Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Anniversary

Constructor: Peter A. Collins

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: To get from GERMINATE to TERMINATE you CHANGE / ONE / LETTER

Word of the Day: TYRESE Gibson (46D: "2 Fast 2 Furious co-star Gibson) —

Tyrese Darnell Gibson (born December 30, 1978), also known simply as Tyrese, is an American Grammy-nominatedR&B singer-songwriter, rapper, actor, author, television producer, former fashion model and MTV VJ. He is best known for his role as Roman Pearce in the Fast and Furious series. After releasing several albums, he transitioned into films, with lead roles in several major Hollywood releases. (wikipedia)

• • •

A very easy themeless that actually had a theme that actually made the puzzle even easier than it would've been had it been an actual themeless. I did this one faster than I did the "E.T." on Tuesday. That's how easy this was (or how oddly clunky the "E.T."puzzle was). I guess GERMINATE and TERMINATE are opposites, in a way, so you start with one and end with another and that is somehow fitting. OK. Why not? Puzzle seems just fine to me. Breezy and inoffensive. Yes, I know, nobody loves ALOES, but it's an outlier in its ugliness today. Love TAG TEAM and, strangely, CONDO FEE. The latter just seems like a nice invention. Something you'd improvise to get a corner to work. No idea if it's original and am not taking the time to look it up. Either way, I like it. A few proper noun pits to fall into, but I only got tripped up once or twice. LUCIA was a bit of a stumper—big surprise; OPERA shmopera. Never heard of Robert W. Service's "The Cremation of Sam MCGEE." Barely heard of Robert W. Service. Needed every cross for ASHER. Don't read Marvel Comics and yet somehow intuited NATALIA. In other comix clues, "AKIRA" is right in my wheelhouse (7D: Landmark anime film of 1988). A class manga and anime. Also, TYRESE Gibson wrote a comic once. True story. Pretty sure I own the first issue.

[INIGO! Montoya, swordsman in "The Princess Bride"]

I like DOMESTIC PARTNER. But I *love* my wife, Penelope, to whom I have been married ten years, as of ... right now. Today. Whatever bad that has happened or will happen in my life is, I assure you, completely offset by the ridiculous, unmerited good fortune I have had in meeting and marrying my wife. At our wedding I said "Everything about my life is better because of her," and I could barely get the sentence out without crying. I wouldn't have much more luck today. I could give you a list of complaints about my life a mile long—my stupid shoulder appears to be (painfully) frozen and I have a stack of 90 papers waiting to be (ughhhhh) graded and are they really gonna break the final season of "Mad Men" into *two* mini-seasons and stretch it out til 2015!? WTF!?—but all of it just looks silly when my wife and daughter are sitting there in the "Good" column. So Happy 10th Anniversary to my much, much better half. This paragraph notwithstanding, words can't express my joy and gratitude.