Lip-plumping injection / MON 12-16-24 / Tidbit in a nutritious pudding / Blingy piece of neckwear / Department handling media inquiries / Sound of an unfortunate bird poop landing / Packaging for a stack of cookies

Constructor: Ailee Yoshida

Relative difficulty: Medium (solved Downs-only)

THEME: COFFEE BREAK (34A: Timeout at work ... as represented visually by this puzzle's circled letters) — circled letters spell out the names of coffee drinks, which are "broken" across two different Across answers:

Theme answers:

• SPLAT / TELL (17A: Sound of an unfortunate bird poop landing / 18A: Blab)
• RES / PRESS OFFICE (22A: Hi-___ image / 23A: Department handling media inquiries)
• MISS AMERICA / NOD (48A: Competition whose winner gets a tiara and a sash / 52A: Gesture of approval)
• ELMO / CHAIN (56A: Muppet with his own "world" on "Sesame Street" / 57A: Blingy piece of neckwear)

Word of the Day: Teddy Grahams (59A: Teddy Grahams shape => BEAR) —

Teddy Grahams are bear-shaped graham cracker snacks created by Nabisco. Introduced in 1988, Teddy Grahams come in two distinct shapes: bear with arms up and legs closed, and bears with legs open and arms down. Along with variations with arms up, legs together, and arms down legs apart. When first introduced, Teddy Grahams were available in honey, cinnamon, and chocolate flavors. Since then, they have added chocolatey chip as one of the four main varieties. They also had vanilla, banana, birthday cake, mixed berry, strawberry banana, and apple flavors but they have been discontinued. [...] In a 1992 New York Times article, Eating Well, Marian Burros pointed out that Teddy Grahams use more bleached flour than actual whole wheat graham flour.^[2] Nabisco later increased the amount of whole grain flour used in the snack. [...] A chocolate chip, birthday cake and oatmeal variety were introduced as a cereal called Teddy grahams Breakfast Bears in the 90s however this cereal got bad reviews because it got too soggy in milk. (wikipedia)

• • •

A lot of circles for very little payoff. The idea is fine, visually, but it doesn't make for very interesting theme answers (PRESS OFFICE? MISS AMERICA? Kind of meh). The grid is noticeably light on longer fill. About as light as any grid I've ever seen. Only three answers in the whole thing longer than eight letters. Bizarre. There are these banks of somewhat longer (7+) answers in the NW and SE—those give the grid at least a little bit of color and flavor. But overall, it's pretty flat. As for the coffee "breaks," they're a fine, highly representative group. Not so fond of AMERICA/NO as a themer since the "break" doesn't "break" the answer enough for my tastes. That is, AMERICA is a standalone word, not "hidden" inside any longer answer, and since it's etymologically related to the AMERICANO (AMERICANO being simply the Italian word for "American," in fact), the "break" here doesn't disguise the drink nearly enough. All the other drinks get well and truly broken and hidden inside their respective answers, but AMERICA isn't hiding at all. The other coffee name parts are all decidedly *parts*, not free-standing words like AMERICA. There's just something ... off about it. A certain lack of ELEGANCE. But on the whole the puzzle isn't bad. The concept is solid, and the execution is fair. Very averageish, I'd say.

Solving Downs-only looked like it might be a little harrowing today, what with those banks of long Downs in the NW and SE staring me ... down. As a rule, the shorter the answer, the easier it is to get with no crosses in place, so a bank of 7+ answers (when you're solving Downs-only) is daunting. But I weirdly went right through that NW corner without hesitation. I wasn't sure of my answers, but when I looked back, everything worked. Got 'em all on my first guess (UNSCREW, "SO I HEAR," ARTISTIC, AHA). After that initial success, things got a bit hairier. ATTEST for ASSERT threw a wrench in the works (4D: Declare), and CHIASEED was very hard to parse. Didn't look like any word that I knew for a while (because it was *two* words). Sincerely thought "CHIASTIC?! That is a ... high-end word for a Monday." And yeah, no, not CHIASTIC ("characterized by chiasmus; having or denoting a structure in which words are repeated in reverse order"—Oxford Languages). Strangely, the smaller NE and SW corners ended up being much harder for me today than their bigger counterparts. Even more strangely, this English professor (poetry teacher, even) had one of his biggest Downs-only struggles with ... POETIC (9D: Like lines / that rhyme / and keep / good time). Me: "Oh, that's IAMBIC." Because that clue is literally IAMBIC. When you call something, anything, POETIC, you are not referring to its meter or rhyme (as poetry is frequently neither metrical nor rhyming), but to the heightened quality of its language. So "bah!" to that clue. The other tricky one for me up there was SPLEEN, which I had as CHOLER (11D: Bad temper). So ... IAMBIC CHOLER. There's a band name for you. Also, the wrong-answer double-whammy that made the NE kind of tough. 

The hardest answer for me, though, was the last thing I got: FILLER (43D: Lip-plumping injection). When neither BOTOX nor COLLAGEN fit, I was plum(p) out of ideas. FILLER is such a non-lip-specific word, I never would've guessed. Also, IFI (!?!?!). No way I was going to infer that "F" in that position. Staring at I-I, I thought "well, ICI, that's possible ... I doubt they'd bring back IDI Amin, but maybe ... IBI seems a bit *too* Latin for a Monday ... is it a Roman numeral "three," a pasta suffix? I have no idea." PLOPS could've been PROPS (or, I suppose, POOPS). DEET came out of left field (60A: Ingredient in bug spray), as I was expecting DIET or DUET. ERR could've been EAR. Eventually, ELMO could not be denied (thank god I knew ISOMER), and E-R could be only two things, so when I toggled in "R" after putting in the "L" from ELMO, all of a sudden there it was: FILLER. Weird how an inconsequential-seeming answer can cause so much trouble. 

Was slightly surprised to see ILIUM on a Monday (51D: Pelvic bone). That's an alternate name for the ancient city of Troy, so I had this moment of doubt: "Do the bone and the city have the same spelling?" They do. I had KEEN EYES before KEENNESS (37D: Observant quality). Earlier, I had UTILE for OF USE (21D: Coming in handy). I think that's it for missteps. That's plenty. The coffee stuff was super-easy today, but those NE and SW corners, they brought a little heat, and for that I was grateful today. Nice to have that Downs-only challenge, especially when the puzzle itself isn't particularly entertaining. 

Bullet points:

• 15A: What cilantro tastes like to some people (SOAP) — I feel bad for you people. Cilantro absolutely rules.Mexican and Thai food would be so much sadder without it. I like this clue—so much more interesting than [Daytime TV staple] or [Hand sanitizer alternative] (the last two clues we've had for SOAP).
• 19A: Tidbit in a nutritious pudding (CHIA SEED) — the very phrase "nutritious pudding" turns my stomach a little. It's a word-sound + imagined consistency issue. "Nutritious pudding" is my soapy cilantro. No thanks.
• 45A: Prefix with -ceratops (NEO) — just kidding, it's ECO.
• 46A: Packaging for a stack of cookies (SLEEVE) — a "stack" is vertical be def, whereas a SLEEVE is not. You put them in a SLEEVE so that they stay together in a column even when they are not vertical (as mostly they are not, in packaging and shipping etc.). Would've changed "stack" to "column" here. You get the alliteration to boot.

• 57A: Blingy piece of neckwear (CHAIN) — Potentially, I guess, though probably the vast majority of CHAINs that people wear are not very "blingy." I strongly associate "bling" with diamonds, or at least some kind of gem, and plenty of chains out there don't have any rocks on them at all. 

• 

  [not my eagles, but a 
  good likeness]

  31D: Eagle's nest (AERIE) — We saw three bald eagles yesterday! Sorry, I got excited there. It's not *terribly* unusual to see them here, along the Susquehanna or Chenango, but three in one day, man, that was exhilarating. One flew by pretty quickly before ascending to a high tree top over the river and perching. Watching. Waiting. Hunting. The other two were just hanging out together in a bare tree right near the side of the highway on our way to Owego. Two giant bald eagles just sitting on different branches, having a wee chat. My wife: "They don't even know they're bald eagles." I knew exactly what she meant. So happy to live in this probably brief window of bald eagle recovery. When I was a kid, and indeed the whole latter part of the 20th century, they were endangered. But then Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, DDT bans, etc. etc. and here we are, with three bald eagles flying around my absolutely ordinary Sunday. Amazing. 

Let's do some more Holiday Pet Pics now

We got a handful of tree guarders today. Two cats who seem to be approaching their jobs with varying degrees of seriousness. Fifi here is alert, attentive, present, hello...

[Thanks, Christine]

Whereas Socrates here is more "meh, whatever, I'm just gonna lie down, they ain't payin' me enough for vigilance"

[Thanks, Alan]

And then there's Henry. What happened to the tree, Henry? You were supposed to be guarding it, Henry. Why is it so small now? What happened to the real tree? Were you off straightening your bow tie again, Henry? (A: yes, yes he was)

[Thanks, Mary]

Here's Zack the cockapoo. Zack cannot be trusted to guard anything. Zack is only good for snuggling and decorating. That's a lot, Zack! Good boy.

[Thanks, Uma & Christian]

And finally today, there's Bailey, looking very smart in her tartan coat. This baby belongs to frequent blog commenter Gary Jugert. I'll let him introduce her:

This breathtaking specimen is our New Mexican cattle dog Bailey. She is deaf. She is 14. A couple of years ago she needed most of her teeth removed. She sleeps about 20 hours a day, loves her afternoon walk, and is rather bossy about treats. She moved in with us when my mother-in-law began her struggles with Alzheimer's. Bailey might not win the Christmas beauty pageant, but she is a sweet little heart worm, and makes life here lovelier. 

[Thanks, Gary]

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]