Sunday December 23rd 2018, NY Times Crossword

Time: 34:58
Sunday Average: 48:50
Best Sunday: 21:55

Today’s a new setting for my crossword blog: Sunday morning at my parents’ house in Massachusetts and trying to avoid any thoughts of work and also struggling, as always, to remember if it’s EOE or EEO for “Antidiscriminatory abbr.”  The dogs are a bit INSANE, of course, and perhaps that THREW me off my game, but I still managed a restful morning and a respectable time.

I quite enjoyed the UNIONIZED theme, which is to say the un-“ion”-ized / “ion”-ized theme. Half of the theme answers were a common phrase with the letters “ion” removed while the other half had “ion” added.

• “How polka bands get their start?:” WITH ONE ACCORDION. I’m actually not too familiar with the phrase “with one accord,” but Google confirms that it’s real. 
• “Pontiff’s gold treasure?:” PAPAL BULLION. A “Papal bull” is a decree by the pope, so named because of the shape of the official seal. 
• “Query about the Freedom Caucus or Berniecrats?:” IS THAT A FACTION? I guess. 
• “Nickname for a hard-to-please girl?:” MISS IMPOSSIBLE. Sounds like a myth to me. But it reminded me that I’ve been meaning to watch the latest Mission Impossible film. 
• “Data maintained by competitive dentists?:” FILLING STATS. If my friends were dentists, they would probably keep these.
• “Speakers’ searches for just the right words?:” RHETORICAL QUESTS. I’m constantly on these since starting this blog.

I’ve hit the crosssword level where I”m automatically using NOVAE instead of NOVAs for “Star bursts,” so that’s something.

I’d heard of neither ATTU nor the Near Islands off the coast of Alaska, of which Attu is apparently the most remote. But if you’re interested in perusing Wikipedia articles, I’d really recommend the part about the invasion of Attu by Japanese forces in 1942 and its status throughout World War II.

I also didn’t know the YARROW plant, but it has some amazing folk names: “nosebleed plant, old man's pepper, devil's nettle, sanguinary, milfoil, soldier's woundwort, thousand-leaf, and thousand-seal.” Its cross with ERLE Halliburton (ugh) was a tough part of the grid for me.

“Unctuousness” for SMARM is a fantastic pair of words and also the vibe that I’m trying to avoid with this blog. No problem today since this was one of my favorite Sundays so far.