"Toodle-oo!" / TUES 2-28-23 / Y's in roads / Psychedelic fungus, slangily / Calc. for many an engineering major

Hello, everyone, it’s Clare for the last Tuesday — and last day — of February! Hope that everyone had a good month and that your weather wasn’t too wonky. In DC, it was 80 degrees one day — and then snowing two days later. I’m a bit more settled in my new place now, have (mostly) gotten rid of the endless amounts of cardboard that piled up, and have become a pro at using a drill and hanging curtains. I’ve been staying pretty busy with work and watching sports and biking and climbing and hoping that the weather turns just a biiiit nicer here soon! (More 80-degree days with no humidity, please!) 

Anywho, on to the puzzle…

Constructor: Gia Bosko

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: GREEN EGGS AND HAM (38A: Colorful meal in a Dr. Seuss story) — Four of the theme answers are lines from the children’s book Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss about where one might eat this dish, and one theme answer is the name of the protagonist in the story

Theme answers:

• IN THE RAIN (17A: One way 38-Across is offered) 
• ON A BOAT (26A: Another way 38-Across is offered) 
• IN A TREE (53A: Another way 38-Across is offered) 
• WITH A GOAT (66A: Another way 38-Across is offered) 
• SAM I AM (48D: One who won't take no for an answer regarding 38-Across)

Word of the Day: SLOE (1A: Gin-flavoring fruit) —

Prunus spinosa, called blackthorn or sloe, is a species of flowering plant in the rose family Rosaceae. The species is native to Europe, western Asia, and regionally in northwest Africa. It is locally naturalized in New Zealand, Tasmania, and the Pacific Northwest and New England regions of the United States. The fruits are used to make sloe gin in Britain and patxaran in Spain. The wood is used to make walking sticks, including the Irish shillelagh. (Wiki)

• • •

This was a pretty decent puzzle, especially for a debut (from Gia Bosko). I smiled when I saw the theme and had fun reminiscing about the book — while simultaneously trying to solve the puzzle. It was just cute and light. I will say the lines chosen — and in this particular order — felt a tad random, and their placement in the puzzle made me feel like I was jumping around a lot and didn’t quite flow. 

I liked a lot of the words and clues in the puzzle. Aside from the crosswordese three-letter words in the east and west of the puzzle (bookended by RBG and MLK), there wasn’t too much we see often in the way of clues/answers. That made the puzzle slightly more challenging at times but also made it more intriguing. FORSAKEN (9D: Abandoned) was a good, long down. SHROOM (5D: Psychedelic fungus, slangily) was likewise a fun word for the puzzle. SLAIN (68A: Like the dragon at the end of a hero's tale) was a cute clue/answer combo. I liked 27D: Swallows, e.g. as BIRDS once I finally figured out the clue was referring to birds and not the act of swallowing. The clue for ROGET (32D: Name that's practically synonymous with synonyms) was fun, amusing, diverting, and pleasing. And you didn’t think I’d forget to bring up KOREAN pop (12D: The "K" of K-pop), did you?! K-pop is an amazing genre, and everyone on the planet should check out (and ultimately fall in love with) BTS. [Here’s one of my favorite songs by them, just for kicks.] 

I felt like I should’ve been faster at solving, but I kept having to jump around and also got tripped up on a few key sections. I actually watched some of the Popeye cartoons, but I’ve never heard the name of the creator Elzie SEGAR (48D) before. (He died in 1938.) I similarly got tripped up by MUD EEL (44A: Swamp-dwelling salamander), which I’d never heard of; I couldn’t wrap my head around that being two words and finished the puzzle thinking, “What the heck is a mudeel?” How would you even pronounce “mudeel”? 

I have a bone to pick with the word KEMPT (71A: Neat and tidy). I know it’s technically a word, but I really don’t think it’s used much, and it’s a pretty ugly word. Sure, things are “unkempt,” but KEMPT? That feels very wrong. I felt the same about REPRO (19A: Not an original) and hated RONA (61D: Covid-19) as a nickname for COVID. I can’t quite explain it, but I had a visceral reaction to seeing that in the puzzle. 

I didn’t mean to end on a dour note there. But, overall, I did still enjoy the puzzle!

Misc.:

• Absolutely loved seeing Carey ELWES (64D), star of maybe my favorite movie of all time (“The Princess Bride”) and also an amazing guest star of one of my favorite shows of all time (“Psych”), among many other roles. 
• Anyone else have an annoying gold banner at the top of their webpage advertising an all access sale? It kept messing with my screen and how I’d view the puzzle. 
• I had a hard time getting 59D: Knucklehead as SIMP, because my most-known definition of SIMP is closer to the Urban Dictionary one, and I completely forgot that a SIMP could also be a knucklehead/foolish person. 
• I was chopping an ONION (16A: Producer of tears in the kitchen) last night for dinner, and it definitely made me cry. I’ve never been good at dealing with onions, and my eyes will legitimately always tear up and feel like they’re burning. I’ve tried so many tricks for cutting them, too, but none of them work consistently for me, although my sister swears by having a wet paper towel on the cutting board near the onion. 
• Fun fact of the day… As we know, TMI (67D: "Eww! I didn't need to know that!") stands for “too much information” and is often something that’s overly personal/gross. I learned from watching Korean media, though, that people in Korea seem to use TMI differently — it’s used more to just share random facts about their day rather than anything overly personal. I figured that out when someone said their TMI was what they had for breakfast, and I was very confused.
• Another fun fact for today from the GREEN EGGS AND HAM Wikipedia page: "The vocabulary of the text consists of just 50 words and was the result of a bet between Seuss and Bennett Cerf, Dr. Seuss's publisher, that Seuss (after completing “The Cat in the Hat” using 236 words) could not complete an entire book without exceeding that limit. The 50 words are: a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you. "Anywhere" is the only word used that has more than one syllable."

And that's all from me. See you in March!

Signed, Clare, a rare bear sitting over there in a chair playing solitaire, with wet hair. So there.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]