Crossways

I may have mentioned my enjoyment of crossword puzzles here before, but my surmise is that I have not.  The sole remaining paper in this corner of the country, the Seattle Times (the Post-Intelligencer still present in limited form on line), carries two such puzzles each day.  On Sunday, Big Puzzle day, Merl Reagle's tends to be the easier and thus the one I start with.  Up at the top of the page is the New York Times Puzzle, usually at least edited by Will Shortz, who you might be familiar with from his Sunday puzzle time on NPR (hmm - we need to get back to that!).  That one is always more of a piece of work.  I can usually solve the former in a couple hours of off-and-on, at times having to resort to despicable means.  The latter is often left unfinished.

It is more-or-less routine that I check in with my ma-in-law on the Sunday puzzles.  She tends to get a late start as she is very active in her church.  I can be mostly done by the time she picks up the puzzle.  Sometimes it is more fully collaborative.

Monday through Saturday we still have two puzzles, but they are smaller, typically 15 x 15 vs 21 x 21 or so for Sunday.  Other primary change is that the Sunday puzzles tend to have some sort of theme or trickery to them.  Sometimes it is punnery, highly annoying to at least one of my x-buds.  But, not uncommonly, the theme, once figured out, does help with the solving.  A recent puzzle had "oreo" (the cookie) hidden in multiple answers, and "hydroxide," encompassing name of competitor-cookie, so-clued, centered in the puzzle.

The other days of the week it is a bit different.  The easy puzzle is a bit more nondescript.  No Reagle, for one thing.  The second puzzle, still with Shortz's imprimatur, is always a bit harder.  And the non-Sunday puzzles get harder and harder as the week goes on.  To the point where, late in the week, they typically are focused on much longer words than is the case early in the week or even on Sunday.  I can often rip off both puzzles in an hour or so MTW, but beyond there it is a struggle.

I did cherish admission by work x-pal today that even he, Francophobe-wannabee that he is, came up with "avec," as opposite of "sans."  He works hard when the occasion arises at defending his supposed conservative turf.  I also relished his reaction when I had to help him with "tableaux" rather than "tableaus" as the answer to "dramatic scenes."  I had that wrong myself the first time around.  So did Grandma!