NYT Crossword Puzzle

When I was a kid, there was a phrase that was the gold standard for someone's intellect. If someone was exceptionally sharp, people said of them: "She solves the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle each week. In ink."

The Times has changed along with the rest of the world, and it is no longer required to use ink, or any other physical marking device to fill out the puzzles - they have an app. As a retirement gift to myself, I bought me a subscription.

When I started working on the puzzles, two years ago, I could pretty much always fill in Monday's grid with no problem. Tuesday, I could do with some help from Google, Wednesday and Sunday were a bit iffy. Thursday, Friday and Saturday were beyond me. (The puzzles start with easy ones on Monday, then get progressively more difficult through the week, with Sunday's puzzle being a larger (thus taking longer to reason through) version of the grid, at the difficulty level of  Wednesday puzzles.)

Well, practice helps, and over time, I've gotten better and better at solving the puzzles. I do use Google to help me along, but I have rules for myself. Because the crossword puzzle is so popular, all you have to do is type in the clue, and the answer will pop up. I don't look at those sites, that's cheating. But I figure looking up the winner of the 2012 Best Actor award, or the MVP player in the 1994 World Series, or any other answer I could look up in my non-existent set of encyclopedias, is fair game. I figure this partly because the help guidelines from the NYT say this sort of lookup is OK, and partly because I'd never solve the end-of-the-week puzzles without the help.

Like most apps out there, this one has a hook. If you solve the puzzle, without having the app help you by checking for wrong answers, on the same day the puzzle is published, you get a gold star. If you check your answers partway through, or do the puzzle later in the week, you just get a blue star. And, it keeps track of your consecutive gold star days.

Not that I'm competitive with myself or anything, but this challenge is tailor-made for me. At first, I had only two day streaks (Monday/Tuesday puzzles) in my column. Then, those Wednesday puzzles started to be solvable, and my streak made it to four days.

One magic day, I was able to work my way through a Thursday puzzle; Friday and Saturday fell under my power shortly thereafter. (There is obviously a trick to these things...) My winning streaks got longer - 8 days, then 14, then 30! 

I started a new streak in early January of this year. I was able to figure out puzzle, after puzzle, after puzzle. Quite proud of myself, I was, and I made it 146 days before my brain just wouldn't work through a Friday puzzle. I tried doing it that morning, got stuck. I went back to it in the afternoon (usually a good way to work through a stuck point) with no luck. Later that evening, I tried again - same result. I went to bed with my shoulders slightly slumped, defeated.

I checked the answers the next morning - the clues hadn't been so devilishly difficult after all, my brain just hadn't been thinking right. *sigh*

Saturday's puzzle fared no better, but I was able to get back on track Sunday morning.

Since then, I've been watching that streak count creep higher and higher. 30, 50, 100 - I was on a roll. This past week was the real test. Friday's puzzle was the 146th one I'd attempted in a row.

It was touch-and-go there for a bit - but I prevailed. The successful completion of Saturday's grid brought me over the top! Quite pleased with myself, I am.

I mean, I'm not on the level of those geniuses of old - I have yet to complete a Sunday puzzle without help from Google, and I'm a long ways from filling in the grid without backtracking at least one answer - but I'm still thinkin' I'm better than the average bear (to quote Yogi).

I'll keep at it. Perhaps, someday, I'll solve the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle in (the modern equivalent of) ink.

 Hey. A girl's gotta have goals. Wish me luck!

 

October Morning

I'm pretty sure October morning light has magical healing powers.

I woke up in a grumpy space this morning. I hadn't slept well, and the only reason I got out of bed was because I had a headache and wanted to take drugs. My dreams had all circled around images of loss and loneliness; they were filled with stress and fear. I woke up with tears in my eyes, and it took a bit to convince me that the losses were just a dream. No ill had befallen those I love during the night.

After I took my headache drugs, and since I had a bit of momentum built up, I reluctantly got dressed and went downstairs to give the cats their morning drink of water and to get some breakfast and coffee. ("In that order, always in that order", say the cats, who race ahead of me down the stairs each day to jump into the sink for their morning treat.) 

With food and medication, my headache started to retreat, and so I decided I had enough energy for my morning walk, sad mood notwithstanding. As I walked down the front steps, I met up with one of my neighbors, out walking her dog. We fell into step, and started exchanging life updates. When we got to the corner, we stopped and chatted with another of the neighbor ladies for a bit. The cool morning air and cheerful company proved to be good medicine, and as I moved on after dropping my neighbor at her front door, my outlook started to brighten.

Down and across the street to the park I went, my mood improving with every step.

Soon, I was questioning why I'd ever been grumpy at all. Here I was, it was Monday morning and I'd gotten to sleep in. Again. When I did get moving, I didn't have to rush through my coffee. When I met up with the neighbors, there was no need to rush through the chance meeting - no  Monday morning Zoom call was waiting, there was no boss to wonder why I hadn't yet gotten online.

Nope. It was just me and the cool, clean, October morning air. Though the sun was bright, the light was softer than it had been just a few weeks ago. The trees in the park were starting to get dressed in their fall colors, and most of the people I met on the path looked like they were also enjoying the day.

I stopped several times just to breathe and enjoy the beauty of the trees, the feeling of the air quietly caressing my hair and skin, the gentle warmth of the sun on my face.

By the time I got home, my grumps had (thankfully) dissipated for the day.

I lost my grumps, but I never did find my ambition. My to-do list is still languishing on the table, waiting patiently for me to look at it and choose an item to tackle. Eh. I think it's not happening today. (Except for this blog post. This, I'm getting done. That counts, yes?)

Today is a day to stop and appreciate ephemeral beauty. There are not so many of these magical October days that I want to waste one being task-focused and grumpy and lamenting all the hard things in my life. I mean, the hard things are there, but so is the magic - and since I have the ability to choose where I want to focus my energies, today I chose to stop and notice the magic that Is.

I'm thinking I made the right choice.

Windows: Complete

I did it. It took a little extra courage to talk myself into tackling that last window, but it's done.

As I said last week, I was nervous about the task. I'm not sure what was at the root of the hesitation. I'm not actually afraid to be on a ladder at that height, but I had managed to convince myself that chances were good I'd forget how to behave on a ladder and then I'd fall off and no one would see me, and I'd be lying there for days in pain and you know how it goes and I don't need to lead you down that road.

Rather than wasting time trying to talk sense into myself, I persuaded a friend of mine to come over to watch me do the work. He had two tasks - to help me to set the ladder, and to call 9-1-1 if I managed to come crashing down.

It took just a few minutes to set the ladder in place, and with him comfortably ensconced in a patio chair within eye- and earshot of the broken window, up the steps I went. I'd arrayed my tools within easy reach on a table just inside the window, so I grabbed the heat gun and chisel, and set to work. 

The work wasn't hard, though my arms did protest the part where I needed to hold the tools overhead for the hours (OK, twenty minutes) it took to ease out the broken pane. The work wasn't hard, and the day wasn't hot, and I was in the shade, but I was still sweating mightily just a few minutes into the project. Nerves.

I stopped to breathe several times, and managed, each time, to remember to bring the heat gun down without pointing it at anything that would get hurt by the blast from the nozzle. Slowly, carefully, I got the broken window out WITHOUT breaking any of the adjacent panes. See? I can learn!

I set the new pane into place, and, though still nervous, managed to place the glazing points without damaging the new glass. (Glazing points are little metal doohickeys that hold the glass in place until the glazing sets. As I learned while working at the castle, getting them set is a prime place in the world of window repair where glass gets broken and you get to get extra practice finding the proper angle of entry for the buggers.)  *Whew*

Nerves now at ease, it didn't take long at all to get the glazing in place, the window washed, and the storm reassembled.

See? There was nothing to be afraid of. Or, there was, and there's no harm in taking some precautions to lower risk.

This last window was a lesson in why it's OK to admit I'm afraid and to ask for help. Because I knew Ian was sitting there in the driveway, I was less nervous about the project. Because I was less nervous about the project, my arms were steadier. Because my arms were steadier, the work went more smoothly.

Here's to good friends, those who are willing to help us even (or especially) when the only help we really need is moral support.

Working on Windows

Over the past few weeks, I've FINALLY been tackling some of the items that have been hanging around on my needs-to-be-done list for waayyyy too long. One of the items on the list is to replace the cracked panes several of my windows have been sporting for several years.

Even though I got quite a bit of practice replacing window glass last year when I was working at the castle, I still got nervous when approaching the task.

But avoiding a task because I'm nervous about tackling it has yet to yield me the desired result of getting to mark the work completed, so this past week, I gathered up my courage and climbed out onto the roof. I started with the easy one - the window with just one broken pane, easily accessible from the porch roof. 

Unlike the windows in the castle, which I was able to remove from the walls and set on a table to work on in comfort, I had to do this one in place. Turns out, it's not as much fun to shatter the broken glass when I know the shards are going to fly out everywhere and skitter across my finished floors to land where I would eventually find them with my bare feet. *sigh* Breaking the glass was one of my favorite parts of the job. 

Taking a few deep breaths to calm my jitters, I got out the heat gun and started removing the softened glazing with the broken pane in place (instead of getting to just whack it with a hammer). It worked - I was able to loosen the pane enough to break it out in more-or-less controlled sections. (More-or-less is as good as I get some days.)

Except for the part where my glass measurement was 1/4" too short because I'd tried to measure the opening before removing the glaze, it went pretty well. (And what's a project without an extra trip to Joe's house to cut myself a new pane of glass in the correct size?) Three hours later, I finished the last bit of glazing and gave myself a pat on the back for a job well done.

Emboldened by my success with the first window, I tackled the second one last week. This one had two broken panes, but I wasn't worried about it. After all, I'd gotten the first one replaced without problems, right???

Turns out, if you press too hard on the chisel, trying to rush things a bit instead of letting the heat gun finish its work first, you can flex the window frame enough to break the formerly intact pane of glass next to the one you're trying to replace. Who knew?

Fortunately, I only had to learn the lesson once. At least, I only had to learn it once that day. Newly cautious, I managed to get the three panes of glass replaced without causing any further damage. *WHEW*

Two down, one to go. The last window will not be accessible from the roof, so I'll get to practice my broken window removal skills while balancing on a ladder twelve feet off the ground. I gotta admit, I'm nervous about it.

But I'll gather my courage, face my fears, and take it carefully. It's the only way it'll get done.