Wednesday, September 14, 2022, Michael Dewey

Today we follow the paths of circled letters through the grid to reveal contented content, resulting in what one might call HAPPYTRAILS. Ha! The pleasing passages include ELATED, GLAD, JOYFUL, JOLLY, MERRY, and CHEERY. The latter helped me out of a jam. I thought for sure "Cambodian cash" was RIaL, but with the A in place, I couldn't make heads or tails of HaEDS for "Abides by" at 59A, which, I realize, after the fact seems kinda obvi, but at the time I didn't have ANYIDEAS. Derp. Anyhoo, three of the letters in 59A were circled, so by figuring out the theme, I was delighted to be able to enter the correct HEEDS. A possible bonus theme feature takes happiness to the next level with HILARITY.

As it happens, despite the promise of the theme, this solver suffered a few sad trials. On the low end of the scale, I found the several run-of-the-mill "quote" answers lacked ECLAT including "'Nah, none for me'" (PASS), "Words of resignation" (ILOSE), "Volunteer's offer" (ILLGO), and "'You called me?'" (YES),  in addition to a couple of pedestrian fill-in-the-blank answers that had a STALED air: "___ irregular basis" (ONAN) and "Elvis ___ left the building" (HAS) - although at least the latter mentioned Elvis. :). I also thought "Compulsions" was a little strong in the tooth for the resulting YENS. But, the saddest trial of all occurred in the northeast where I had first entered 'Agog' instead of the correct AMOK ("Wildly") and almost FWOED. I was lucky to notice that I had 'OgIE' at 4D before it was too late.

OTOH, some of the HIGHS for this solver were "Food cupboard" (LARDER), "Lose fizz" (GOFLAT), and, of course, "Suburb of Boston" (LYNN) for its local flavor. I also enjoyed HEAVE, KNOSSOS, and JESTERS, not to mention BUSLOAD and CAPFULS - both fun quantities.

Happy Trails to you!

~Frannie.