Wednesday August 15th 2018, NY Times Crosswrd

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Time: 15:15
Average Wednesday: 17:57
Best Wednesday: 7:24

Following a mad scramble through the Newark Airport to catch my flight to Delhi, I collapsed into my seat and compulsively refreshed the NY Times Crossword app until Wednesday's puzzle appeared. So, I suppose my crossword state was one of gradually diminishing anxiety, which itself is no small part of why I do crosswords in the first place. Of course, a typo delaying my puzzle completion momentarily revived that anxiety (I inexplicably had DOJ and JETS at the bottom, which looked fine when you don't remember the clues).

I needed every cross for USMA, because I was apparently content just knowing it as West Point. I'll take that bit of knowledge. Bebe Neuwirth was unknown to me, but as I'm learning now that I'm back to internet, hey, it's Lilith from Cheers! And Frasier, I suppose.  I just watched an episode of Cheers with the cold open of Lilith getting her fist stuck in her mouth.

I didn't have to wait long to see "Doctor Zhivago's love" Lara appear in one of these puzzles. This is the precise clue that taught me that you don't actually have to know things to do crosswords. While I had read Doctor Zhivago in college, I'd been confused that so many crossword folk seemed so familiar with a book that I don't think all that many people make it through. But there are just some crossword friendly names out there and I'm gradually learning them without knowing them. Likewise Omni, a hotel chain I know about only through crosswords. Finally, having been doing crosswords regularly for about a year now, I can apparently write in tase immediately from the clue "Zap, in a way." I could live without seeing that one for a while.

Anyway, I enjoyed the theme. All caps clues that are mixed up in some way with a revealer within the answer. Thus, "STREAM" becomes mixmaster because "stream" has the letters from "master" but "mixed." Fairly clean. I'll take it.

It's 11:30pm here in Delhi and I fly to Kolkata in 7 hours, so now is the time rinse off the airplane gunk, hopefully sleep for a few hours, and be ready to get to work in Kolkata the moment I land. Don't worry the hotel will have a doggy bag breakfast waiting for me at 4:30am. 

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