We’re more than halfway through January already!? But it was just Halloween last week, right? It seems the days go like months, but the months go like hours. Well we better make the best of the time we have as it flies by (“Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana”), so let’s get on with this week’s offering.

• Title: Crosswordle
• Grid size: 15×15
• Number of entries: 74
• Difficulty: Medium (my solve time 7:28)

Let me see if I can suss this theme out while I write the blog, because I don’t think I fully got it while solving… Duh – I was able to figure it out within a few seconds of looking at the first two themers. I think I was just thrown by the title – I’ve been seeing all these “Wordle” posts on my Twitter feed and have a vague idea what they are, so I though Barb had jumped onto the Wordle bandwagon and the theme would be some sort of play on that game. But I have never Wordled (?) so that only led me astray from a straightforward theme – “LE” is added somewhere in a common phrase and then clued punnily:

• 17A: [Don a corset?]: GIRDLE ONES LOINS  – I should gird my loins before starting these puzzles.
• 23A: [Witch’s offering to Snow White?]: KILLER APPLE  – Maybe Wordle is a killer app?
• 36A: [Origin of the universe, according to some jewelers?]: BIG BANGLE THEORY – I’m something of a space geek and my spouse is a jeweler, so this hit the sweet spot for me. However, I’ve never been able to sit through an episode of “The Big Bang Theory.” But I love The Bangles. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
• 46A: [Football sack using just one digit?]: THUMB TACKLE – This was the quickest themer for me – I got the B and T from 37D and 38D, saw “tackle” fit at the end, and the only digit that ends in a “B” is THUMB, so voila! I’ll affix this to my wall of fame with a thumb tack.
• 56A: [First choice among Bick’s, Vlasic, and Claussen?]: NUMBER ONE PICKLE – While I looooove pickles (especially these), this themer would not be my number one pick.

While I completed this solve in just under my average solve time, it felt like a struggle most of the way. After getting most of the W, I worked around generally counter clockwise, but leaving a few patches blank here and there, after I cleaned them up I got the dreaded “Grid filled/All letters correct?” dialog. Grrr. Luckily my error was in the NW where I begin my review – I had “MERRIE” in 5D and no idea what 5A was (see below). 9 seconds later I got the “Congratulations!” pop up – yay!

Canadian content

• 18D: [Season for Montreal’s “Juste pour rire”]: ETE – Just for Laughs is a comedy festival held each July in Montreal since 1983. It is the world’s largest international comedy festival.
• 59D: [Vancouver’s SkyTrain syst., e.g.]: LRT – I believe SkyTrain is considered a light rail transit system.
• 62A: [Burns assistant, or a northern B.C. town]: SMITHERS – Tucked between Hudson Bay Mountain and Mount Cronin, Smithers BC appears to be in a beautiful location.

Unless I’m missing something, that’s all I see for Canadian content this week, but please feel free to enlighten me in the comments.

Other stuff:

• 5A: [Data-sending initials]: FTP – I drew a blank on this so relied on the crosses. As mentioned above, I had 5D wrong with an M as the 1st letter. I thought “MTP” could be a Canadian ISP or something so shrugged and left it as is until I discovered my error later.
• 5D: [Spenser’s “The ______ Queen” ]: FAERIE – I’m somewhat familiar with “The Merry Widow” waltz and figured this was an alternate spelling. Never mind the waltz is by Franz Lehár, I had to mangle two other crosses that were correct, and MTP makes no sense.
• 31D: [Spacebar neighbour]: ALT – Not on the MacBook upon which I am composing this – it’s: ⌘ (command)
• 47D: [Beautiful women of Paradise, in Islam]: HOURI – I had seen this word before but didn’t recall it’s meaning. Glad to have learned something!
• 54A: [Seniors brand touted as a cure for “tired blood”]: GERITOL – The first thing that came to mind was Centrum, and I needed several crosses before I remembered seeing old Geritol ads somewhere – here’s an appropriate one 😢.

Advice of the week: Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
– Benjamin Franklin, from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin listed as one of his “13 Tips for Happiness“