Wish for a romantic pairing between, in modern parlance / MON 12-30-24 / Purple yam common in Filipino cooking / Flower that reflects yellow when held under one's chin / Snakelike fish / Cry made while pointing / Waiter's imperative after bringing food

Constructor: Hannah Binney

Relative difficulty: Challenging (as a Downs-only solve)

THEME: HOLD WATER (61A: Make logical sense ... or what the ends of 18-, 23-, 38- and 51-Across do) — last words of themers are all things that can, indeed, HOLD WATER:

Theme answers:

• BUTTERCUP (18A: Flower that reflects yellow when held under one's chin)
• HOURGLASS (23A: Primitive timer)
• PRO BOWL (38A: N.F.L. all-star game)
• THINK TANK (51A: Place for policy wonks)

Word of the Day: UBE (63D: Purple yam common in Filipino cooking) —

Dioscorea alata – also called ube (/ˈuːbɛ, -beɪ/), ubi, purple yam, or greater yam, among many other names – is a species of yam (a tuber). The tubers are usually a vivid violet-purple to bright lavender in color (hence the common name), but some range in color from cream to plain white. It is sometimes confused with taro and the Okinawa sweet potato beniimo (紅芋) (Ipomoea batatas cv. Ayamurasaki), however D. alata is also grown in Okinawa. With its origins in the Asian and Oceanian tropics, D. alata has been known to humans since ancient times. // Because it has become naturalized following its origins in Asia, specifically the Philippines, through tropical South America, and the southeastern U.S., D. alata is referred to by many different names in these regions. In English alone, aside from purple yam, other common names include ten-months yam, water yam, white yam, winged yam, violet yam, Guyana arrowroot, or simply yam. (wikipedia)

• • •

Gah, I got done in by UBE, which is a bummer, because I have actually eaten UBE very recently. Well, UBE flavored chocolates, anyway. Our daughter recently brought home delicious chocolates from chocolatier Daniel Corpuz. I think she got them from the Union Square Holiday Market. I might have that part wrong. Looks like his regular location is on Canal Street. Annnnnnyway, fancy chocolates, I've had fancy chocolates before, they're generally fine, OK, but this guy's chocolates—his flavors—really stopped us in our tracks. Very special, subtle, beautiful. How does this relate to crosswords!? Well, Daniel Corpuz is Filipino-American, and one of his signature creations is [drumroll] the UBE bon-bon. Look at these babies!

UBE is just one of the many unconventional (to my palate) flavors he uses in his chocolates. Delicious. And yet today, I totally forgot UBE. I see "yam" in a clue and three letters, I go straight for OCA (it's a crossword thing—also a delicious thing, a very New Zealand thing, but that's another story). And remember I'm doing this Downs-only, so I'm getting no help from crosses. I can see OCA is wrong, and I get the answer down to -BE, but ... I go with OSAGE rather than USAGE, leaving me with OBE instead of UBE. And that was that. Downs-only failure. And that was after really struggling all over the place, in ways that I am not used to. Real real trouble parsing SO-AND-SO, made worse by the fact that, faced with HOL-WATER, can you guess what letter I assumed went there!?!? Yeah, you see it, I know you see it: I went with HOLY WATER. I mean, I was *super* confident about HOLY WATER. So that's one wrong letter in SO-AND-SO, and I only had two other letters that I was confident about (luckily those were correct). Lots of pulling letters and trying new letters, trial and error, before I got the huge "AHA" of SO-AND-SO ... only to have my elation come crashing down when I did not get the "Congratulations" message for successful completion. Had to check the Acrosses to see where I'd f'd up. UBE seems hard for a Monday. It's appeared only one other time in the Modern Era, and that was on a Saturday. But I'm not mad at the puzzle, I'm mad at me for enjoying delicious UBE chocolates and then totally blanking on UBE when I needed it. Real humbling experience today. But for real, if you're in the NYC area, you need to go get some Daniel Corpuz chocolates, ASAP. Phenomenal. 

The theme felt just SO-SO (side note: having both SO-SO and SO-AND-SO in the same grid feels not so good). Lots of vessels HOLD WATER. The progression here makes no logical sense to me. I guess they get ... what, bigger? ... as they go along, but CUP and GLASS are basically the same thing, and then BOWL? I guess if you're a dog, sure, water BOWL. And then TANK. I dunno. These vessels seem arbitrary. Also, these vessels hold lots of things besides water. The whole thing just didn't feel that tight. The grid as a whole, though, has a pretty springy, youthful feel, a fresh, up-to-date vibe that I kinda liked. I'm basically just proud that I nailed SHIP with no crosses, despite the fact that that bit of slang is not native to me At All (56D: Wish for a romantic pairing between, in modern parlance). I know it from my daughter and my students and, like, the air. The ambient digital world that surrounds me. I also loved MOCKTAILS and ROOTROT (I know, weird to love ROOTROT, but it's just a great-sounding term) (for context: my favorite word as a child was "mediocre"). And SO-AND-SO, despite being hard as hell to parse, is still a fun bit of euphemistic slang (43D: No-goodnik). I've got no complaints about the fill on this one. It's more challenging fare than you find in most Mondays, but it's also got more character than most Monday fill does.

There were a couple of clues, though, that just meant absolutely nothing to me. Why are you holding a BUTTERCUP (or any flower) under your chin? Like, why that location, specifically? Huge shrug there. Also, even huger shrug on the alleged expression, "All you need is love and a CAT." Uh, what? Who said that, when? It's an "old saying?" I'm old. And I have cats. Why haven't I heard it? Look, here's one of my cats now:

That's Alfie. Alfie hasn't heard this "old saying" either. It's not even a good saying. Where's the surprise, the twist, the wordplay? I just don't know why we're holding flowers under our chins and saying banal things about cats today. 

Bullets:

• 21D: Canadian province that's home to the Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo Jump World Heritage Site (ALBERTA) — I almost made "Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo Jump World Heritage Site" my Word of the Day today. I can't begin to imagine what that is. Ah, I should've guessed. Indigenous people used to kill bison by basically driving them off a cliff. So "jump" is maybe a little bit of a misnomer. 
• 57D: Pepsi or Coke (COLA) — man that SODA / COLA kealoa* really hits hard when you're solving Downs-only. Luckily, the adjacent answers eventually made it clear which one was correct today.
• 6D: Creatures that are actually black with white stripes (ZEBRAS) — so ... not PANDAS, then? No, I know PANDAS aren't really striped, or striped at all, I was just kidding, of course I didn't write in PANDAS, shut up.
• 10D: Advances (INROADS) — another one that was super-tough from a Downs-only perspective. Think of all the things that "Advances" can mean, and think how many of those you'd list before you got to INROADS.
• 13D: "I understand you" ("COPY") — again, wicked with no help from crosses. "I SEE"? No, the clue's got "I" in it, so that's not right. OK, I see it ends in "Y" so ... ---Y? ---Y? "OH MY!"? Was not aware we were on walkie-talkies. 
• 29D: Units of force (NEWTONS) — ah, Physics. The only thing I won a prize for in college! (bizarre fact—I had to take a science course to fulfill my Gen Ed requirements, so I went with Physics I my senior year and the homework was soooooooo much different from my regular humanities courses—a lot less reading, a lot more problem-solving—that I "procrastinated" from my "real" homework by doing my Physics homework and ended up with the highest grade in the class and they somehow gave a cash prize for that at graduation?? Did I fever-dream this? (I did not). Anyway, I managed to retain the fact that NEWTONS are a thing, though I did not remember it until I got that "W" from PRO BOWL.

• 40D: Cry made while pointing ("LOOK!") — more Downs-only trouble. I had the "K" but I thought the first letter was "O" because I had inferred 38-Across not as PRO BOWL but as PRO BONO (argh). So instead of pointing and going "LOOK!" I was pointing and going "OH, OK!" and go ahead, try it, it doesn't make much sense. I did it just now and laughed out loud. It's like you're making fun and / or complimenting someone's outfit. "OH, OK! Wow. Yeah, I see you! That is ... something!"
• 53D: "The early bird gets the worm," for one (ADAGE) — in which I discover a new kealoa*: the ADAGE / AXIOM kealoa*. As you can see, Downs-only was a struggle for me today.
• 31D: Snakelike fish (EELS) — a disguised plural? On top of everything else, Monday? Come on, man. 

On to the Holiday Pet Pics now (I opened up submissions again briefly yesterday but they're closed again now—y'all are enthusiastic about your pet pics!). 

Latte is a recent adoptee spending her first Holiday season in her new home. Have you ever tried gift-wrapping a cat? It's very tricky.

[Thanks, John]

Felix the Somnolent (a properly imperial title) enjoys reigning from underneath the tree, from which his ornament minions do his bidding.

[Thanks, Roger]

Lola has already been in Holiday Pet Pics this year, but she's cute, she can get away with it.

[Thanks, Mimi]

Bunny! Bunny is a recent rescue, and he is on a "serious weight reduction diet." Here's a picture of him *not* getting the "good treats." (He will remember this indignity for years to come)

[Thanks Joe (and Emily)]

Our last two goofy furballs are Winnie and Rocky. They are brother and sister. I'm told Winnie wanted to be on the blog, but her older brother Rocky did not give a damn. "I ain't waking up to pose for no damn 'blog'! Who even reads 'blogs' anymore? You people are weird. Just take your picture and leave me alone." Winnie says he doesn't really mean it, but I think he might.

[Thanks, Ben]

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. BIG IF TRUE !! —

*kealoa = a pair of words (normally short, common answers) that can be clued identically and that share at least one letter in common (in the same position). These are answers you can't just fill in quickly because two or more answers are viable, Even With One or More Letters In Place. From the classic [Mauna ___] KEA/LOA conundrum. See also, e.g. [Heaps] => ATON or ALOT, ["Git!"] => "SHOO" or "SCAT," etc.   

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