We’ve had relatively seasonal weather (i.e., cool with periods of cold) here the past few weeks, and we’ve finally got a bit of rain. While we need the rain, it has made my commute in to work less pleasant, as people drive like even bigger idiots when the streets are wet, and then I have to walk in the rain to the train station. While I normally work remotely as much as I can, it seems like everyone is trying to pack in as many in-person meetings as possible before the end of the year, so I’ve had to go in more often. Hopefully, it will quiet down over the final two weeks of 2024. Maybe next week I can do the puzzle early in the day on Wednesday – or even Tuesday night – and have all day to do the blog entry. Until then, here we are…

• Name: All Tied Up
• Grid size: 15×15
• Entries: 69
• Difficulty: Medium Easy (my solve time: 6:35)

I made an extra effort to remember the title and keep it in mind while I was solving, but it was no help until the revealer, which was one of the last entries I got to. It didn’t help that the themers are all Downs – I was vainly looking for some “All Tied Up” connection in the Acrosses, of which none are longer than 7 letters so that should have been a clue to me that I was looking in the wrong place. The themers are all phrases where the first word is the name of a knot; since they are all in Down entries they are at the “top” of the entry, as reflected in the revealer:

• 1D: [Minor gaffes]: SLIP UPS – A slip knot is used when you want the ability to untie the knot quickly. A loop of line is passed through another loop – you can release the knot by pulling on the end of the first looped line. If you slip up and accidentally tie a slip knot when you want a more stable one, it may be a Himalayan Death Knot.
• 4D: [Steak/seafood combo, Down Under]: REEF AND BEEF – The reef knot or square knot is one of the basic knots everyone knows – or thinks they do. See Granny knot below… I don’t think I’ve heard of reef and beef before, but I knew exactly what it was once I got a few crosses.
• 6D: [Romances prone to jealousy]: LOVE TRIANGLES – I was not familiar with a love knot so I had to look it up, and it turns out it’s a generic name for several specific knots. The bible of knots, “The Ashley Book of Knots,” notes that it could take the form of a ring containing two tori, inseparable, yet flexible and able to move about each other; supposedly sailors used it a s design for wedding rings.
• 8D: [Former residence of Queen Elizabeth II]: WINDSOR CASTLE – I learned to tie a Windsor knot while in college and have had to tie it a lot more frequently in the job I’ve had for 2 and a half years now, but those days are numbered (190 to be precise).
• 10D: [Green apple variety]: GRANNY SMITH – The granny knot is what you get when you tie a reef knot incorrectly. I don’t think there is any use for a Granny knot that you wouldn’t be better off using a reef knot instead. I’m sure I knew Granny Smith apples were green, but not really liking to eat apples that much, especially uncooked, I just forgot about it.
• 45D: [Hair style hinted at in 1-, 4-, 6-, 8- and 10-Down]: TOP KNOT – Despite my best efforts, my hair has never been long enough that I could put it into a top knot, but that’s probably a good thing as I wouldn’t want people teasing me about sporting a man bun. I got to this entry near last, and I really wish I’d get into the habit of starting the solve in the SE rather then the NW – it might have saved me a full minute in the solve (but maybe not – see below).

There was a time when I thought there was no way I’d have a clean solve – many of the entries didn’t seem right to me and I came to an impasse in the NE where for a while I even thought there was a mistake in the puzzle. Having the themers in the Down entries really threw me; I guess I’m a creature of habit and look for the theme in the long acrosses, spaced evenly down the grid. This is definitely not a complaint – I love variety and different ways of constructing a puzzle. I just need to think outside the box (or, more appropriately, the grid). And I need to start solving in the SE…

Canadian content:

• 25A: [CFL 6-pointers: Abbr.]: TDS – Touchdowns get you six points in the Canadian Football League.
• 26D: [Gatineau girlfriend]: AMIE – If you had asked me to place Gatineau on a map, I would have put it much further east, possibly on the north side of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. I’m embarrassed that I didn’t know it’s right across the river from Ottawa, and it’s entirely possible I’ve even made a brief visit on one of my trips to Ottawa.
• 29A: [Power’s portrayer Mike]: MYERS – Funnyman Mike Myers was born in Scarborough, Ontario and is well-known for the “Austin Powers” series of movies, though my favorite of his is this one.
• 61A: [Oklahoma city in Canadian County]: EL RENO – TIL a US state has a county named after Canada, which is the home of El Reno, which is its county seat.

Other stuff:

• 5D: [“Convoy” song trucker]: CBER – Being that “Convoy” is one of the songs on my guilty pleasures playlist, I immediately tried to fit C.W. McCall in here somehow.
• 13D: [Unrelaxed to the max]: TENSEST – I completely misread the clue as “Unrelated to the max” and was completely confused. I didn’t catch my misreading until long after I finished. Now it makes a lot more sense, and I could have easily shaved a minute off my solve time if I’d just read it correctly.
• 15A: [“Casablanca” star’s nickname]: BOGIE – Had to think for a second about the spelling, but a bogey is something completely different than this guy. Humphrey Bogart is reported to have explained the spelling of his nickname: “It’s been misspelt a lot… It’s not Bog-ey. He signed with an -ie. And that’s good enough for me.” And he gets this weeks quote as well.
• 19A: [“… blackbirds baked in a ___”]: A PAN – This one almost got me. I was so sure it was “a pie” that I changed 12D to something I knew was wrong, and had no idea what 13D was (especially since I misread it). And I can’t find any reference (after an admittedly brief search) to anything (lyrics, poem, book) that uses the phrase “blackbirds baked in a pan,” so…
• 34D: [Area out of the wind]: LEE SIDE – The sailor in me wanted to enter leeward but I had a couple of crosses so got it right on the first try.
• 35A: [___ Kadiddlehopper (Red Skelton character)]: CLEM – Though Red Skelton was a while before my time, I somehow knew Clem Kadiddlehopper right off the bat.
• 52A: [One of two in this answer]: ELL – Well that’s about the most circularly-referential clue I’ve ever seen.

Quote of the week:
“A hotdog at the ballpark is better than a steak at the Ritz.”
– Humphrey Bogart