Tough Friday Crossword

Friday's (July 31, 2009) crossword puzzle in the Baltimore Sun (actually a syndicated L.A. Times puzzle) was a tough one. I had a lot of fun solving it. And I learned a lot of things in looking up (yes, I had to google some answers) things I had no idea about before.

Along the way, I came across a recipe for frittata (one of the answers). Frittata is an Italian omelet. So, for breakfast I used the recipe and Elaine and I "feasted", if I do say so myself.
The only thing missing was garlic. Elaine doesn't like it, but I love it.

The puzzle had a strange type of theme. X's replaced SK's in some of the answers and made for nice wordplay. This reminded me of my Concordance of X, my weird "work" that I tried to palm off on a con man. But, he was smarter than I was, and my opus remains unpublished. (I talked about this in an earlier blog.)

I also was reminded of a speech by Mercutio about "Queen Mab." (Shakespearean scholars take note.).

I found out that "Laugh-in" was campy instead of corny.

A place to unwind is a tub? I guess so.

There is a river in the Carolinas named PeeDee.

A hockey team lineup makes a hexad.

A Borneo swinger is an orang.

A Beatle wig was popular in the '60's. I don't remember that.

King Xerxes was a tough son of a gun.

Fellow Mensan Jean Auel wrote The Clan of the Cave Bear. I didn't remember that the heroine's name was Ayla.

I forgot that "a sitcom set in a garage" had to be Taxi. (One of my favorite TV shows, probably because I drove a cab for a couple of years in New Bedford, Massachusetts. The least paying of any of the many jobs I have had in my lifetime, but one of the most interesting.)

I was reminded of a folk singer named Nanci Griffith.

After I solved the puzzle, I went out to one of the sites that write about each day's puzzles and their solutions. Very interesting. If you ask me to, I will supply the website addresses. There is a whole Crossword Puzzle sub-culture out there. I love it and my brain does to.
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