Monday, July 27, 2026, Aidan Deshong

In today's puzzle, we find a literal GRAYSCALE: the solfège scale - made famous by Julie Andrews - appears, in order, within shaded boxes, two in each of four of the longer Across answers. So we have DO and RE in IDONTCARE and MI and FA in SMILEYFACE. A number of the other answers felt like they could be part of it including SUMO, SOHO, KYLO, PESO, TODO, and LYSOL. O sole mio! I suppose I should LEGO of that now.

Some fine fill scored points with me, including GASLIGHT, SOOTHE, OUSTED, and COVET, but what makes this puzzle sing are the fun overlaps, intended or otherwise, between the fill and the theme. In the top left corner we have a Post-it NOTE. Also in that corner with DO, instead of a female deer, we have a "Male deer" or STAG crashing the party. The QMC, "Things to be taken on a walk?" (STEPS) could be considered theme material - in the whole or half sense, but the one that's off the scale is the QMC in the top left, "Pitch that's hard to hit?" (HIGHC). Ha! That one took me a minute because it looked so weird when at first I had only __GHC.

Another C/AP I had trouble with was EVEN for "All tied up." Instead of the sports category, my brain could think only of 'busy', or 'held together as with string'. Make of that what you will. 

The one element I found out of tune was the clue for 30A. I would have preferred that it read "Title for a married woman, maybe" (MRS).

~Frannie.