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Health & Fitness

Crossword Puzzles

Today I am grateful for crossword puzzles.  I confess that I’m not interested in playing Words With Friends or other on-line crosswords because to me, there has to be a pencil involved.  Deleting mistakes is just not the same as erasing because it doesn’t leave the smudgy residue of yet another attempt.  I had no idea what went into creating a crossword puzzle until I saw the movie, Wordplay.  Watch it.

 

I have a brother-in-law who does the New York Time’s crossword in pen.  Show off.  My friend who just visited did the crossword in pen, too, until she got stuck (or maybe she was just sick of it) and then I dove in and saved the day!  My husband completes every crossword puzzle.  I don’t feel that’s necessary, because I’m not in 5th grade anymore and my teacher isn’t taking off points for incomplete work.  So there!

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After I read the newspaper I fold it just so, to condense the crossword.  Then I lay it down and don’t touch it until I’m in the mood.  Sometimes I’ll do a quick glance and jot in the low-hanging-fruit, the easy to find words.  Later I’ll take it into the bathroom where all good crosswords go to either be finished, or die.  I might work on it here and there.  I might not.  Point is I don’t’ HAVE to do it at all, so that makes it fun.  Sometimes I get bored and start putting words in that could sort of work, but not quite.  Then I put it on a different pile. . .for my husband to finish. 

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It’s a perfect system until he starts waving one in front of me, laughing and saying, “What’s this four-letter-down word for horse?” 

I answer, “Pony”. 

“It doesn’t fit with the other words,” he says.

“It’s four letters and it’s a kind of horse.  Gimme a break.”  I answer.

“But it doesn’t fit with the across words.

“So what?  Maybe your across words are wrong.”

“Mare fits.”  

“I like pony better.” The creative writer in me says.

“But it doesn’t fit!”  His eyes are crossing more than the puzzle.

“You’re the magician. . .make it fit!”

 

I love crossword puzzles.  Today I’m going to find a spot for the word “cloisters”.  I love that word.  I wonder where it will fit?

 

 

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