Before we get to tonight's puzzle, I've got a couple of important announcements.
IMPORTANT NOTICE #1:
Tomorrow is the next potluck puzzle party.
Yes, it's the first Sunday in December already! So if you have a puzzle you'd like to share, remember to bring it along tomorrow evening at 8:30 PM Eastern time / 5:30 PM Pacific time. Post it in comments and I'll paste it into the diary. (Or you can send me the puzzle in advance and it will be in the diary when it goes up.)
IMPORTANT NOTICE # 2:
For the foreseeable future, this will be the last Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up diary...
to post at 9:30 PM Eastern / 6:30 PM Pacific Starting next week, Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up will be posting half an hour an hour earlier.
For the past year and a half, the warm-up version of Sunday Puzzle has been posting Saturday evenings at 9:30 PM Eastern. The regular Sunday Puzzle used to post 12 hours later, at 9:30 AM Eastern on Sunday mornings. So that was pretty easy to remember.
A few months ago, though, we began experimenting with having Sunday Puzzle on Sunday evenings at 8:30 PM Eastern. Having one series post at 9:30 and the other at 8:30 has been confusing (for me, at least).
Trying to figure out the best time to post these diaries is a puzzle we haven't solved yet. Early morning? Late morning? Early evening? Late evening? ????
But in the meantime it might be helpful to at least get the warm-up puzzles diaries and the regular puzzle diaries in better sync. So starting next week I'm going to shift Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up to half an hour an hour earlier (8:30 PM Eastern time / 5:30 PM Pacific time) so tht it posts at the same time as the regular Sunday Puzzle).
Okay, now that I've probably confused everybody as to what time to look for these diaries in the future, perhaps it would be good to move on to tonight's puzzle...
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Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party /
SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE /
NOTE: The following puzzle is a JulieCrostic (named after Julie Waters, the creator of the Sunday Puzzle series). If you're not familiar with JulieCrostics, don't panic! An explanation of how they work, and an example of a solved puzzle, are provided directly below tonight's puzzle.
1. 19th century feminist and abolitionist
2. slogan
3. popular salad item
4. flower
5. night sound
6. human
7. genuine
8. transparent
9. first name of a news show host
10. nickname for a legendary laborer
11. one of Clinton's secretaries
12. courageous
13. wear out
14. liquid measure
15. group of kittens
16. detest
17. wood-working machine
18. detest even more
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Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party /
SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE /
How to solve JulieCrostics
For those of you unfamiliar with this kind of puzzle, what you do is solve the clues and write the answers in rows. In tonight's puzzle there are 6 rows with 3 answers per row.
Each word in a row contains all the letters of the previous word, plus one new letter. Write the added letters in the space between the word which doesn't have it and the word which does. The vertical columns created by the added letters will spell out a word or phrase.
An example of how this looks is provided below.
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Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party /
SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE /
last week's puzzle:
1. well-known Shaolin monk
2. loved one
3. put up money for
4. broadcaster Alastair
5. slow or pressure
6. Nixon, for example
7. chairs
8. nap
9. good meals
10. like the followers or Manson, Moon, Hubbard or Joseph Smith
11. how a kitten behaves
12. sharply
13. bestows affection
14. high
15. farthest
16. large work boat
17. dressed
18. shorten
19. what members of the Tea Party lack
20. Eliot and Evaline
21. reduces
22. look upon unfavorably
23. nuts
24. useful for adding color
the answer to last week's puzzle:
Caine F fiance N finance
Cooke R cooker D crooked
seats I siesta F fiestas
culty E cutely A acutely
dotes N stoned M endmost
barge D garbed I abridge
sense S Nesses L lessens
scorn A acorns Y crayons
The verticals read
FRIENDSA NDFAMILY. Properly spaced, these spell out
friends and family -- which, along with
second term (the answer to the puzzle
November 10) and
senate majority ( the answer to the puzzle
November 17) are
things to be thankful for.