25:22 – which is actually faster than yesterday’s and 4 minutes under my average for my current 103 day streak. It felt much longer, as I started with little more than BANFF and BOSC after the first pass. Even after having MUESLI for breakfast. Well, I also had “hourglass” and “benefatto” (which is what my Fitbit tells me when I hit 250 steps in an hour), but those were ULTRA not VERY NICE. Other missed FIRSTSTEPs: TETE, ADD, PORK… and HARP in the wrong place…
I got ETHEL and ARAL and the BEAV easily enough, but that corner was otherwise a mystery for a good minute. I was mystified that SMORES didn’t fit (can you make just one?) and VWBUS didn’t seem to fit until I realized “yogurt” (which I also had for breakfast) was wrong, too.
Ok, yeah DYLAN of course was a first pass, too. And REBA only took a couple seconds of thought.
As a themeless Friday goes, it was pretty blah. RASHGUARD was one of the last entries I figured out, although FIRSTSTEP came pretty early on. POLARBEARPLUNGE was cute, I’ll give it that, although they’re called Walruses in Russia.
There was so much delicious in this puzzle with DR PEPPER crossing PAD THAI. And BOSC and SMORE and VEAL 😋
TIL:
– ETHEL was Lucy’s landlord! I was wondering the other day what she and Fred did for cash.
– In someone’s universe, SPELL can have the meaning of “Give a breather”
– In that same person’s universe, DUE can have the meaning of “Straight”
– How to pronounce Jung
That’s it, really. That Sky News clip made me very happy. Love seeing little windows of elderly Russian people living their best lives!