Need a little kick-start today? Who doesn’t? This is grand niece Maeven Beatrice.

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“I said to the almond tree, ‘Sister, speak to me of God.’ And the almond tree blossomed.” ― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco. Happy Birthday Nicki! Born in Greece (duh) in 1883.

Here’s a young Irene Pappas asking her dermatologist about a troubling mole on her shoulder. She played “the widow” in the film version of NK’s Zorba the Greek.

Nikos Kazantzakis should not be confused with Nikos Catsantzakis, aka Nicky the Cat. No! No! He shouldn’t!

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What a surprise and delight to see this excellent letter in the NYT this morning by a member of Rex Parker’s Commentariat! Nancy is a respected curmudgeon famous for her “wall.” Sometimes she is so disgusted by a puzzle that she hurls her paper at the wall. It’s become a standard of disgust for some others (“not so bad that it had to be thrown at Nancy’s wall, but . . . “).

Anyway, in case you haven’t read it yet, here it is:

To the Editor:

Re “D.H.S. Expanding Push to Identify Opponents of ICE” (front page, Feb. 14):

No need for the Department of Homeland Security to skulk around social media sites, issuing subpoenas to large tech companies for personal information about anonymous people opposed to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Go no further than right here, D.H.S.! I’m implacably opposed to ICE and the chilling totalitarian police state that it’s trying so hard to create. Nor am I anonymous.

I’m prepared to stand up to you in broad daylight, on perhaps the most important media platform that we have in this country right now. So too, apparently, are all the other self-identified people in today’s Letters column standing proudly and defiantly beside me.

Nancy Stark
New York

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I learned two useless things from the puzzle today and am thrilled to share them with you. The clue for SSN (Social Security Number) was: “You can request a new one on religious grounds if it contains “666.”

(Commenter Gary wrote: I think you should be able to rescue the orphaned 666 SSNS and request one with it in it.)

The second one was about leeches. I knew they were used in the past as an attempted cure for stuff. In fact, here’s some info from Wikipedia:

It was believed that the “humors” had to be kept in balance to maintain good health. (The four humors were blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile (not to be confused with Simone Bile).) Any sickness that caused one’s skin to become red (e.g. fever and inflammation), so the theory went, must have arisen from too much blood in the body. Similarly, any person whose behavior was strident was thought to be suffering from an excess of blood. Leeches, by removing blood, were thought to help with these kinds of conditions — a wide range which included illnesses like polio and laryngitis. [OC note: That’s also where the expression “The Good Humor Man” comes from, see below.]

Anyway, we let go of that nonsense a long time ago, but get this — leeches are still used for certain medical procedures. According to Wikipedia, medicinal leech therapy made an international comeback in the 1970s in microsurgery, where it was used to stimulate circulation in tissues threatened by postoperative venous congestion, particularly in reconstructive surgery of the ear, nose, lip, and eyelid, and in finger reattachments. No leeches are used in the following finger reattachment, however.

Other clinical applications of medicinal leech therapy include varicose veins, muscle cramps, thrombophlebitis, and osteoarthritis, among many varied conditions. Leech therapy was classified by the FDA as a medical device in 2004.

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Charlie Dickens was in the puzzle today. Rex has been reading Dombey & Son (900 pages) for so long that this is what his book looks like:

It led me to post the following true story:

The duct-taped Dickens reminded me of the time I left a paperback copy of I-don’t-remember-what on the floor of my car and it got waterlogged from melting snow. I thought a little time in the oven at a low setting might help it dry out. When I checked it after about a minute it seemed to be working. I’m a genius! It was about half-way to dry. I left it in for a very short while longer after which it looked very dry!! So I turned off the oven, took the book out carefully, and set it on my table where it burst into flames. D’oh! At least I put a whole new spin on “book burning.”

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We’ve sent Phil and George out to Milan to make sure Sarah’s okay. Canada’s loss to the U.S. in Olympic women’s hockey was devastating. Our Sarah (Fillier) skated her heart out in the 2-1 overtime loss. Canada had the game in hand with just 2:04 left! Argggggh. It was then that Knight tied it, and Keller stuck the dagger in just four minutes into OT.

Here’s Sarah, at a happier moment.

Too upset to go on. See you tomorrow.

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