Today’s Tiny Love Story in the NYT by CATE WNEK, which looks like a radio station, is called “My Last Chance to Tell Him.”

My father became ill with advanced heart failure three weeks after I realized I was lesbian. At 49, I was in uncharted water. The truth kept hitting like a rough wave. On my first two visits, I shied away from telling him. His strength waned. “Is this going to be my last meal?” my father asked, half-laughing at the hospital food. While other family fulfilled his request for steak, potato, asparagus, merlot, I sat by his side — on a precipice. My choice would be absolute. I leaped. My father caught me, saying, “My whole heart is with you.” 

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Rex Parker, the self-anointed King of Crossworld, hit a new level of fame last week. Maybe? Someone dressed up as him for Halloween. Here’s how he described it, followed by a pic.

“Somebody dressed up as me for Halloween. I repeat: Somebody. Dressed up. As me. For Halloween. Also, importantly: ‘No one got the reference.’ I have somehow peaked and nadired simultaneously. Life is long, and very weird (thanks, Julia, for sending me the picture, and tell your fiancé I’m … well, startled, but also honored):”

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The title of the puzzle today was “Double Talk” and it tipped me off to the “trick.” The theme clues had to be read as homophones before getting the answers. E.g., “We won!” was KINDERGARTENER. “We won” had to be read as “Wee one.” Cute, right? The others included:

“To peace!” — STRING BIKINI (two-piece)

“See in” — BEACH HOTEL (sea inn)

and my favorite:

“But wait!” — JUNK IN THE TRUNK (butt weight)

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MARGE Simpson popped by today too — Hey Marge! — big fan! Sorry Phil burst in on you like that — he’s incorrigible. (Great shot, though.)

Marge isn’t the only fictional character in the grid today. “Star Wars queen” AMIDALA dropped in too, a pretty important part of the story. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about her:

Padmé Amidala (née Naberrie) appears in the prequel trilogy portrayed by Natalie Portman. First indirectly mentioned in Return of the Jedi, she is introduced in The Phantom Menace as the teenage Queen of Naboo, and after her reign, becomes a senator and an anti-war activist in the Galactic Senate. She secretly marries Anakin Skywalker, a Jedi Knight, then later dies while giving birth to twins Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa. Anakin’s fear of losing Padmé serves as the catalyst in driving him to the dark side of the Force and becoming Darth Vader.

Yikes!

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Bad Joke Dept. So the wife is stepping out of the shower and the husband is stepping into the shower when they hear the doorbell ring. “See who that is, darling,” the husband says, so the wife wraps a big towel around herself and goes down to open the door. It’s their neighbor, Tom. He takes one look at her and says “I’ll give you $300 if you let go of that towel.” She thinks about it for a moment and then, Zowie! He hands her the money, she picks the towel up and goes back into the house.

The husband shouts down, “Who was it?” The wife yells back, “Tom, from next door.” The husband asks, “Did he say anything about the $300 he owes me?”

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At 26D, the clue was “Commit a holiday etiquette no-no.” And the answer was RE-GIFT.

This cartoon, one of my favorites, is a take-off on the classic children’s book, The Giving Tree, which many of you are very familiar with.

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81D was “Blue Ribbon beer,” which, of course, is PABST. Remember this scene from David Lynch’s Blue Velvet?

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There’s excellent news on what had seemed like an intractable war in Ukraine. Trump says he can end it in one day, and today, on Meet the Press, Zelensky invited him to come over. The only hold-up may be Trump’s bail restrictions.

In other news on Ukraine, a report surfaced that Olena Zelensky, the first lady, spent over $1 million at Cartier’s while she and the Prez were in NYC recently. How unseemly! Plus she got a sales clerk fired in a snit for no good reason! Da Noive! A copy of the receipt was attached to the story.

But Mrs. Z was in Canada when this was supposed to have happened, so it’s all a pile of Boole-sh*t. Pay no attention to those trolls, Olena. Owl Chatter has your back.

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Oy, that’s enough nonsense for today. See you tomorrow!