Saturday, June 19, 2021, Sophia Maymudes

I'm not quite sure how to acrononimize my solvsperiance today. Like many things things in life, it's complicated. At about the 25 minute mark, I had completed all but the northwest corner. As I sat considering various wordpportunities, Horace called out from across the porch that he had any empty square or two in the same section,. We decided to join forces, as in days of old when we had only one subscription to the puzzle. It turned out that the problem answer for both of us was 15A: "Person who will do anything for you, in modern slang." Of course, dear readers, you know that a crossword puzzle clue cannot be a problem in only one direction. If either of us had been sure about more of the Down answers in that section, such as Villa RICA de la Vera Cruz, "Mideast port" ADEN, or "Big inits. in home security" (ADT), the answer, RIDEORDIE, would have been more obvious. 

Unfortch for me, even after Horace and I sorted out the above, I did not get the app's congratulatory message. Turns out, I had entered AWAkE for "With it." I'm not familiar with the show "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" so as far as I was concerned, kOSA was a perfectly cromulent first name for detective Diaz, but I suppose, all things considered, ROSA is a little more cromulent.

Similarly, while I twigged to the trick of the clue for "Something released while skydiving," I first guessed 'endorphins'. The correct answer was ADRENALINE. BTW, PASTIME has only one S?!?! When did that happen? 

Interesting bit about NOEL being derived from the Latin for 'to be born.' Apt! I also liked "Take pregame shots?" for TRASHTALK. 

And speaking of trash talk, I'm not a big fan of 'quote' clues, of which this puzzle had ALOT ("You caught me", "Lemme see!", "Can't argue that", "See what I'm sayin'?"), mainly because I don't have the TRIX of guessing the intended equivalents. 

Today I pass the blog baton to Colum. I look forward to a XANADU of reviews next week.

~Frannie.