Saturday, February 21, 2026, Dr. Kyle Dolan

  Saturday Themeless by Dr. Kyle Dolan

This is the 22nd themeless Saturday puzzle by Dr. Dolan I have blogged. For this puzzle I sought out someplace where I could get multiple fills and work out from there. For this puzzle it was the SW corner where things filled in and ERIVO took care of itself greatly aided by my fortuitous guess at SCUBA DIVE. As you can see by the red square I did have one bad cell where I had to confess to my French major 

granddaughter that I guessed ENTRE VOUS and not NOUS. I made the connection to Egypt with Theban deity but AMENRA escaped me. 

Across:

1. "Hold my beer": WATCH THIS - Idiocy fueled by alcohol and testosterone.

             

10. __ forest: KELP.

14. "It's not up to me": IF YOU WANT.

15. Obsession: MANIA - Are you old enough to remember this MANIA?

 
 

16. "Ask away!": DON'T BE SHY.

17. Quirkily creative: ARTSY.

18. Leaves home?: TREE 😀 Leaves is a noun and is possessive. 

19. Put on board: LADE.

20. Board game: DARTS.

21. Pronoun option: HER.

22. Radiation that triggers vitamin D synthesis, for short: UVB.

23. Lineup of runners?: SLATE - This is the SLATE of runners you would have seen in 2024 in Nehawka, NE (pop. 167)

25. Used a prayer rug: KNELT.

27. Supreme Theban deity: AMENRA - AMEN-RA (alt. AMUN-RA) was the supreme state deity of New Kingdom Egypt (150-1100 BCE) merging the Theban creator god Amun ("The Hidden One") with the sun god Ra. Searching for his book was a plot arc of the 1999 movie The Mummy.

30. Mexico City's __ de la Reforma: PASEO - Walkway Of The Reform. A nine-mile diagonal street modeled on the Champs-Élysée in Paris.

33. "Truce?": ARE WE COOL.

35. As soon as: ONCE - ONCE you get some time 

36. Natl. Merit Scholarship qualifying exams: PSATS.

37. Dance with a kahiko style: HULA - Includes chanting

38. Small beard: SOUL PATCH.

40. Amounts on some bottles: DOSES.

41. Sportscaster Dick with the catchphrase "Touch 'em all!": ENBERG - Said after a home run

42. Tilt: TIP UP - Getting the stones to Stonehenge was one thing and then they had to TIP them UP

44. "Fare thee well": ADIEU.

46. Top suit: CEO 😀 A suit is one of the executives of a company and so the top one would be the CEO

47. Toe bean spot: PAW - Lily did not like that channel!

50. Shots after whiffs, say: REDOS or after a really bad bunker shot

52. Polish place: NAIL 😀

54. [Not again!]: SIGH.

55. "Wicked" star: ERIVO ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

56. "Count me in!": I'M SO THERE.

58. Assumption: GIVEN.

59. Suit perfectly: FIT TO A TEE.

60. Forward thinker?: SEER.

61. "Why not both": YES AND YES - Do you love me and will you marry me?

Down:

1. Mover's concern: WIDTH - Oops!

2. "Loch Lomond" preposition: AFORE.

3. Pianist McCoy who played with the John Coltrane Quartet: TYNER- ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

4. Home on an apartment building's roof, maybe: COTE - Brando shows Eva Marie Saint a pigeon egg from his rooftop COTE in On The Waterfront.

5. Carrier base: HUB.

6. Not quite a teen: TWELVE - Pat Boone sang Twixt TWELVE And Twenty

7. Lives it up: HAS A BLAST.

8. Clear for all to see, so to speak: IN HD - Fill words can be complicated when abbreviations have become "words" on their own.

9. Lid blemishes: STYES.

10. Handy maneuver?: KARATE CHOP 😀

11. "Confidentially ... ": ENTRE NOUS - Just between you and me. Entre vous means between us as a group.

12. Lay out: LIST - My projects are much more successful when I lay out what I need to do in a LIST.

13. Foots: PAYS - We used to "foot the bill" when we took our girls out but now they have families and we go dutch. 

15. Nice thing to call someone?: MADAME - I suppose MADAME would be a nice thing to call someone in Nice, France. 😊

22. Shedding card game: UNO.

24. Code components: LAWS - One of the first compilatons

25. Succumbed to gravity: KEELED OVER.

26. Leaflet: TRACT - A famous one.

28. Part of a play list?: ROLE 😀 - A person, who later became very famous, was listed here as a minor character for her first ROLE. She played a lesbian lover for Joan Molinsky (later Joan Rivers)

 

29. "Woe is me!": ALAS.

30. False front: POSE.

Give it up, poser!

31. Mystery author, briefly: ANON - Here the identity of the author is the mystery not the work itself 😀

32. Get tanked on a tropical vacation?: SCUBA DIVE - A confident fill when I only had the "S" showing. Yay me!

34. People with concerns about trolleys?: ETHICISTS ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  Happy to learn.

36. Resident of D.C.'s Daniel Webster Hall: PAGE - A former funeral home that was refurbished in 1995 to house Senate PAGES.

39. "Orange Is the New Black" setting: PRISON - A binge watch for me.

40. Couple: DUO.

43. Cesta-slung sphere: PELOTA - Here a jai alai player is slinging a PELOTA (sphere) with his cesta (basket)

45. Bring together: UNIFY.

47. Reverence: PIETY.

48. Concur: AGREE.

49. Carnival cries: WHEES - Kevin Hart seems to be making a cry of terror while Jimmy Fallon is doing more of a WHEE.

50. Policies, for short: REGS.

51. Put-in-Bay's lake: ERIE - The village of Put-In-Bay is located in our favorite crossword lake

53. Femme friend: AMIE - A French friend who is female

54. Roe source: SHAD.

57. 100 runs, for a cricketer: TON ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Saturday, January 3, 2026, Dr. Kyle Dolan

  Saturday Themeless by Dr. Kyle Dolan

This is the 21st themeless Saturday puzzle by Dr. Dolan I have blogged. As per my usual M.O. for Saturday puzzles I struggled with some small fills until the very gettable long entries shouted, "C'mon, Gary, you know this." This reduced Kyle's puzzle to manageable  proportions.

Across:

1. 2013 memoir that was followed in 2025 by "Finding My Way": I AM MALALA - The true story of Malala Yousafzai, the girl who survived an assassination attempt after standing up to the Taliban over education. More on this heroic woman.

10. Passing muster?: AWOL - Muster is when troops are assembled and if someone has 38. Left: GONE, he's AWOL. 

14. Interns, at times: FREE LABOR.

15. Birds whose collective noun is chime: WRENS - A group of wrens is called a chime. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

16. Shared pleasantries: SMALL TALK - Confidently filling in GREETINGS was my first, but not the last, misstep in Kyle's puzzle.

17. Sank, in a way: HOLED - Success in golf in when the ball is HOLED. In pool, it's when the  ball is pocketed. 

18. Olive often found with spinach: OYL 😀 This toon usually featured Olive being saved by her boyfriend Popeye who has "hulked out" on Spinach.

19. Word on a green helmet: JETS - The entire helmet was not green when the JETS won their only Super Bowl.

                                 

                        1969

 

2025

 

20. Without restraint: MADLY.

21. Essential: CORE.

22. Destiny: LOT.

23. Brio: PEP.

25. Haterade: FLAK - Haterade is a pseudo-word (a play on Gatorade) for what is said by mean people who give others FLAK

27. Two pieces?: DUETS - Hey, I loved the Everly Brothers but this is magic

29. Thai's neighbor: LAO.

30. Physical location: CLINIC 😀 The physical location of where you get a, uh, physical 

32. Drops from above: RAIN 😀

33. Fine print, e.g.: ART.

34. Question asked by a fan?: HOT ENOUGH FOR YOU? 😀 A fine example of anthropomorphism

37. Wonder: AWE.

39. Prepares (oneself): STEELS.

40. Big mo. for florists: FEB.

41. Top-tier: A-LIST.

43. Rundgren in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: TODD - He's now 77 years old.

44. Be wrong: ERR.

45. First perfect number: SIX - The next two are 28 and 496

46. Olympic archer?: EROS.

48. Pop by: VISIT.

50. Giveaway: TELL - Dr. Winchester of M*A*S*H got cleaned out because he starting whistling every time he had nothing.

51. "Fancy!": OOH.

54. Saw: DATED. 😀

55. Scenario just before a board takeover?: MATE IN TWO - The solution is at the bottom of the write-up. 

57. Volunteer's offer: USE ME.

58. Sharp kicks?: ICE SKATES - 😀 Kicks are slang for footwear and skates are sharp so...

59. From South Asia, perhaps: DESI - ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Originating from the Sanskrit word desa, meaning "land" or "country," desi historically meant "local" or "indigenous". 

60. Namesakes of some days in English: NORSE GODS - Not so for Saturday

Down:

1. "In that case ... ": IF SO.

2. Theater group?: ARMY - Several divisions of the U.S. ARMY fought in WWII's European Theater of Operations.

3. Series of courses: MEAL 😀 

4. Former "The Great British Baking Show" co-host Giedroyc: MEL ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Mr. Ott sits the bench today

5. "Seriously ... ": ALL JOKING ASIDE.

6. Down the road: LATER.

7. Let up: ABATED.

8. Chuckles at a gif, say: LOLS.

9. Sanctuary: ARK.

10. Nickname of the slugger who holds the MLB record for most career grand slams: A-ROD - I thought this was a very interesting chart

11. "Clever": WELL PLAYED.

12. No longer a foal: ONE YEAR OLD.

13. Drug needed for some trips: LSD 

15. Rhetorical expression of approval: WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE - A lovely puzzle by Kyle

20. Characteristic patterns: MOTIFS.

21. Support staff?: CANE 😀

22. "Queen of Creole Cuisine" Chase: LEAH. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

24. C in C: POTUS - This filled in automatically and then I eventually saw Commander in Chief

25. Spot for getting one's buds together?: FLOWER VASE.

26. Classic toys with colorful pegs: LITE BRITES - I spent many an hour with our girls playing with this

28. Pushes: URGES. Goads, dares, prods

30. Rub the wrong way?: CHAFE 😀

31. "Simmer down!": COOL IT.

35. Early operating system: UNIX.

36. Some vintage cars: REOS.

42. Rock: TEETER.

47. Like May through August: R-LESS - This is not necessarily so these days.

49. 50% up front?: SEMI - 😀 I guess that presumes the other 50% is behind

50. Birria order: TACO.

51. "The Simpsons" character whose surname is Mann: OTTO.

 
52. Due: OWED.

53. Informal ride: HOSS - Also Ben Cartwright's son 

54. Lemon: DUD.

55. Hr. division: MIN.

56. Hound: NAG - Persistent reminding?

* White queen to F5

* Black pawn to H5 is black's only move

* White queen takes pawn at H5 and it is checkmate