We returned from our excellent trip to Maryland in time to catch the thrilling end of the Minny-Ottawa PWHL game. Minny was up 2-1 in the best-of-5 series so Ottawa had to win or the series was over. Alas, Liz Scheper’s goal in overtime gave Minny its second Walter Cup.
How tight were the games? All four were settled in overtime and the finals MVP was the goalie for Ottawa, the losing team. Great games, ladies. Amazingly, Liz scored the winning goal for last year’s championship too — and that was her first ever league goal. Go figure. Billie Jean King presented the trophy, a great supporter of the league. In fact, the league’s MVP award is named in her honor.
Here’s Liz. She’s 26 years old and is from Mound, MN. You ever been to Mound? It’s about 10 miles east of Stump; just south of Blob. She played college hockey at Ohio State, leading them to their first ever national title. Sorry fellas, she identifies as a member of the LGBTQ community and is partnered up right now.
Sticking with women’s sports for a bit, you could probably count on one hand if you were Mordecai Three-Fingered Brown the number of people who did not fall in love with Mary Lou Retton when she won her Olympic gold for the US back in 1984. MLR was the first American woman to win the all-around gold medal in Olympic gymnastics. She was Sports Illustrated’s Woman of the Year and was the first woman to appear on a Wheaties box (which boosted sales, they said). But it was her ability to see through solid objects and fly that earned her Supergirl status. Our Phil caught her mid-air in this shot.
That’s the shiny part of the story. Darker facts include her never earning a high school diploma, and her hospitalization for a rare form of pneumonia in October of 2023, with which she is still struggling. She did not have health insurance (yikes!) but her daughters raised $460,000 for her via internet donations. She married Shannon Kelley, a U of Texas QB, in 1990 and they had four daughters before divorcing in 2018. She came to our attention this week, via an arrest for driving under the influence in West Virginia.
Hang in there Mary Lou. Take care of yourself.
Miriam Webster’s Word of the Day on Sunday was dyspeptic, which describes someone who is bad-tempered, or easily annoyed. The noun form is dyspepsia, which is the state of someone who is annoyed because his Pepsi was taken away, like this woman’s. Hey, give back my Pepsi, you idiot!! My dad’s a cop!
We had a visitor while dining on our sandwiches at a neat hole-in-the-wall coffee place in DC. Brought us (and the Gnats) good luck!
Enjoyed a nice French/British romantic movie at Baltimore’s historic Charles Theater on Sunday. “Jane Austen Wrecked My Life.” Its Rotten Tomatoes score is 88% and that’s about what I’d give it. Very likeable. Here’s Camille Rutherford with her smokey eyes.
Does she end up with the similarly smokey-eyed Charlie Anson, below, or stick with the boyfriend from back home? And what about her writing? Will she ever finish anything?
We reached this milestone on the way back. I took a photo so I could share it with the Dull Men’s Club (UK) members.
Yesterday’s puzzle contained ASH WEDNESDAY as an answer, and today’s theme was the HOLY TRINITY. It had three (a trinity) theme answers all using the word “holy” with different spellings (homophones): WHOLLY OWNED, HOLEY CHEESES, and the HOLI FESTIVAL. It led me to post the following on Rex’s site:
With Ash Wednesday yesterday and today’s Holy Trinity, has the NYTXW violated the separation of Church and Puzzle? What’s next — the Ten Commandments in a Sunday grid?
Which reminds me:
Our old friend Thibodeaux was in Church one Sunday and the pastor went up to him after the service and said “Thibodeaux, you old scoundrel. I never thought I’d live to see the day you came to Church. Are you finally turning to God” And Thibodeaux said, “Well, Reverend, it’s like this. I had a hat. And I loved that hat. And I lost it. I looked everywhere for it. It’s just gone. Then I remembered that Johnson has a hat just like it, and Johnson’s a church=going man. So I thought I’d come to services and when he gets out of his seat for some reason, I’d grab his hat.” And the pastor says, “Oh, man, I should have figured it was something like that — you’re hopeless.” But then he noticed that Thibodeaux had not taken the hat. So he said: “But you didn’t take the hat. Why not?” And Thibodeaux said — “It was something in your sermon.” The pastor grew excited: “I finally got to you!! Fantastic. Let’s see, the topic was the Ten Commandments. Did the part on Thou Shall Not Steal hit home?” “No, that wasn’t it,” Thibodeaux said. “It was the one on adultery — I remembered where I left the hat.”
And I learned a great new word from 11D. The clue was “Acts that are tough, rebellious and cool, in slang.” BADASSERY
In Sunday’s puzzle, Rex took exception to the clue at 70D: “Best place to go in London.” It was using “to go” as in “to go to the bathroom” so the answer was LOO (bathroom in England). Here’s Rex:
I get why this is a “place to go,” but “Best?” What’s next best? An alley? Your pants? What’s the worst? Please don’t answer.
The Jewish Russian poet Joseph Brodsky was born this week in1940 in Leningrad and died in NYC at the age of 55. When he was 23, he was charged with “malicious parasitism,” you know, badassery. [Is there any other kind? Is there benevolent parasitism?]
When the judge asked him, “Who told you that you were a poet? Who assigned you that rank?” he responded: “No one. Who assigned me to the human race?” He was sentenced to five years in a Siberian labor camp. D’oh! Wrong answer! In 1972 he was booted out of Russia and fared much better over here. Oh, yeah? — he won the goddamn Nobel Prize in Literature in 1987. Probably would have been a Swiftie had he lived longer.
The ones behind the table in dark tops, below, are Zoey and Leon, selling lemonade at the beach for a buck a glass. For the buck you got the choice of pink or regular, plus Leon told you a joke. (I suggested they charge more for dirty ones, but no one listens to me, thank goodness.) They made $70 in one hour. (Not kidding.)
See you tomorrow, Chatterheads. Thanks for popping by!
The Wellington Files 