Ovid's book of love poetry / MON 7-2-12 / 1970s TV's Ramsey / Actor John of Sands of Iwo Jima / Small lab container

Hi Rex Parker fans...we are Rex's BFF's (Liz and Jenny), and we will be blogging to you for the next 4 Mondays, because, let's face it, Monday is all we can manage without Rex's help.  Rex is flying to New Zealand as we speak.  He won't even see this blog, because he left on Sunday, arrives on Tuesday, and flies right through Monday, July 2.  So let's get started.  Disclaimer: we have never blogged before and are amateur solvers, so please go easy on us with your comments.

Constructor: Bernice Gordon (she's 98 years old!!)

Relative difficulty: Easy Peasy

THEME: ANAGRAMS — Anagrams...at least we think that's what they're called. It's the kind of puzzle where the letters of one word of are rearranged to spell a different word.

Word of the Day: DERECHO —

derecho (Spanish: derecho "straight", pronounced [de̞ˈɾe̞tʃo̞]^[1]), is a widespread and long-lived, violent convectively induced straight-line windstorm that is associated with a fast-moving band of severe thunderstorms in the form of a squall lineusually taking the form of a bow echo. Derechos blow in the direction of movement of their associated storms, similar to a gust front, except that the wind is sustained and generally increases in strength behind the "gust" front. A warm weather phenomenon, derechos occur mostly in summer, especially June and July in the Northern Hemisphere. They can occur at any time of the year and occur as frequently at night as in the daylight hours.

This word appears nowhere in the puzzle. And as far as Rex knows, has never appeared in a puzzle ever. But get this, WE TAUGHT THIS WORD TO REX PARKER!!! THE 31ST GREATEST CROSSWORD PUZZLE SOLVER IN THE UNIVERSE!!! You may be wondering why we taught him this word??? Well, we experienced a DERECHO in the mid-Atlantic region on Friday evening. One of us (Jenny, not Liz), is still without power as a result of the DERECHO, as are hundreds of thousand of hot and sweaty and miserable people throughout the Baltimore/Washington Metropolitan area.

If you don't have power, we highly suggest margarita popsicles. They're cool, refreshing, and if you eat enough, you'll forget how miserable you are!!

• • •

Theme answers:

• 20A. [French writer's apprehension by the police?] - Sartre's Arrest
• 26A. [French writer's state of drunkenness?] - Proust's Stupor
• 43A. [French writer's two-under-par holes?] - Lesage's Eagles
• 49A. [French writer's boardwalk booth operator?] - Racine's Carnies

We tried to embed the theme song from the 1986 movie "Legal Eagles" here, because 43A made us think of that, but, we didn't know how. Anyway, the song is "Love Touch," by Rod Stewart, and it's a total 1980's synthesizer classic. Hopefully we'll get this figured out by next monday, or maybe PuzzleGirl or Doug can fix this for us!

Bullets:

• 60A. EARL [___ of Sandwich?] - (our 1st grade librarian Mrs. Rowles read us a book about the Earl of Sandwich, and we've never forgotten it)
• 58A. ANTI [Prefix with disestablishmentarianism?] - (a vocabulary word in Mrs. Fogg's 4th grade)
• 41D. [What WAS I thinking?!?] - This about sums up how we were feeling when it was time to write the blog.

See ya next week!!

Signed, Liz and Jenny, Rex Parker's BFF's