Tuesday, January 25, 2022, Ray Brunsberg and Ellen Brunsberg

Greetings dear Readers! After a weekend on the Go, including an OPERA (Tosca, not Fidelio), cold EARS, video clips of TAP and POLKAS at the NYPL, and pop-up ROSES at the train station, we are slowly settling back into regular Life.

As I started the puzzle this morning, my Concentration may not have been at its strongest. I wasn't immediately able to Kerplunk SMIRK in at 1A ("Smug expression"), so I decided upon an alternate Stratego: I switched to the downs where I was quickly able to Connect Four, which, in turn, helped me discover the first of today's theme answers WAROPERATION ("General's responsibility?). Fun!

I hit a bit of Trouble in the next AREA where I gave it my 'all' for "Tide competitor," but that turned out to be an ERA. I felt like a real Mastermind when I was able to drop in ORGAN off the clue "Tongue, but not cheek" and EMS for "Millennium, at the beginning and end?" 

Elsewhere in the puzzle, I found a veritable Candy Land of nice clues like "Wears" for SPORTS and "Medium" for PSYCHIC. I also enjoyed the clue "Passionate learners, to some" for NERDS, as I am Uno of them. 

I thought the clue "Lure (in) for ROPE was a bit of a Twister, and I did have to Scrabble around a bit in the southeast for the answer to "One of the Affleck brothers" because I could only remember Ben. Sorry, CASEY!

Sure, some may say that stuffing one's head full of factoids for eventual use in puzzle solving is a Trivial Pursuit, but I enjoy it. 

~Frannie.