Utterance that's usually made in pairs / SAT 2-22-25 / Club purchase that comes with rules of etiquette / Protective hairstyle, familiarly / Loire Valley grape variety / Time to celebrate female friendship, in a neologism / Chicken ___, panko-breaded dish / Candies originally named for their imperfect shape / Zendaya's role on "Euphoria" / Great Plains aquifer that supplies over a quarter of U.S. irrigation water

Constructor: Rose Conlon

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: belated GALENTINE'S DAY (not really, but kinda felt like it) 

Word of the Day: OGALLALA (35D: Great Plains aquifer that supplies over a quarter of U.S. irrigation water) —

The Ogallala Aquifer (oh-gə-LAH-lə) is a shallow water table aquifer surrounded by sand, silt, clay, and gravel located beneath the Great Plains in the United States. As one of the world's largest aquifers, it underlies an area of approximately 174,000 sq mi (450,000 km²) in portions of eight states (South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas). It was named in 1898 by geologist N. H. Darton from its type locality near the town of Ogallala, Nebraska. The aquifer is part of the High Plains Aquifer System, and resides in the Ogallala Formation, which is the principal geologic unit underlying 80% of the High Plains.

Large-scale extraction for agricultural purposes started after World War II due partially to center pivot irrigation and to the adaptation of automotive engines to power groundwater wells. Today about 27% of the irrigated land in the entire United States lies over the aquifer, which yields about 30% of the ground water used for irrigation in the United States. The aquifer is at risk of over-extraction and pollution. Since 1950, agricultural irrigation has reduced the saturated volume of the aquifer by an estimated 9%. Once depleted, the aquifer will take over 6,000 years to replenish naturally through rainfall.

The aquifer system supplies drinking water to 82% of the 2.3 million people (1990 census) who live within the boundaries of the High Plains study area.

• • •

Well that was a new experience. It's one thing to come shooting out of a corner and across the grid—that great, elusive "whoosh" feeling—but quite another to come shooting out of a corner and across the grid as a literal HUMAN CANNONBALL (7D: Big shot performer?). This was easily my favorite moment of the puzzle, right here:

Full disclosure: this real-time screenshot of my solve is not "real." I was going to do the screenshot, then noticed that I had ACES where AYES was (now) clearly supposed to go (5D: Pros). So I changed it. Then put the cursor back where it was, at the end of HUMAN CANNONBALL. Yes, like Holly Hunter in Broadcast News, I hate fraud so much that I'm actually disclosing the tiny, completely insignificant way in which the above grid was doctored. Better to just leave mistakes in place. (This is the part of blogging that normally takes place solely in my head, not on the page ... not sure what's going on this morning). Anyway: Whoosh. Big Whoosh. A real feeling of breakthrough, with a little smile tacked on. Good stuff. 

Lots of other good stuff in this grid, which had a decidedly younger (than me), slightly female vibe. The latter is probably due entirely to GALENTINE'S DAY (a thing I forgot existed) (37A: Time to celebrate female friendship, in a neologism). Somehow, that one answer is coloring how I'm reading and hearing a lot of the terms in the grid, especially the colloquial stuff. I just assume a group of young women have gone out on the town, you know, "to celebrate female friendship," and so that's the context in which I hear the exclamations and slang and what not—stuff like "I HATE YOU!" (as a compliment) and "OH, DAMN" (as an expression of amazement). Maybe the ladies are at a strip club getting LAP DANCEs, I don't know—you never know what people's LOVE LANGUAGES are going to be—but whatever was going on, people seemed to be having a good time.

The difficulty level was sufficient today. It's possible that this played easier than a typical Saturday, but I got stuck enough, and had to fight enough, that I wasn't disappointed. Hardest parts for me were the NW (the "I HATE" part of "I HATE YOU" and the MATH part of MATH TEAM), and then the GREEN part of GREEN ANACONDA. Getting "I HATE YOU" gave me a good aha feeling. Getting MATH TEAM ... didn't. Do math teams "reckon"? Is "reckoning" supposed to be a synonym for "solving" ... math problems? I can see how "day of reckoning" is tempting wordplay, but that didn't quite work for me. And GREEN ANACONDA, LOL, they come in different colors? I know ANACONDA. Beyond that ... you could put any word in front of ANACONDA, tell me it was a species, and I'd believe you. A wordlist definitely barfed up that term. But whatever, it's real, I assume, and crosses exist, so no (big) problem.

I also could not remember GAMAY (45D: Loire Valley grape variety). Just blanked. Wanted GANAY at some point, why? GAMAY is a grape I've heard of but ... nope, didn't stick. Familiarish, but not familiar enough. I also couldn't spell the Great Plains aquifer, OGALLALA (are "L"s double, or single, when?, etc.). Doesn't help that the Great Plains tribe is called OGLALA (subtribe of the Lakota, actually). This particular spelling challenge had me with "L"s and "A"s in the wrong places at various points, resulting in wrong answers like AFRO instead of LOCS at 46A: Protective hairstyle, familiarly, and ... well, just that wrong answer, I guess. Also wrong down there, AISLE instead of COACH (48D: Certain airplane seating), and SEA instead of SHE (61A: ___-wolf), which I pulled quickly because I remembered that I had already played SEA (at 25D: Huge quantity, it turns out). ENDS for CADS (34D: Heels) was my only other out-and-out error.

Other things:

• 1A: Utterance that's usually made in pairs (TSK) — got it ... but then immediately doubted it, because TUT works just as well. Anyway, neither of them helped with crosses (though that "K" really should've gotten me KATSU—mad at myself for not immediately remembering KATSU) (3D: Chicken ___, panko-breaded dish)
• 6A: Classic stop on the vaudeville circuit (PEORIA) — "but will it play in PEORIA?" is a question I remember hearing ... somehow ... in the past ... when pop culture still had a memory of vaudeville. Maybe on The Love Boat?
• 18A: How criticism of a pastry chef might be delivered? (TARTLY) — good one
• 31A: Zendaya's role on "Euphoria" (RUE) — one of those answers that makes the puzzle feel like it skews younger (than me). No interest in this show, no idea what characters' names are. Last RUE I knew was in ... Hunger Games, right? Yes. Before that, it was just McClanahan. She was definitely on The Love Boat, at least once.

• 36A: Acts of service and words of affirmation, for two (LOVE LANGUAGES) — I like the answer, but the clue is dull as dishwater. I wanted more vivid or specific or relatable LOVE LANGUAGES, like ... I dunno, "Baking" or "Foot Massages" or "Sarcasm." The ones in the clue are just lifted from the standard "Five Love Languages," which comes from a book by Gary Chapman, whoever that is, yawn

• 10D: Like the exterior columns at the Parthenon (DORIC) — so ... not Corinthian, then? Got it. 
• 12D: Candies originally named for their imperfect shape (MILK DUDS) — ok so you know how most things people call "fun facts" are just "facts" and not "fun"? Well this is a fun fact. Legitimately fun. Revelatory.
• 58D: Club purchase that comes with rules of etiquette (LAP DANCE) — LOL when I finally got this, as I was picturing like a tennis or golf club, and imagining "comes with" meant that they literally handed out a booklet or whatever. Pretty sure that's not what's happening in the strip club. If it's about strip clubs and it's not in ANORA (which still somehow hasn't appeared in the NYTXW), then I don't know about it.
• 51D: Down Under wear (UGGS) — they ... they wear these all over. Famously. Everywhere. Here there everywhere. Yes, originated Down Under, but ... weird clue. Although it did lead me to this great line from wikipedia: "In Australia, [UGGS] are worn predominantly as slippers and often associated with daggy fashion sense and bogan culture." DAGGY! BOGAN! Please, can we? We've run out of good U.S. slang. Time to go ... down under.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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