Happy Super Sunday, everybody! I hope it’s a good game. I also hope not to make a MINIPIG of myself from the snacking (fat chance of that). MINIPIG was an answer in the puzzle today (“Little squealer”) and it started a ruckus over whether they exist or not. But a quick check shows that they do exist: miniature or pygmy pigs. Adults weigh between 70 and 300 pounds and are described as follows: “They have a pot belly, a swayed back, a chubby figure, a rounded head, a short snout, short legs, a short neck, and a tail with thick hair at the end.” You probably had a high school teacher like that, no? Here’s a cute one.

The name of the puzzle was “Cheap Thrills” and it had a whole bunch of neat tricks having to do with “economizing.” For example, there were no squares in two of the corners, to represent “Cutting corners.” And the word SINGLE had to be entered as SSIINNGGLLEE to represent “Stretching a buck.” In BICENTENTIAL CENTER, the two times “cent” appears it gets squeezed into one square to represent “Pinching pennies.”

But the best of all was a tuchas extravaganza right smack dab in the center of the grid! I’ll try to replicate it.

          I
          N
          C
          A
          N
A L B U M   A S S E T      
          B
          U
          T
          T
          E

If you look closely, you will see CAN, BUM, ASS, and BUTT, all meeting in the center square. It represents “Making ends meet.” (“Economizing,” right?) Yes, this crapload of tuchases is in the staid NY Times. As Bob Dylan noted long ago: “The Times they are a changin’.” At least the puzzle standards are. There used to be a “breakfast test,” under which the puzzle should not contain any words that might discomfort a reader sitting down with it over his or her breakfast and coffee. I can’t imagine this buttfest would pass. But I’m not complaining. To the contrary, I love a good tuchas in my puzzles. Can’t get enough of ’em.

The clue at 11D was “Tranquil discipline,” and the answer was YOGISM. Many complained that it should just be YOGA, and one fellow said the clue should have been “It gets late early out here, e.g.,” — i.e. a YOGI-ISM. I added one of my favorites of Yogi’s — “I’d give my right arm to be ambidextrous.”

The clue at 47A was “Offering from Dr. Mom, in brief,” and it was TLC. And 64A was “Scrapbooker’s project,” for ALBUM. It led LMS to post:

“The clue for TLC and ALBUM made me feel mildly regretful for the kind of mom I was. If one of my kids came in crying from some fall, I’d look at the injured area, tell them they were fine, and send’em back out. No frantic assembling of ice, no Neosporin, no TLC. And I did briefly try my hand at scrapbooking but lost interest and patience after about 2 pages. I remember visiting a high school friend who had shelves of gorgeous scrapbooks. Gorgeous. I bet she had oodles of ready-to-go ice packs and Neosporin, too. On the way home, I did a frantic mental inventory of anything right I was doing as a mom:
1. I’d take them out in the woods after a rain to turn over rocks and logs looking for interesting bugs.
2. I packed them epic April Fool’s Day lunches.
3. I would have them point to the area of whatever to ask exactly where they wanted me to squirt the whipped cream, and then I’d start at that spot and continue squirting right up the length of their arm.

That’s all I could come up with. AH ME.”

Hey, let’s class up the joint a little with some art. Jan van EYCK was in the puzzle today, the Flemish painter, born in 1390. The Ghent Altarpiece (below) is attributed to Jan and his brother Hubert and marks the transition from Middle Age to Renaissance art. An inscription that has been lost stated that it was started by Hubert, “greater than anyone” in art, and completed by Jan, identified as “second best.” (I’m not kidding: they sound like a hoot.)

Jan is considered by some to have invented oil painting; he at least was an early and significant user of it.

He was a punster, as noted in this Wikipedia entry: “Ten of his paintings are dated and signed with a variation of his motto ALS ICH KAN (As I (Eyck) can), a pun on his name, which he typically painted in Greek characters.”

LOL, van Eyck!

The altarpiece was seized by Hitler during the war and suffered some damage while stored in the Austrian salt mines. But it has been restored.

A great way to see his work is to click on: closertovaneyck. (That was shared by a commenter, and owl chatter concurs.)

Let’s also welcome “Civil rights icon, NANNIE Helen Burroughs.” Born May 2, 1879 in Virginia, she was an educator and orator who fought for civil rights and women’s rights until her death in 1961. She founded the National Training School for Women and Girls, in Washington DC, renamed in 1964 as the Nannie Helen Burroughs School. Born to former slaves who prospered in freedom, Burroughs was devoted to her work and never married. The Library of Congress manuscript division holds 110,000 items of hers.

On a lighter note, here’s LMS on “economizing:”

“It’s interesting how we all have our ways of cutting back. Mom will eat pretty much any kind of leftover in the fridge, regardless of its age or state. (Once she burned the crap out of some Eggo waffles but insisted on eating them anyway in the waste-not-want-not spirit. She insisted they tasted fine.) For me, I buy these little ROC retinol capsules – you’re supposed to use one capsule every night all over your face, but they’re too expensive. So I cut a little opening to squeeze out a tiny amount for around my eyes. So one capsule lasts several days.”

That’s all fine and well. But it was this video she posted of her mom with the Eggos that literally had me roaring in laughter. You must give it a few (32) seconds! Turn the sound up — there is no talking, but the chomping noises are good.

Vermont Lizzie tells me there’s a small brunch in honor of Susan’s memory up there today, so here’s a small Susan and Robert story I’ve always enjoyed. I was up for a visit and Robert offered me an orange, “A Colorado orange,” he said, and he and Susan both chuckled. I did not chuckle because I had no idea what was going on, so they explained.

Susan was going out to do some grocery shopping a few days before, and she asked Robert if there was anything special she should get. He said, “Yes, get some more oranges — they’re delicious. And make sure they are Colorado oranges, I checked to see what they are.” Susan said OK, and went out to the car. But she came back a moment later and said “I thought oranges only come from Florida or California.” And Bob said, “Well, I checked, but let’s check again.” So he rooted through the trash to find the orange peel and dug it out. It said on it: Color added.

Ever since then, I refer to all oranges as Colorado oranges. And that also goes into the “makes life worth living” file, along with Zoey’s smile.

We’re doing our best, S. Miss you.