It’s just one blow after another. First, Canada drops a heartbreaker in OT to the US in Olympic women’s hockey. Next, our Sarah (Fillier)’s bobblehead doll comes out completely failing to capture how beautiful she is. I ask you — is this
even in the same rink as this?
Gimme a break. It’s a real shonda. In any event, if you wish to show support, the dolls are available at the PWHL shop for $25 (plus $9 shipping). If you mention Owl Chatter, the price goes up to $30.
We’re proud to introduce the official lumber company of Owl Chatter, see below. Please look to them for all your lumber needs. Again, mention Owl Chatter at checkout for a 10% price increase.
File that in the you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up dept. We are planning on attending a minor ballgame in York, PA in April and when I went on their webpage to look into tickets, I found it in a list of the team’s “business partners.” This one wasn’t bad either, below. Your windows get clean but may smell funny. I don’t think we even have any fish windows. Linda, amirite?
The following exchange took place in bed last night.
Me: I’m miserable.
Linda: What?
Me: I can’t get comfortable.
Linda: Turn onto your side.
Me: I don’t have sides. I’m round.
Linda: So rotate your circumference.
Sometimes when I can’t sleep I listen to all-night sports-talk radio in bed. I have grudgingly come to feel WFAN’s Tommy Lugauer is okay. But his stock went up the other night when he described some blunder he made by saying: “I flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami.”
In the puzzle today, at 47D STAIN was boringly clued with “Wood finish.” But it inspired me to share this tale:
During my daughter’s (and therefore my) dollhouse years, I enjoyed putting together miniature furniture from kits. You’d get the tiny pieces of wood, handles for drawers, etc., and you would delicately glue it all together and STAIN or paint it, as you wish.
I noticed small bottles of various stains in the miniature store we liked to visit, but I had larger containers of stain from other nondollhouse projects. So I asked my friend Jon, who I knew put together a dollhouse for his daughter, if I had to buy the special miniature stain or could use what I had left over from regular projects. We were in my work area at the time, and the tiny chair I put together was in front of us on my table. To let me know I didn’t need a special stain, Jon leaned over and whispered: “The wood doesn’t know it’s little.”
[One of my favorite commenters (Gary) replied with a heart emoji! How neat is that?]
Here’s a great clue: “Crispy flaps of crust on sourdough loaves.” Did you know they’re called EARS? Can you see it?
If you were a fan of Better Call Saul like we were, you will know that “Actress Seehorn of ‘Pluribus’” is RHEA. Very likable character.
Here’s a super-clever Friday-level clue: “Break down while studying?” The answer: REVERSE ENGINEER. Get it?
Both Lewis and egs suggested this alternate clue for it: “Reenigne?”
Had enough of winter? The puzzle is looking forward to SWEATER WEATHER, clued with “Pleasant chill in the air, say.” This young lady has the right idea.
And we’ll let her pretty face close the shop today. See you tomorrow, Chatterheads! Thanks for popping by.
Need a little kick-start today? Who doesn’t? This is grand niece Maeven Beatrice.
“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!
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
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.
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.”
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.
Close to 1,000 people have gotten measles in South Carolina since October. Governor Henry McMaster, who is anti-gay, anti-union, and a moron of the highest order, proudly announced the state is part of the largest surge in measles cases in the U.S. in three decades. Over 90% of the stricken were unvaccinated. How unusual is this? I think it’s the first time I’ve ever used the word “stricken.”
Last week, U.S. FDA Commissioner Martin Makary urged Americans to get vaccinated for measles. “I think everyone in this administration has been pretty clear that the best way to prevent measles is to get your kid vaccinated against measles,” he said.
Everyone? Pretty clear? Ya think?
I wrote the above yesterday, Tuesday, 2/17, before seeing the Times today. The headline on the lead story is: Vaccine Makers Curtail Research and Cut Jobs. “There will be less invention, investment and innovation in vaccines generally, across all the companies,” Dr. Stephen Hoge, the president of Moderna, said.
“The Trump administration said it was not discouraging innovation.” That’s the tell. The lie tells you the administration is acting in bad faith and against the public interest. They are idiots, but not idiots enough not to know they need to lie about it.
Robert Duvall, dead at 95. One of our favorite actors. Did you see The Apostle? In one scene he is just walking up the street, but he’s full of anticipation about getting his own church, and you can feel it in his walk.
Above, he is with his wife of 21 years, Luciana, 41 years his junior, to the day. (They shared Jan. 5 as their birthdays. Saved on cake.)
Rest in peace, Consigliere.
In yesterday’s puzzle, two crossing answers were ALBINO RAT (“White rodent often used in lab research”) and ALBANIANS (“Residents of Tirana”). So the obvious question that arises is Are there albino Albanians? Will have to get back to you.
Here’s a little fatty. Awwww. . . .
The puzzle was based on the old (and bad) pun playing on baroque and broke. You know, if it ain’t baroque, don’t fix it. BAROQUE was the central answer, and there were four embedded musical theme answers that were split (broken) by a black square. For example, reading across the third line you get ALBINORAT ORION, and there’s a black square after the T, “breaking” the oratorio. That happened with FUGUE, CHORALE, and SONATA.
Sam’s wonderful viola teacher, Mr. Stewart, would come by the house for his lessons, and I noticed once that he had a new car, a Hyundai Sonata. So I remarked on how appropriate that was for him. (He’s been a member of the NJ Symphony forever.) He gave me a blank look that said “What?” So I said, “You know . . . Sonata . . . music?” And he lit up and said he hadn’t realized that.
That’s him, below (without much hair). We still see him when we go to concerts and sometimes catch him up on how Sam’s doing. To make him feel good, we lied to him that Sam’s a member of the Detroit Philharmonic. What are the chances of him checking?
At 1D, for “Distance from end to end” the answer was SPAN. Here’s a fun song called “All Around My Hat,” by the appropriate band, courtesy of Son Volt.
With a name like Mac Forehand, how can this guy not be playing tennis? Also, how can this jump, below, only net him the silver medal (in the aptly named Big Air event)? Norway’s Tormod Frostad copped the gold. And that’s a good name for what he does.
At 27D today, the clue was “Pips.” What? The answer turned out to be HUMDINGERS. SRSLY? Had no idea. I guess if you say to someone “You’re a real pip,” it’s like saying “You’re a humdinger.”
Whatever. Here’s a song by Kevn Kinney. (Yeah, you heard me — there’s no I in Kevn. Like team.)
We have begun paying attention to the UMich men’s basketball team. They are ranked #1 nationally (!), and beat a tough Purdue squad last night. They face a major test against Duke (#3) on Saturday. Two of their starters are orthodox Jews (no they’re not). Center Aday Mara is turning heads. He’s 7’3″ and from Spain. They seem to have a legit crack at the national title, kinehora. Go Blue!
I’m proud of myself for a note I just posted on Rex’s blog. It was about today’s puzzle. Rex thought it was blah (meh, actually), and some others agreed that there wasn’t much to it. Personally, I thought it was okay. The theme was the letters ID, in particular the different ways they can be used: 1) as the contraction for “I would;” 2) the state of Idaho; 3) Freud’s id; and 4) as an I.D. like your driver’s license. (Lewis said they should have waited a few weeks and it would have been the IDs of March.)
Anyway, so it received the usual negative and positive reviews. But the constructor, Ian Livengood, is a member of the NYT puzzle staff, and two comments surmised that it was only accepted because he was an insider. Here’s the one from Anony Mouse: Very weak puzzle but Ian (the constructor) is a NY Times puzzle editor so it was published. Seems like it would be an automatic rejection if it were a blind submission. The second one said: I agree with a previous poster, I suspect that this one would have been rejected if it weren’t submitted by a CoW (Colleague of Will).
Those accusations rubbed me the wrong way. So I wrote:
I’ve only personally met one member of the NYT puzzle staff and it was only briefly at a tournament when we were seated at the same table. She seemed wonderful though, and I’d be surprised if I learned she engaged in unethical behavior such as improperly favoring someone’s work because she knew him or her personally. It’s one thing to criticize a puzzle for perceived flaws, but quite another to charge that it was only accepted because of favoritism. Such a charge, it seems to me, should be based on hard evidence and not simply surmise.
I love being retired. I have so much time to waste, I mean spend, on stuff like that. Not only can I not imagine going back to work, I’m amazed I was able to do it for so long. (Of course, as a professor, I really should put “work” in quotation marks. I once remarked to my doc that my summer course met four times a week and I noted that it was closest I came to real work.)
How could you not like a poem called “Hey Fella Would You Mind Holding This Piano a Moment.” It’s by William J. Harris and was the Poetry Foundation’s Poem of the Day today. It’s dedicated “For Reg and Susie.”
As you are walking down the street this guy asks you to hold his violin. It’s a Stradivarius. Soon as it falls into your hands you start playing like crazy. The violin almost plays itself. Your powerful hands nearly break the instrument but the music is gentle and sweet. You sweep your long artistic hair out of your face. Everybody in the room, in the bull ring, in the audience, in the Coliseum starts clapping and shouting “Encore & Wow.” Everybody whoever thot you were dumb & untalented goes apeshit over your hidden genius. “Gee, I never knew you played,” says your astonished high school principal.
We were delighted to have ANNA Kendrick stop by today, at 57A, boringly clued as “Actress Kendrick.” Anna is 40, kinehora, and from Portland ME. Lives in LA now. No kids, and has said motherhood is not for her. We first saw Anna in 50-50, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen. Phil enjoyed working with her for us. He said she can be pretty in a glamorous way, or in a non-glamorous way. He prefers the latter and sent in two examples for us.
Would you trust this man with your cat? Retired vet and OC friend Chris B was unimpressed with the song Ex’s and Oh’s by Elle King we shared recently. “I was playing simple riffs like that in 1968!!!,” he scoffed, and shared the following with us, so we could see how far he’s come. Chris is the handsome one in the middle with the baseball cap and the guitar.
The NYT editorial board really ripped into Bondi today, as well they should, excoriating her for failing to protect the Epstein survivors in DOJ’s recent release of files. Did you read it? I thought the DOJ just carelessly released the names of some victims who had chosen to remain anonymous. It was much much worse than that. They released nude photos of the victims. SRSLY, Bondi? Let’s (grudgingly) grant her the benefit of the doubt and say it was unintentional and not done out of malice. Then wouldn’t it be only natural to apologize? Wouldn’t that be the minimal response? But she refused. Can someone please explain to me, like I’m a three-year-old (Hi Denzel!), what the hell is going on over there?
I’m not going to subject you (or me) to the sight of her today. Here’s Denzel instead, as attorney Joe Miller in Philadelphia. I showed the film in my law class a bunch of times. Just to get the kids into a courtroom and to foster its positive messages on discrimination. It got to me every time.
Here’s a cartoon we might call “NYC Snow Globe.”
I took an afternoon nap, overslept, and missed the first half of Canada’s women’s hockey team win. It turns out it wasn’t televised here anyway. Boo. Canada slipped past the Swiss Cheese, 2-1. Yikes! We outshot them like crazy, but that’s scary close. We’ll be playing the USA on Thursday for the gold, as heavy underdoggies.
With the game not on, we watched some figure skaters instead, gorgeous. And some ski tumbling, aka the “big air” event. You hear of Eileen Gu before? Wow. She skis for China but was born in SF and is also American. Eileen is English for Ailing, which is Chinese for “Love Ling,” in honor of her sister Ling who was killed in a car crash before Eileen was born.
She won the silver medal today — very impressive. But she also earns millions as a supermodel. Like at the Victoria-Secret, Sports-Illustrated-Swimsuit level. She is currently the fourth highest paid female athlete in the world. Add to that 1580 (out of 1600) on her SATs (not kidding): she majored in International Relations at Stanford. As a victim of anti-Asian racism during the pandemic, she speaks out against racism, and supports the Black Lives Matter movement and abortion rights.
Believe me, fellas, we’re taking it easy on you with this photo.
Ever wonder what the world looks like through Trump’s eyes? Me neither. But the NY Times took a stab at it. Here’s one of his impressions: “People don’t realize Canada is very nasty.” Yup. He nailed those bastards.
You know those countries like North Korea or Russia where every corner of your life is infested with the government, so, e.g., if you do anything to criticize Putin, like in a text or a post, you’ll get hauled in to some dank prison? How did things develop to that degree? How did it come to be that the entire population is under the boot like that?
Well, here’s the lead paragraph from the lead story in the NY Times yesterday:
“The Department of Homeland Security is expanding its efforts to identify Americans who oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement by sending tech companies legal requests for the names, email addresses, telephone numbers and other identifying data behind social media accounts that track or criticize the agency.”
Yup. That’s how.
Owl Chatter’s response: You’ll never take us alive!!!
You won’t see the F word in a NY Times XW. But they came damn close yesterday. The answer at 6D was SHAG. Now, it could have been clued in a way that related to the carpet or the haircut. But they went overseas instead and the clue was “Screw or nail, to a Brit.” So it’s f*ck, as clued, right?
I posted the following comment: My British friend got a shag haircut and shagged his partner on a shag carpet. That’s meshaga.
There seems to be a blurring of lines between the shag or shaggy haircut and a bedhead. I guess they are not mutually exclusive. Phil liked how it all worked for this young woman, but he’s a sucker for those big glasses.
Patrick Prior shared this story with Metropolitan Diary today, which I can certainly relate to:
Dear Diary:
I was visiting my uncle for the first time in 15 years. I took the Q to Brooklyn, and we went to lunch at a diner on Kings Highway.
He ordered a hamburger. I had a turkey club. We discussed our relatives and the complications of getting older. He had stopped riding his bicycle only six months before, at 79.
There was a small commotion at the back of the restaurant. A steady drip of water was leaking from the ceiling. Two customers changed tables. The drip soon became a stream.
We watched for a few minutes as we ate and speculated as to the cause. Then the sprinkler came to full life. The kitchen staff tried vainly to capture the flow with a five-gallon bucket.
We rose from our table and left the room. Before long, the floor was covered with two inches of water.
My uncle asked the manager whether he could retrieve the rest of his lunch, but we were told to stay out of the flooded room.
He dashed in anyway to save his half-eaten burger.
[OC note: Half-eaten burger is how the pessimist sees it. To the optimist it’s a half-uneaten burger. There’s no indication in the story whether the uncle’s beer glass was half-full or half-empty.]
Today’s puzzle was one column wider than usual: 22 instead of 21, for a Sunday. (Sundays are normally 21×21 and weekdays 15×15.) It had to be that wide to accommodate the “revealer” running across the center: IT’S ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE. Then, for seven theme answers, the last four across letters were HERE and the answers dropped down to be completed. What?? For example, the clue at 24A was “Completely destroy with a blast,” and the answer was BLOW TO SMITHEREENS. But the final three letters (the ones after HERE), had to be filled in going down. Get it? — Downhill from “here.” And the puzzle title was “Good to the Last Drop.”
As I was completing it, I picked up fairly quickly the dropping down business, but I never saw that every theme answer had the letters HERE in it immediately preceding the drop. That was neat.
I posted the following for the gang: In Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint a young man commits suicide. His mother finds him with a note pinned to his shirt that says: “Mrs. Goldberg called. She wants you to bring [something] to the mah jongg game tonight.” And Roth wrote: How’s that for good to the last drop?
Yesterday, at 28A the clue was “Tree of life, in Norse mythology,” and the answer was ASH. Several erudite commenters noted that the tree is called Yggdrasill. I added (loosely defined) the following to the discussion: Never mind Norse mythology. In Yiddish mythology it’s the “Tree of Oy, You Call This Living?”
Most depictions of it (the Norse one, not the Yiddish one) are pretty creepy. This one’s not bad.
Bud Cort passed away on Wednesday at the age of 77. He’s the actor who played Harold in “Harold and Maude.” The character was depressed and staged fake suicides, and he falls in love with Ruth Gordon’s Maude, who was life-affirming. In one scene, a therapist asks Harold if he stages the fake suicides for his mother’s benefit. Harold replies “I would not say ‘benefit.’”
Harold was 19 and Maude 60 years his senior at 79 (see below). It’s off-beat, a dark comedy, but it was serious at its heart IMO, which you may learn from a shot near the end of the film showing a concentration camp number tattooed on Maude’s arm. It never comes up otherwise.
Cort was born Walter Edward Cox, and he took the name Bud Cort to avoid confusion with the actor Wally Cox, whom some of you may recall as a great character named “Mr. Peepers.” Cort also starred in “Brewster McCloud” with Shelley Duvall, below, but his career otherwise floundered. He earned a reputation for fighting with directors. Rest in peace, Harold.
Shelley, you’re gonna have to put that cigarette out here: we canceled our fire insurance. You like Diet Pepsi? [Shelley Duvall also passed away, back in 2024, a few days after turning 75.]
As baseball begins to emerge from hibernation, it was nice to see a little discussion arise today among the Commentariat. For the answer RBI, the clue said, “It must result from a sac fly.” Some folks thought the sac fly operates like a sac bunt, i.e., that the batter will get credit for a sac fly simply for advancing a runner, without regard to whether he scores, e.g., from second to third. But this is not true; a run must score for a sac fly to be awarded. And I learned (and shared with the gang) that if the fielder drops the ball, the batter can still be awarded a sac fly by the official scorer if, in his opinion, the runner would have scored had the catch been made.
Let’s close today with this important post by Harry Finan of the Dull Men’s Club (UK):
I noticed that the wife stirs her cup anti clockwise, whereas I stir clockwise just using wrist action, when she stirs all her lower arm moves, we are both right handed, I wondered if in general right handers stir clockwise and left handers anti clockwise although as I said she’s right handed, I’ll wager that proportion in this group is about 50-50, with left handers in the minority, the proportion of left handers in the uk is only about 10%
Tim Robinson: Left hander here. I stir from the wrist but always both ways, alternating so as to create the maximum turbulence.
Roger Collier: I have no idea which hand or direction I use. I’ll have to look next time I have a hot drink.
Roger (again, a follow-up): Can’t do it left handed. Right hand and it seems to be random whether I go clockwise or anticlockwise, much like a microwave turntable.
Debbie Vogel: I am right handed, but my mother was left handed. I remember her telling me as I was beating eggs with a fork that I was doing it backwards. She went anti-clockwise, I went clockwise. I still do. As long as the eggs get beaten, what difference does it make?
Chris Bater: Shaken, not stirred.
Tim Bucknall: She’s a witch. Burn her.
Gina Zeelie: Regardless of direction, I was taught that it is improper for a lady to “whisk” her tea with a wrist action. The stir should be gentle, from the elbow, locked wrist, and not create a vortex in the cup. Did your wife have a very well-mannered mother/grandmother?
Kirsty Redhead: I don’t stir tea or coffee because I don’t put sugar in them, but when stirring other things, I use either hand (I’m ambidextrous) and invariably stir anti-clockwise. It’s mostly involuntary – that’s just how I do it, without thinking – but if I think about it consciously I definitely do it anti-clockwise just because it annoyed my mother so much (she said it was “the sign of the devil”, but apparently many things were, I couldn’t win that war).
Brian Morrison: When I was a kid, I knew this guy, who I thought was really cool, well he had to be cool, he was a pilot. He stirred his coffee backwards and forwards across the cup, in a straight line, at high frequency. I practised for ages and, seventy years later, I still do it and I still think it’s cool.
Avi Liveson: Are you comma-tose? Does your keyboard not contain a period?
Owl Chatter has just learned that the glove recovered by the side of the road in the Nancy Guthrie kidnapping is the same glove OJ Simpson could not get to fit in his famous trial. And, as we all know, “If the glove don’t fit, you must acquit!”
Joe Klecko, 72, was a great defensive lineman for the Jets from 1977-1987. But don’t believe me. Hall of Fame center Dwight Stephenson considered him one of the two best interior linemen he ever faced. And Hall of Fame tackle Anthony Muñoz said: “In my 13 seasons, Joe is right there at the top of the defensive ends I had to block, up there with Fred Dean, Lee Roy Selmon and Bruce Smith. Joe was the strongest guy I ever faced. He had perfect technique — hands in tight, great leverage.” In 2023, Klecko was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And he’s an Owl! (Played his college ball at Temple.)
As long-time Jet fans lovingly recall, when Klecko and Abdul Salaam were joined by Mark Gastineau and Marty Lyons in the early 1980s, they formed one of the top defensive lines in the NFL, known as the “New York Sack Exchange.” Get this — in November of 1981 the four of them were invited to ring the opening bell of the NY Stock Exchange. How cool is that!
Anyway, we’re not mentioning Joe K today because he died. Happily, he’s 72, kinehora, and lives in Jersey with wife Debbie with whom he has five kids, including Dan, who played in the NFL for a few years and won three more Super Bowl rings than his dad did, i.e., he won three. Nor is it Joe’s birthday, which is in October. He’s in the news because he joins the thousands of convicted criminals pardoned by Trump. Ouch! Yes, in 1993, Klecko was sentenced to three months in prison and penalized fifteen yards for perjury in an insurance fraud case. That stain is now gone. Whatever. Thanks for providing a bright spot in Jets history, Joe. But, you know, you were pardoned long ago by all of us fans.
Before we take a look at today’s puzzle, here’s a steamy song shared by commenter tea73 on yesterday’s X and O theme.
Whoa! Quite a load of sexy guys in that video. I wouldn’t skip it if I were you, ladies. Anyway, as some of you may know, I’ve lost a bit of weight since I started taking those fat shots you see advertized on TV (Zepbound) a few months ago: 18 pounds. Dropped a size too: from double extra fat down to just extra fat. So I asked Phil to take a nice shot of the new me. Here it is:
Alright, so that’s not me. It’s William Powell who starred in “The Thin Man.” I’ve still got a long way to go.
Lots of good stuff in today’s puzzle today, including a friendly nod to the state we’ve all been talkin’ about. At 34A the clue was “Polite, friendly stereotype from the Midwest,” and the answer was MINNESOTA NICE. The constructor was Even Mulvihill and he popped in with a comment. His concern was that Minnesota nice could be parsed as Minnesotan ICE, and it was not his intent to go there. Here’s what he said: “MINNESOTA NICE was a thing long before ICE was doing horrible things, and I made the puzzle way before the recent issues in MN. I also never had the intention to touch upon ICE and it’s just an unfortunate mirroring in the word NICE. Just to be clear, MINNESOTAN ICE is just a misguided parsing of it. I am sorry that the entry was a buzzkill but that’s more to do with our government than me or the NYT.”
JB noted: As a transplant to Minnesota, many of us view the term Minnesota nice as Minnesotans being cold, judgmental and unfriendly, but believing that they are nice.
Ouch!
Another commenter asked: Isn’t saying someone is MINNESOTANICE sort of a diss? I always think it implies fake niceness.
Beezer replied: I really don’t think so. I am from the Midwest and I think it’s probably the exemplar of the idea that people in the Midwest are generally nicer. Not sayin’ it’s as true as it used to be generally in Midwest but I think it is a compliment.
[Me too.]
Other neat clues:
At 41A: “Someone singing ‘Something.’” Answer: BEATLE. [“Something in the way she walks . . . “]
At 15A: “A red plastic one might be worn on Halloween.” Answer: FIREHAT. OMG, my Leon had one when he was three or four. Too cute.
13A: “Abso-freaking-lutely!” Answer: HELL YEAH.
How about this one, a day after his birthday: 11D: “Poem so beloved by Abraham Lincoln that he carried it in his pocket and memorized it.” Answer: THE RAVEN. Can’t believe it wasn’t one of Kooser’s.
But I think my favorite was at 32D: “Ones offering cheap shots?” Answer: DIVE BARS. Burp!
Let’s close tonight with these pretty lasses doing Bruce’s great song justice. See you tomorrow. Thanks for dropping in!
Stories You Won’t Hear About in the Press (Because They Are Not True) Dept. In a report exclusive to Owl Chatter, our investigative journalists revealed that a higher percentage of ICE and Border Patrol agents have criminal records than do their detainees. Part of this is due to the high number of children among the detainees, but even accounting for childhood the margin is substantial. When confronted with the data, AG Pam Bondi responded: You idiots are making this up just so you can drool over another sexy photo of me or Leavitt. Ouch! Touché Bondi.
The NYT XW today by Kareem Ayas was over-the-top brilliant, and perfect for Valentine’s Day week. There were two theme “instructors” that crossed each other: STEAL A KISS, going down, and GIVE A HUG crossing it. (They were clued with “Quickly smooch,” and “Give comfort, in a way.”) Then, you know how XOXOXO works to represent hugs and kisses, right? Well, the X is a kiss and the O is a hug. So in the four down theme answers you need to “steal a kiss” by removing an X. E.g., the clue at 5D was “Behind in payment.” And the answer was LATEX. It only makes sense once you “steal” the X out of it, so you’re left with LATE. And with the across theme answers you had to “give a hug,” i.e., add a O for it to make sense. E.g., at 1A the clue was “Succeed” and the answer was DWELL. It makes no sense unless you add an O to make it DO WELL.
Also, impressively, all 8 themers were real words pre- and post-adjustment. Here are the six others, besides the two discussed above:
EXTERNALLY, ETERNALLY
MAXIM, MAIM
AXMEN, AMEN
CLAMSUP, CLAM SOUP
SHUTOUTS, SHOUTOUTS
FLAMING, FLAMINGO
As I was solving the puzzle, I had no idea of what was going on and so had a whole mess of problem areas in my grid. Then, what’s called “the aha moment” came, and it was quite exciting to work it all through. (BTW, that’s a pretty good example of what passes for excitement at my age.)
For AXMEN, which is slang for guitar players, Rex shared this (hi, Chris!). Watch it take off at the 3:30 mark.
How did I miss this from yesterday? At 53D, ELLE was the answer, clued boringly with “Actress Fanning.” I think it’s her first visit to Owl Chatter. Thank God George has the fridge stocked. Sit your fanny down, Fanning. You ever hear that before? Be honest.
Dakota is her older sister. She’s a real southern belle, or elle, I guess, born in Conyers GA. Elle is her middle name; Mary’s her first.
Elle’s dad was a minor-league ballplayer in the Cardinals system and her grandfather was Rick Arrington, QB for the Eagles for three seasons. For the history buffs among you, one of her ancestors is King Edward III, from way back in the 1300’s.
She killed it in last year’s film Sentimental Values for which she is up for an Oscar as Supporting Actress. She’s 27 and is almost as pretty as my Zoey. Could you plotz?
Here’s a treat for us! Today’s poem in the Writer’s Almanac is by Ted Kooser. It’s called “The Red Wing Church,” and it’s from his collection Sure Signs: New and Selected Poems.
There’s a tractor in the doorway of a church in Red Wing, Nebraska, in a coat of mud and straw that drags the floor. A broken plow sprawls beggarlike behind it on some planks that make a sort of roadway up the steps. The steeple’s gone. A black tar-paper scar that lightning might have made replaces it. They’ve taken it down to change the house of God to Homer Johnson’s barn, but it’s still a church, with clumps of tiger lilies in the grass and one of those boxlike, glassed-in signs that give the sermon’s topic (reading now a bird’s nest and a little broken glass). The good works of the Lord are all around: the steeple top is standing in a garden just up the alley; it’s a hen house now: fat leghorns gossip at its crowded door. Pews stretch on porches up and down the street, the stained-glass windows style the mayor’s house, and the bell’s atop the firehouse in the square. The cross is only God knows where.
At 46D today, “Hollywood’s Anderson or Bach” was PAMELA. She’s also in this John Prine tune, with apologies for its political incorrectness.
We’ll close tonight with two late-breaking stories from The Onion:
Keys, Spare Change Fly Out Of Luge Athlete’s Pocket On First Turn
Mom Strong Arms Cashier Into Accepting Expired Coupon
George!! Don’t order the Epstein Potato Chips anymore. This is what came.
[Too soon?]
This song is by Hüsker Dü, courtesy of Son Volt as a nod to DIVIDE in the puzzle yesterday at 9D (“Do the splits?”). Turn it up!!
Hüsker Dü was an influential punk rock band from St. Paul MN from 1979-1988. It played a huge role in convincing “the underground” that melody and punk rock weren’t antithetical. (Wikipedia) I think OC featured their song Diane previously. Bob Mould is still active with the alt-rock band Sugar. He started playing guitar when he was 16. He heard the Ramones and figured anyone could play (not kidding).
While we’re on the topic, and if you’ve still got it turned up. . .
Sadly, all four of the original Ramones have passed away. Forever sedated. Rest in peace fellas. Thanks for all the fun.
Oy, our Canadian hockey women got schmeared by the U.S., 5-0, and it was total domination. Looks like it’s the USA’s year. This is Abbey Murphy. She killed us. She’s not even a pro yet: plays hockey at U of Minny. Born in Illinois.
The puzzle today was a tribute to Jerry Lee Lewis’s great song, “Great Balls of Fire.” Four large squares comprised of four letters each (F, I, R, E) were enclosed in a circle (“ball”). And the lyric GOODNESS GRACIOUS was an answer, along with the title. A nice constructing job by Joseph Gangi.
I posted the following for the gang:
Ouch! A puzzle on getting kicked in the nuts!? Puh-leeze!
The late folksinger and union man Utah Phillips told the following joke when I saw him perform in NYC several hundred years ago. It was about Idaho Blackie whose land abutted that of the leader of the Aryan Brotherhood. Idaho would sit on his porch with his shotgun and shoot at ducks flying overhead. One day he hit a duck and it fell to earth onto the property of the neighbor. When Idaho went to retrieve it, the neighbor said, Hold on — if it falls on my property, it’s my duck. And Idaho said, But it was my shot that brought it down.
They argued for a while, and finally the neighbor said, Let’s settle this in a way that brings honor to our great White Brotherhood. We’ll take turns kicking each other in the balls, and the last man standing gets the duck. Idaho agreed and the neighbor said, Since your shot brought it down, you can go first. Idaho took a few steps back to get a running start and landed a perfect excruciating blow. The neighbor doubled up in agony and it took him a while to get up, dust himself off, and recover. When he was finally ready he said, Okay, it’s my turn now. Idaho stood there, stroking his beard, looked at the guy and said: You know, I’ve been giving this a great deal of thought. You can have that duck.
Utah Phillips passed away in 2008. He was a wonderful singer and may have honed his sense of humor in the vaudeville theater his stepfather Syd Cohen ran in Cleveland before moving the family to Utah. Phillips was a great union supporter and a card-carrying member of the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), also known as the Wobblies. Which is how you walk after getting kicked in . . . Enough.
Here’s Rex on the iconic song:
I wonder how well younger solvers know this song. It’s a classic, but I don’t know if “classics” from the ’50s still factor into younger people’s store of songs. The song is well before my [Rex’s] time (came out 12 years before I was born), but I know it very well—rock music simply hadn’t been around *that* long when I was a kid, and so the store of “oldies” seemed finite and you could still hear them all over the place. Also, Jerry Lee Lewis was a … let’s say, colorful figure. Frequently in the news (and, after the ’50s, usually not for music—he had many wives, many personal tragedies, many tax problems). “GREAT BALLS OF FIRE” came out in November of 1957, the month before he married his 13-year-old cousin (who eventually left him, stating that she had been “subject to every type of physical and mental abuse imaginable” (Wikipedia)). He lost two children very young in separate accidents (car, pool), At least two of his wives died young (drugs, pool). But as an artist, he is best known for his wild, energetic playing style.
He was a massive influence on Elton John.
I noted that Rex’s two parentheticals, above, reminded me of Nabokov’s pretty famous one in Lolita: VN remarks on the accidental death of Lo’s mom (picnic, lightning). I was happy to see commenter upstate george thank me for the “shout out to Nabokov.”
The following is from historian Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter today:
Answering allegations that agents had used zip ties on children, spokespersons for both the FBI and Homeland Security flatly denied the allegations. “ICE didn’t zip tie, restrain, or arrest any children. ICE does not zip tie or handcuff children. This is the kind of garbage rhetoric contributing to our officers facing a 1,300% increase in assaults against them and an 8,000% increase in death threats.”
After the presentation of photographic evidence of zip-tie bruises on a 14-year-old female U.S. citizen as well as personal testimony, the FBI changed their assertion to say no “young” children were zip-tied.
Okay. Thanks for clearing that up.
I know, — crazy as a loon, right? At 3D today we learned that the LOON is the state bird of Minnesota. It led Son Volt to reach out to John Prine for us again (not complaining).
In response to all the sh*t Bad Bunny (and others) received for the all-Spanish Super Bowl halftime show, the band Foreigner posted the Spanish version of its biggest hit on its Facebook page after the game. The woman joining them is Mexican singing star Joy Huerta. (Wow.) Huerta is gay and married to Diana Atri, left, below. They have two kids, who, if they are not gorgeous, should demand a refund.
We’ll let the song close us out today. Thanks for stopping by!
Three newly married husbands are chatting at a bar on their newlywed cruise. They just met. The wives are elsewhere on the ship. The spa. Whatever. One of the men says he read an article that says you have to let the wife know right away who’s boss and what you expect from her. They agree to lay down the law and to meet up after a year to see how things went.
A year goes by and they meet. The first one reports. I’m pretty pleased, he said. My wife is from Nebraska, and right when we got back from the cruise, I told her I was the king in the home and I expected her to keep the place spotless and I wanted a home-cooked dinner every night. Well, I didn’t see much progress the first few days but then the place seemed to be cleaner and I started getting pretty good meals and it’s kept up.
Terrific!, the others said. The second man said, “Well, my wife is from Kansas, and I’m also pretty pleased with how it went. I laid down the law right off the bat. And with us, too, for the first few days I didn’t see much, but as the weeks went by, the meals got better and the house is in pretty good shape. I’d have to say it’s been a success.
They turned to the third husband for his report. Well, he said, my wife is from the Bronx. So I laid it all out, like we said, you know, the meals, the cleaning. And at first I didn’t see anything. But after a few days, the swelling went down and I could make out shapes. . . .
I was mostly a city boy, or suburbs. Here’s a poem called “Farm Auction,” by Amy Fleury from today’s Writer’s Almanac.
Contrails scrawl the sky under which sawhorse-and-lumber tables offer up the hoard and store of fifty years. Neighbors have come to scour house and barn and implement shed. Yes, we’ve come to haul it all away— their nests of pillows and quilts and feather ticks, the glazed plates and bread crocks, a washtub rimed with bluing, the saltcellar and gravy boat, her cross-stitch sampler and figurines, canning jars, seals, lids. And spools of baling wire, seed drills, spades, coffee cans of bolts and bent nails, a burlap-wrapped schnapps bottle he kept back of the barn’s fuse box and all his spare fuses. An aerial photo of their farm. And even the rusted harrow in the ditch.
The auctioneer works to disperse all their worldly goods, singing hey somebody give me twenty now, twenty as his wife hands over odd boxes of cribbage boards and crucifixes to the ladies fanning themselves with sale bills by the tilting lilacs. From the porch the 4-H club sells plates of peach pie and waxy cups of pop. Inside, the smell of silage still clings to his chambray shirt hung on the backdoor peg after choring. How, in stocking feet, he loved to step on the warm place where the dog had lain, where dilapidated hips collapsed her in a sleeping, yellow heap.
Now all is echo where once they sat together with the ledger, adding columns of crop yields and prices per bushel, or thumbing rosaries like they shelled peas— dutiful, dutiful to the ceaseless seasons, to their tillage and cattle and kin. Through the window screen comes little gusts and the sound of the gavel coming down.
Kudos to Owl Chatter’s very special friend Delaware Pam for breaking into Frank Bruni’s “For the Love of Sentences” feature today! Here’s how she did it:
In The Atlantic, Sophie Gilbert experienced the movie Melania as a costume drama: “Melania shows off her custom-made inauguration gown, stark white with black ribbons overlaying it, a dress that now looks unavoidably like the redacted Epstein files.”
Ha!
Brava Pam!
From The Onion:
Biden Grateful He’s Not Alive To See What Trump Is Doing To Country
In the puzzle today, at 8D “Track-and-field event with a 16-pound ball” was SHOTPUT. It reminded me of when I tried out for track & field at Brandeis. The coach said all I qualified for was javelin catcher.
Okay. I’m ready, babe. Heave it!
Ouch.
The consensus on Super Bowl LX was that it was a dud, but I watched every minute and loved it. For any sport, my favorite game is one in which my team takes an early lead and spends the rest of the game trying to hold on to it. That’s what happened here and Seattle was absolutely brilliant on defense drive after drive after drive, so it was a pleasure to watch.
On offense, Kenneth Walker III at RB was deservedly named the game’s MVP for his 135 rushing yards (161 total). His dad KW Junior was in the stands — how great is that!! QB Sam Darnold was credited with a solid, if not brilliant, effort. Good job!
Let it not go unremarked that the only offensive TD scored by the ‘Hawks was a pass caught by AJ Barner, a Wolverine. Go Blue! In all, AJ had four passes thrown his way during the game and snared them all. Sweet. AJ’s a big boy, at 6′ 6″, 251. Ohio-born, he played in Ann Arbor the year we won the title, 2023.
I thought most of the ads were terrible; worse — they insulted one’s intelligence. How dumb is this country? (Don’t answer that.) The funny ones tried way too hard, IMO. I couldn’t even tell what most of the ads were for: weird technological stuff.
Et tu, Sabrina?
At 35D, “Luminescence” was GLOW. A band called The Innocence Mission put out an album by that name (Glow), and Son Volt shared this pretty song from it.
Ken Hargreaves of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) posted this photo and is wondering if they are safe to use.
Most of the members suggest he get drops that aren’t infected.
I replied with: I can’t see using it. My high-brow friend Iris agrees, but no one is cornea than she is.
Mark Bedford asked the members what “occasional tables” are. Nicholas Whitehead more broadly asked: What is occasional furniture the rest of the time? Then he answered: Periodic tables.
Jonathan Hill: I only have room for frequent tables.
Martyn Greenwood: One minute they’re tables and the next they’re not!
Chris Brooking: They are tables as long as you look at them. Once you look away . . . .
Gareth Duckett: It’s a table you use occasionally.
Avi Liveson: We should table this discussion.
Mark Swingler shared this:
I’ve got an occasional table There it is over there You can tell it’s an occasional table Today’s its day off, it’s a chair
I’ve got an occasional table I can’t seem to get it to settle It’s all been a bit unexpected I thought I was buying a kettle
I took it upstairs on the bus I always get the bus back from town It was then it turned into a wardrobe Took six of us to get it back down
I’ve got an occasional table But some of the time I’ve not I always rush my dinner I never know how long I’ve got
I think I might have another Excuse the element of doubt It’s the kind of occasional table That’s only in when you’re out
I thought if I had two they might breed I really quite fancy a set But with them both being occasional I don’t think they’ve actually met
I’ve got some occasional tables I’m never quite sure where they are I’d quite like to have a settee but So far they’ve not gone, so far
I think therefore I am All we believe stems from this Except my occasional table Which only occasionally, is
Perhaps there’s a parallel universe Where they all go to live quite a lot Where they’re called usual tables And only occasionally, not
An infinite number of occasional tables Well then sure there was always one there I’ve got an occasional table Look, here it is, it’s a chair
Forward Emma Maltais, below, and all of the girls are going to have to step it up tomorrow against Team USA, after team captain Marie-Philip Poulin left today’s game (a win over the Czech Republic) with an injury. It’s rough out there, ladies. Buckle up.
Timothy is a type of grass that is all over the f*ckin place in Europe and the U.S. but not in the Mediterranean region. It’s probably named after Timothy Hansen, the American farmer who introduced it into the southern states from New England.
And this is Indian Paintbrush:
This poem by Donald Hall, from yesterday’s Writer’s Almanac, is called “Old Roses.”
White roses, tiny and old, flare among thorns by the barn door. For a hundred years under the June elm, under the gaze of seven generations, they lived briefly like this, in the month of roses, by the fields stout with corn, or with clover and timothy making thick hay, grown over, now, with milkweed, sumac, paintbrush. Old roses survive winter drifts, the melt in April, August parch, and men and women who sniffed roses in spring and called them pretty as we call them now, walking beside the barn on a day that perishes.
Despite having both legs amputated and being 85 years old, Lindsay Vonn told the press she is all set to go for Olympic gold. We are mostly interested in the Canadian Women’s Ice Hockey team this year (Go Sarah!), but we’ll be rooting for LV too. Lookin good, Babe! [Sorry to learn she crashed early in her run, and was airlifted out. Hope she’s okay.]
And our heroines on ice bested the Swiss yesterday, 4-0. Our Sarah (10) netted the key second goal (see below), and assisted on the first. We outshot the Cheese by around 50-5 (not exaggerating), but couldn’t really open it up until late. The Swiss goalie Maurer held tough for most of the game. We look forward to taking on the USA Tuesday, whose goalie Aerin Frankel (Hi Nance!) is a brick wall.
Historian Heather Cox Richardson spent her entire newsletter today (2/7) on the network of concentration camps Stephen Miller is setting up around the country. There’s really no other term for them. Part of it covers the failure of the system to provide medical care to prisoners. But I want to share this piece of it, which is extraordinary.
ICE bought a building the size of seven football fields in [aptly named] Surprise, Arizona, outside Phoenix, for $70 million. Officials from Surprise stated: “The City was not aware that there were efforts underway to purchase the building, was not notified of the transaction, and has not been contacted by DHS or any federal agency about the intended use of the building. It’s important to note, Federal projects are not subject to local regulations, such as zoning.”
On Tuesday, February 3, more than a thousand people turned out for the Surprise City Council meeting to oppose the establishment of the concentration camp. One of the speakers reminded the council of Ohrdruf, the first Nazi camp liberated by U.S. troops, on April 4, 1945. He said:
“The U.S. Army brought the leading citizens of Ohrdruf to tour the facility, which turned out to be part of the Buchenwald network of concentration camps. A U.S. Army colonel told the German civilians who viewed the scenes without muttering a word that they were to blame. One of the Germans replied that what happened in the camp was ‘done by a few people,’ and ‘you cannot blame us all.’ And the American, who could have been any one of our grandfathers, said: ‘This was done by those that the German people chose to lead them, and all are responsible.’
“The morning after the tour, the mayor of Ohrdruf killed himself. And maybe he did not know the full extent of the outrages that were committed in his community, but he knew enough. And we don’t know exactly how ICE will use this warehouse. But we know enough. I ask you to consider what the mayor of Ohrdruf might have thought before he died. Maybe he felt like a victim. He might have thought, ‘How is this my fault? I had no jurisdiction over this.’ Maybe he would have said, ‘This site was not subject to local zoning, what could I do?’ But I think, when he reflected on the suffering that occurred at this camp, just outside of town, that those words would have sounded hollow even to him. Because in his heart he knew, as we do, that we are all responsible for what happens in our community.”
Amen to that, brother.
Okay, let’s class up the joint a little. In yesterday’s puzzle, 37A posed a challenge that arises often. The clue this time was: “Instrument depicted in paintings by Hals and Caravaggio. So you know it’s an old-timey instrument, four letters. Sometimes you know it starts with an L and/or ends with an E. The problem: is it a LUTE or a LYRE? If you’re lucky, the crosses will resolve it. Yesterday it was a LUTE.
Today’s puzzle was a little ho-hum. Hidden words for boss in an Undercover Boss theme. Best one was SHOCKING PINK, hiding kingpin. See it?
At 50D the clue was “Drink from a tub?” and the answer was MOONSHINE.
At 77A, it was nice to see TIN MEN (“1987 Dreyfuss/DeVito comedy”), a movie I showed in my law class from time to time on the topic of fraud. It’s about aluminum siding salesmen and some of the scenes show their shady sales pitches. A Congressional home improvement commission investigates. Barbara Hershey was the female lead. Remember her?
Does she look Jewish to you? Half Jewish? Jew-ish, George? Her dad was Jewish. Now that I see her, she’d be well-cast if a movie were ever made about my sister Bonnie, aleha hashalom.
Barbara just turned 78 this week, kinehora. She was in a movie as recently as 2022 (9 Bullets). She has one child, a son whose dad is David Carradine. They named him Free, but he changed it to Tom when he was nine, for obvious reasons.
In Tin Men, as Hershey and Dreyfuss are falling in love, a Sinatra song is playing and Dreyfuss tells her that when he was younger he’d ask girls to hear Sinatra with him and he’d take them to the alley near the door to the theater where Sinatra was playing and they’d stand out there and listen. “Not very high-class,” Dreyfuss admitted. And Hershey said: “I’d stand in the alley with you.” [Sigh.]
Work with leeks at all? I never have, but I learned something about them today. The clue at 8A was “Vegetables that should typically be sliced lengthwise before washing,” and the answer was LEEKS. Had no idea. This comes off Martha Stewart’s website:
Using a sharp chef’s knife, “cut the leek lengthwise, keeping the base or core intact and then gently opening the leek from the top and kind of fanning them out.” From there, since the leaves are still attached to the core, you are able to wash each layer well, under cold running water.
From today’s Met Diary, by Janet Nelson.
Dear Diary:
I was walking on 77th Street to catch a bus up Amsterdam Avenue. And just before I got to the corner, I saw a bus sail away.
While I waited for the next one, an older woman joined me.
“We’ve just missed one,” I said. “Eight minutes to go.”
She said she was just taking a rest, not catching a bus.
Her accent was definitely British. Being British myself, I asked what had brought her here, and we began to chat.
I said I had married a fabulous American and had been happy for 56 years.
“I married a really dreadful American,” she said.
My niece Tamar sent me a text yesterday wishing us a Happy Superb Owl Weekend. And that is what we at Owl Chatter wish for all of you! Thanks for dropping in. And Go Hawks! You got this, Sam.
The Wellington Files 