Tuesday 7 Dec 2021 - The Pilot Journey

 

Author: Margaret Seikel

Lou

Duration: 21:54 min.
Difficulty: Easy
Hotel: Trivago


Hi! Welcome to our inaugural post! My best friend Ash and I live on separate coasts but we both love crosswords and back when we were housemates we'd do them together regularly. We've continued to do them together since I moved across the USA and we finally decided to start this blog, chronicling our misadventures.


So let's get into it! Here are my thoughts - Overall, the puzzle was rather easy (which is something I never thought I'd say about anything but a Monday...but here we are, makin' moves). Usually, as we get later on in the week there are more and more proper nouns speckled in which always trips me up. Today, I'm proud to say thanks to my millennial roots I knew of ILANA Glazer (29A: Actress Glazer of "Broad City") and didn't have to guess at that one!

Less impressive, I had no idea what the first name of the Astronaut Hubble (54A) was, but after I got the DW and N I cobbled together 'EDWIN'. One of the main things crosswording has taught me is you don't need to know the name of someone, you just gotta learn to let go and guess. I was a big fan of the theme, probably because growing up my mom would buy my sisters and I matching pj's the night before Christmas, great for those "surprise" photos as the kids come down the stairs XMAS morning. I'm a dud at getting themes, Ashley is the pro there, so I didn't even clue into the fact that all the themers had two words that started with P and J. However, post-puzzle, armed with that knowledge, I found that I rather liked the cleverness of it! Each theme had a matching first P and second J, that's pretty cute. I had POLITICAL PUNDIT (37A: Close follower of the "horse race") at first - which really messed stuff up for me for a while because the UN and I were correct either way and it kind of worked with 31D: Iconic encouragement from Tim Gunn on "Project Runway" which I thought was MADE IT WORK until I finally got JUNKIE and it changed to MAKE IT WORK. Had GMC instead of GNC (6A: Big inits. in protein powder), which I'm not proud of and I'm sure Ash got immediately. We're a couple of workout buffs but she's more in-the-know with powder brands. Finally, a personal favorite and a slight pun, NICE (11D: Pleasant French city?) made me crack a smile.


Ash

Duration: 12:00 min.
Difficulty: Lemon Squeezy
Diving in to our first blog post: Priceless


We're here! Our first post! I'll start by saying there are two types of extremely fun puzzles. 1) The ones with amazing themes that make you ponder and scheme until your aha! moment when it all clicks together beautifully, and 2) the easy puzzles where answers spill out of you and you finish in 12 minutes feeling like a Crossword Goddess. Can you guess which one this was for me?! Neither of us needed each other's help on this one, which means there weren't any overly tricky puns or snags for Lou to misinterpret (love you <3). I had STOIC before STONY, which is just how I've seen '41A: Poker-faced' clued most often. It was easy enough to realize my mistake when I went to INSPECT[S] (38D: Checks out). Matching with Lou's millennial energy, I watched countless hours of Project Runway growing up so I always know how to MAKE IT WORK. A special shout out to my older brother for teaching me at an early age what a half NELSON was (8D: Half____ (wrestling hold)). Glad he never went MMA (30A: U.F.C. sport) on me.

The themers really rolled off the tongue for me today. I had PICKLE JUICE and PIZZA JOINT and immediately knew there was a PJ theme going on. I love the PRIVATE JET clue, especially because some zennial slang has surfaced lately calling them PJs (what show was I watching?). Took me longer than I'd like to admit to get the MATCHING part though, I wanted them to be CHRISTMAS PJS or something. Speaking of Christmas, I just booked my flight home yesterday! Can't wait to break out the NECK PILLOW (3D: Aid for sleeping on a plane) because the only available flights are always at either 10pm or 6am. What's new? I'll need my caffeine, please no DECAF (45A: Late-night coffee order). Anyways...of course I got GNC off the bat Lou, I've spent too much money there to not. And EDWIN, nerd for life! But don't FRET (62A: worry) Lou, you'll get it next time!





Much love and thanks for joining us on this (pilot) journey!
Lou & Ash