Sunday January 13th 2019, NY Times Crossword

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Time: 31:42
Sunday Average: 48:41
Best Sunday: 21:55

Apparently a T-NOTE is short for treasury note, which is a "marketable U.S. government debt security with a fixed interest rate and a maturity between one and 10 years." I had stations abbreviated as STaS instead of STNS, so that was the boring place that my puzzle finished up. I'm mostly surprised that despite doing the majority of this puzzle around 1am after several whiskeys, I still managed a decent time. I should try to avoid learning any lessons from this.

The crossword's title was "Parlor Tricks," which means we have some wordplay surrounding various ice cream parlor orders:

  • "At the ice cream parlor, the grand marshal ordered a..." PARADE FLOAT.
  • "The confirmed bachelor ordered a..." SINGLE MALT. Yum. 
  • "The crossing guard ordered a..." TRAFFIC CONE. How responsible. 
  • "The amateur singer ordered a..."KARAOKE BAR. Insofar as we are all amateur singers.
  • "The dental hygienist ordered a..." SUCTION CUP. I can't remember what dental hygienists use suction cups for, but I'll trust the NY Times on this one. 
  • "The Apollo Theater usher ordered a..." HARLEM SHAKE. Let's do our best to forget that particular fad. 
  • "The pastry chef ordered a..." BAKING SODA.
  • "And the homebody ordered an..." INSIDE SCOOP. They ended with my favorite, as I'm a confirmed homebody.
Since I didn't look at the puzzle title or read the first clue carefully, I spent too much time looking for alcoholic beverages and Single Malt did bear that out until that line of thought became untenable.

AERIFY sounds like a word that I would make up and use instead of "Vaporize," but apparently it's real. Tough cross with EWA Beach though. I was also extremely unsure about DEMIJOHNS, LOREN, and COHIBA, but somehow that all worked out. Interesting that Kim Jong-Un wouldn't be mentioned in the clue for DOTARD, since his use of it is the only reason the vast majority of us are aware of that word. 

I really need to watch "Frozen." That movie must be in the top 10 in terms of crossword mileage for a single film. 

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