK BLACK and SETH GREEN but never heard of ADRIANA LIMA and certainly don't recall FREIDA PINTO. AVA Du Vernay was featured on an episode of VIPs on PBS and that's when I learned about her.
O LINES like any sports reference is like a foreign language to me.
RAIN is an unknown quantity in these parts. I can't recall the last time we had any.
LANAI could have been clued "an OBSCURE" Hawaiian Island. Most people aren't allowed there.
I'll take a CSO at LATINA.
Have a great day, everyone!
Thank you, Bill and Paul and Katie.
Ms Pinto held up the SE corner of today's grid quiz. But it finally resolved itself.
Like Bill, I liked the word LINGO instead of ARGOT for "jargon".
All idealists are not visionary nor are all visionaries idealistic.
Liked the fill RANKLE. Also INANE. HELMS is more steers than leads. Leads means you are out in front and urging them onward and HELMS means you are in the back steering them left or right.
When they play your ANTHEM, stand up and cheer.
Patriotism
This was a puzzle that really separated those of who know stuff and those who think all puzzle material should come from the dictionary. But it still came down to BEANS being the clues for the unknowns -- notably the Slumdog/hit song natick, but also the unknown model. I guess I liked the theme after all was said and done, except I imagine the model pronounces her name “leema.”
Nevertheless, I felt there were several entries in which I knew stuff that I don’t feel everyone should have been expected to know. Foremost was TITAN. As waseeley explained well, you had to know Nashville has a team with that nickname, even though they’re the Tennessee Titans, who happen to play in Nashville. I thought O-LINES was OK for me but perhaps unfair to many of you. I felt that way about the NORTH SEA clue, too. My actual contact with that body of water was in the Aberdeen area. Aberdeen is known as The Granite City because it has so much dark-gray architecture. I found it gorgeous, but many find the grayness depressing.
I’m not sure everyone knows Dartmouth is one of the eight IVY League schools. Many can name only Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. . . . I thought of Seth Rogen and Seth MacFarlane before SETH GREEN, but JACK BLACK dawned quickly. Still, I didn’t think of Seth and Jack as beans. . . . If you knew enough, the perps were helpful for unknowns like ADRIANA LIMA and some of the “paraphrases” that Patti Varol overuses, like today’s WAIT A SEC and IT’S COOL. By the way, “cool” beans might have been part of the theme, except they’re not human.
Another of my pet peeves recurred, the “ARE SO” entry. Kids might say “are too” or “am too,” but I don’t think a child has used the word “so” that way in at least a hundred years.
FILL I LIKED: RANKLE, LINGO, and FAJITA. Come to think of it though, many probably still don’t know what fajitas are.
Solid Thursday effort. I didn't know most of the celebrities, but it was irrelevant, because 1) your perps were well-placed, and 2) I love all manner of beans, and I'm about to head to the kitchen for chile relleno and black beans.
One minor nit: I grew up on boats, and we never used the word "helm" as a verb. We would say, "Where's Ken? " "Oh, he's at the helm." Or later in life, "Ken has been appointrd to the helm of _______High School. Again, a noun.
Nice job, overall, Paul, Katie, and Patti. This puzzle was fun yet challenging. But I am hungry for beans!
Saw BLACK and GREEN and thought the names were colors. When I realized they were BEANS, that helped the solve with all those unknown names. Never would have gotten ?LINES without that. Fun theme!
I learned to drive in a GREEN PINTO.
This DAREDEVIL seemed to show NO FEAR.
This was the grand finale performance at our 48th Annual Isla Vista Jugglers Festival. All of it is amazing. But skip to 4:25 to see the full DAREDEVIL and skill bit. Wow.
Of course, this does not compare with what those young soldiers faced on D-DAY. Glad there are still survivors to honor. My father's uncles all were there and managed to survive. They never talked about it and I regret that I never asked when I had the chance.
What is the meaning of EKTORP?
Waseeley posted this about a month ago: EKTORP was defined by Emma Oxford in a comment to her April 17th, 2024 puzzle as "a clue whose answer you can get from context without actually knowing it."
Picard, speaking of daredevils, I’m happy no one rear-ended you in your Pinto!
Didn't like that the theme was human names, then got that it was beans and all fell into place. Much better than i originally thought. GC
Fun and challenging! With 2 actress unknow, I thought I might not finish, but BEANS, BLACK, and GREEN were clues to the ends of the ladies last names. Fuss/FRET, rancor/RANKLE, are to/ARE SO and TEA TREE unknown. BOPS?
A lot of BOP will probably be heard at the wonderful NORTH SEA Jazz Festival in the Netherlands next month. The King and Queen of the Netherlands will be here in Albany next week on a U.S. tour. At the end of WW11, Albany sent tons of food and clothing there and in return, they sent thousands of tulip. Ergo. Our annual Tulip Festival.
Canadian Eh@10:12 - “Ana >AVA”, me - Eva>AVA.
2 uncles at D-Day, 1 on the beach, 1 a paratrooper in the air. Not all soldiers died that day, but many were forever damaged by their experiences.
RosE@7:29 - I was in the middle of an eye exam today when the Dr.was called to the hospital for an emergency. Fortunately, they had not yet put drops in my eyes, so no “whacky” vision. We’ll try again Monday.
waseeley and Teri, Again, funny, informative and musical - thank you!
Ca we call this puzzle COOL BEANS?
Picard @1:21 PM The antics of the acrobat on the slack line are absolutely amazing!
Anonymous @1:41 PM EXTORP, like IKEA, are both cities in Sweden. I think Emma intended the word as the opposite of a NATICK (a town in Massachusetts that no one except the residents would be familiar with), as an answer that would be obvious based on just the clue alone, e.g. What could a 3 letter, non-abbreviated answer for school be but IVY?
Prof M, waseeley Thank you for the comments on my DAREDEVIL slack line post. Has to be seen to be believed. When he was a student at UC Santa Barbara we unicycled together. He is light years beyond my abilities!
Yes, perhaps I was a DAREDEVIL to drive a GREEN PINTO. Amazingly, I cannot find a single photo of that car. I have photos of two other PINTOs I drove. And survived.
I liked your write-up, waseeley, and all your comments, folks.
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