Thursday, October 18, 2007

Friday, October 19 - Frederick J. Healy

This is the kind of themeless puzzle I like to see...stacks in the four corners, and a few more eight-letter words scattered around the grid.

In the northwest corner:

1A: Windshield wipers (squeegees). We've had this before, but I didn't get it as quickly as I'd have liked...not until I had the final EES in place.

15A: Darwin's home (Australia). I didn't have a clue where he was from. This time I recognized 7D: Comic Boosler (Elayne), so I had the L in place. A good guess that IA should follow, then the answer came to me. I should have left my original answer at 1D: Not as touched (saner), but I thought it sounded almost cruel...therefore, not the right answer.

17A: Zip (none at all). I loved this one.

The southeast stacks consisted of:

61A: Freshening naturally (airing out). Amazingly (to me), that was my first guess.

64A: Park gathering place (concourse). I think of concourse in relation to an airport, not a park.

66A: Garb symbolizing youth (knee pants). That must have been in a puzzle in the last year...otherwise, I wouldn't have gotten it so easily. I wear them, although I call them capris. If they symbolize youth, though, I'll wear them all the time...including fall and winter.

In the northeast:

12D: "Hang on!" (wait a sec). I was thinking along the lines of "Hang on for dear life." And what word was going to end in C...which I had from 40A: Hardly humble homes (palaces), although I wanted mansions there at first.

13D: Eager (on tiptoe).

14D: Things that may be shot in stages? (westerns). I had the answer, but it took some time before I got it.

The southwest corner was my favorite:

36D: South Pacific island (Bora Bora). I'd happily go there tomorrow if I thought I could get away with it.

37D: Cry before storming out (I've had it). Well, I didn't storm out, and maybe I didn't say it aloud, but I sure thought it once today. Not about work or Don...the two things that hold me together.

38D: "Lighten up, will ya?!" (get a life). I thought that in the same conversation. That's why Bora Bora sounded so inviting.

Other eight-letter entries appear at:

9D: Toasted triangle topper (salsa dip). I have a slight problem with this one, and I think it's been mentioned here or at another blog. No one calls it salsa dip...it's just salsa...and my tortilla chips are strips, not triangles. Neither of those is a big deal.

39D: Hiking aid (knapsack). For me, a knapsack is more of a hindrance. My idea of a hiking aid is a walking stick.

34A: Clam (simoleon). I have never heard this word in my life. Just looked it up...it's slang for a dollar. I thought it was referring to a clam that you'd eat. I'll take mine deep fried.

41A: A bit much (overdone).

There were some clues that I thought were especially clever.

18A: They stand for something: Abbr. (inits)

26A: Lock changer? (dyer). Normally I don't like the -ER answers, but this one was better than most.

45A: Bombards with junk (spams). You would not believe the subject line on a piece of junk mail I got today. Seriously...it was that bad.

65A: Starters (A team). Not that it fits here or anything, but I haven't yet said that I'm pretty excited that the Rockies made it to the World Series. If I lived closer to Denver, I might even try to get tickets for one of the games.

42D: Hate, say (emotion).

59D: Mar makeup (agua). I just this second got that one. I was trying to think of something that would mar (i.e., destroy) one's makeup.

Some names that I wasn't totally familiar with...got them from the crosses.

16A: Superrealist sculptor Hanson (Duane). Never heard of him.

3D: James Forrestal was its last cabinet secy. (U.S. Navy).

8D: Astronaut Collins and others (Eileens). If they're asking about an astronaut from the sixties or seventies, I'm good. Any later...not so good.

24D: "La Reine Margot" novelist (Dumas). If I ever knew that, I've forgotten.

That's it for this one. Here's the grid...



...and I'll see you tomorrow.

Linda G

8 comments:

DONALD said...

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/science-of-natural-history/darwin-200/news/darwin-birthplace.html

http://www.travelnt.com/en/explore/darwin/

MBG said...

Charles Darwin's home is in England. The city of Darwin is in Australia.

Took me forever to get squeegee, mostly because I wanted the astronaut to be Michael, not Eileen.

Never heard of a concourse in a park. A gazebo or a bandstand maybe, but not a concourse.

This is the first Friday puzzle I've finished with relative ease.
Your blog has helped. Thanks.

coachjdc said...

I got the entire left side of the puzzle pretty quickly. Resorted to Google on 16A, 11D & 24D. Liked the mult-word answers.

Anonymous said...

Linda...thanks for answering my XYZ question yesterday...got busy and did not see your reply until this AM...GO ROCKIES!!!!
Bob

Anonymous said...

Mar is sea in Spanish, thus agua.

Linda G said...

Annielee, thanks for clarifying. I have always been geographically impaired and didn't know there was a Darwin in Australia.

Anonymous, I saw the mar/agua connection after I had the answer from the crosses. It was during the solve that the clue threw me...as they often do...and probably should.

Anonymous said...

I guess any type of short pants can be referred to as knee pants, but when I hear the term, I think of the "short breeches" that young boys wore in the old days...

http://tinyurl.com/247mom

cornbread hell said...

concourse...think, promenade. (at least that's what i thought.)

simoleon! oh wow!

i'll be looking for of more healy's work.
after marking more than a dozen things i liked, i gave it up and just enjoyed.
so i'll leave it at this: a really fun puzzle and the SW was my favorite section...