Welcome to Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up -- a Saturday evening opportunity to have some fun and to get your brain in gear for tomorrow's Sunday Puzzle potluck party.
I'm afraid I won't be here tonight -- I need to be at a meeting on Saturday and since I don't drive I'll be biking over to a friend's place on Friday in order to get a ride to the meeting Saturday; then I'll be staying over with one of the other people at the meeting in order to prune trees and plant some blueberries on Sunday, before getting a ride on Monday to where I left my bike and biking back home.
But I've queued up a JulieCrostic for you to enjoy tonight, and will be here in spirit. Have fun, and I'll see you next week!
Since I can't be here in person tonight (and will likely miss the potluck puzzle party tomorrow), here's a slightly longer (and slightly more challenging) puzzle than I usually post Saturday evenings. The verticals will tell you where the meeting I'm attending today is.
If you'd like to solve tonight's puzzle on your own: set comments to SHRINK so you'll only see subject lines rather than any spoiler comments, copy down the puzzles, and have fun. (A comment saying you've been here would be appreciated.)
If you'd like to solve the puzzle along with others: set comments to EXPAND and AUTO REFRESH, say hi to your teammates on the solving team, and enjoy the party.
NOTE: If you're new and don't know what JulieCrostics are, don't panic. A full explanation of how these puzzles work, including an example of a solved puzzle, appeard directly below the clues for tonight's puzzle.)
1. physical love
2. have sex
3. game in which players kick a ball
4. acts like Arpaio
5. the part of a step that you don't step on
6. more optimistic
7. frolic
8. walk heavily
9. speedy
10. syndicated cartoonist
11. political assembly
12. extremely
13. long journey
14. one who partakes of pot
15. novelist who died 101 years ago
16. Biblical king
17. type of drugs used in treatment of burns, wounds, infections -- and acne
18. blemishes
19. is not feeling well
20. kite feature
21. lags behind
22. quantity of wood
23. combination of notes
24. flower named after balls
25. happy expression
26. limerick lady's home
27. get back
28. Marie or Mary Woods
29. lesions
30. Mitt Romney, Allen West, Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock
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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 10 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.
As an example of how this works, here are the clues and answers to last week'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 /
last week's puzzle:
1. be a passenger
2. self-esteem
3. full stop
4. gangs
5. loud noises
6. breasts
7. employ
8. belonging to people other than us
9. assassin
10. simplicity
11. rent
12. dozing
13. sharp flavor
14. thin
15. kind of candy
16. guide
17. tied
18. source of light
19. horse
20. creator
21. updated version
22. views
23. trickles
24. goes fast
the answer to last week's puzzle:
ride P pride O period
mobs O booms S bosoms
hire T their T hitter
ease L lease P asleep
tang U gaunt O nougat
lead C laced N candle
mare K maker E remake
sees P seeps D speeds
The verticals read
POTLUCKP OSTPONED. When properly spaced that spells out
potluck postponed. We usually have a potluck puzzle party the first Sunday of each month, but this month that would have put it in competition with the Super Bowl so we postponed it to February 10th. If you have any puzzles you'd like to share (or even if you don't, but would like to see what puzzles others have brought) come to the party starting 8:30 pm eastern time / 5:30 pm Pacific time. I'll be away, but pucklady will be hosting, and she's much more entertaining than I am. Sorry to miss the party, but I'll be thinking of you folks (and will check the puzzles out on Monday after I get home).