Thursday, August 23, 2007

Friday, August 24 - Patrick Berry

All week long I looked forward to Patrick Blindauer's New York Sun puzzle for today. After spending more time than I had available, there are still an awful lot of blank squares in the grid.

I'd like to say that I did better with Patrick Berry's New York Times...but I'd be lying.

I had a couple of gimmes, but they weren't enough to break open any major areas in the grid.

19A: Maker of Kiwi Teawi (Snapple).

30A: Bad time for a tropical vacation (rainy season).

35A: Wine used to make zabaglione (Marsala).

50A: What stare decisis upholds the validity of (case law).

3D: "Paradise Lost" character (Satan).

Like I said, not much of a toe-hold. So I guessed some things, Googled some others, then I erased some things, Googled some more, erased, guessed...you get the picture.

The two long acrosses were good:

26A: They're staffed with doctors (universities). I was thinking along the academic line, but it took a couple of letters before I finally had it.

40A: Reluctantly accepting (reconciled to). That's an expression I've used far too often lately.

Really liked 11D: Is clueless (has no idea). Me...for much of this puzzle.

38A: Country that won the most medals at the 1980 Winter Olympics (East Germany). I thought it was (and entered) Soviet Union. It wasn't until I got 20D: Bridesmaid's accessory (corsage) that the G made it apparent...although a corsage is more appropriate for a prom than a wedding.

18A: Overprotect (cosset) always gets me. I had coddle.

22D: Very disagreeable (beastly). A good way to describe the last 24 hours of my life. Nothing that I won't survive, but it would have been easier to deal with some of it if Don had been here. He'll be back late Saturday afternoon.

46D: Stocking stuffer (Santa) made me laugh. I'll take all of the laughs I can get.

2D: Dog in Disney's "Cinderella" (Bruno). It's been forever since I've seen it, and I didn't even remember that she had a dog.

52A: Red line? (artery). One of the beastly events was the news that my cholesterol has gone up to a whopping 277. My HDL (the good stuff) is very good, but my LDL is way too high. The cardiologist did a Sestamibi stress test
two years ago and tested C-Reactive Protein, both with excellent results. We'll see what the next step is.

For me, the next step is bed. Here's the grid.



Tomorrow...same time, same place.

Linda G

5 comments:

Orange said...

My cholesterol level once topped 500. True story! (It was temporary.) Now it's 148, but perhaps Googling but claiming to finish a puzzle unassisted is like bragging about a low cholesterol level when taking Zocor. Those statins are nifty drugs, I tell you. Cheap generics are available, and I've never had any side effects.

QP said...

I googled this puzzle too, had Soviet union for East Germany... had EDEST for IDEST (duh.... ie) so could see INARTISTIC (had ALEX instead ALEC), so you can see the mess

Anonymous said...

I actually did really well with this puzzle. Solved the whole thing sans google : ) Good for me for a Friday.

So many things I liked: Snapple; universities; rainy season; marsala; East Germany; Isaac Hayes...

Took me forever to figure out "reconciledto" I had the "to" but at first put in Isaak as ending with a "K".

Anyway, nice puzzle.

Linda G said...

Beata, no wonder we were confused. The Soviet Union had the most gold medals...East Germany had most medals overall.

Kitt, I'm impressed that you did this without Googling. Good job.

cornbread hell said...

yuri *again* !

i did this without googling, but in considerably MORE time than 5 minutes and change...amy, you speed solvers are freaks. FREAKS! i tell you!

never even saw COSSET until i came here. i guess it wrote itself in from the crosses.

'hear = learn' bothers me, but i'm sure if i think about it long enough it'll come to me.