Up here in this part of Canada, Monday is a holiday - "Victoria Day" - a shoutout to our English roots, also known as "May 2-4 Weekend" - a shoutout to our irresponsible youthful days. You get your Memorial Day, we have this day. But enough stalling - on to today's puzzle!
Monday puzzles, by design, don't generally put up too much of a fight, and this one was no exception, though I did stumble out of the starting gate at 1A ("Like a game that has gone into a penalty shootout") with INOT instead of TIED. That sorted out, I made my way down a fairly straightforward grid and only afterward looked back to see what the theme was. The "revealer" at 63A - "Advice for the overambitious" - is STARTSMALL and sure enough, the four theme answers all "start small", or with synonyms thereof. What makes it neater is that none of them are words as such; for example, 50A "Gardener's tool" is WEEDWHACKER, which indeed begins with WEE but not the word "WEE". If you see what I mean. (An old physics prof used to say that. Sometimes I did see. Sometimes I didn't.)
Elsewhere ... 41D "Distorts, as data" caused a hiccup - I entered SPINS, not SKEWS. I liked the fun facts sprinkled throughout; e.g. 54D reminds us that a KOALA is not a "bear"; 22D points out that there is an actual English town named EPSOM, whence the salts.
I have a CAT, and can attest to the accuracy of 71A "Stereotypically antisocial pets".
Ciao for now!
-philbo
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