Variety: Acrostic

A lovely quote and a great pleasure once again to work a Cox & Rathvon acrostic puzzle!

I just zipped through this one thanks to the predicable patterns in the quote, and set off to a fast start by lots of gimmes --(RAMIS, CATNAP, ..ST WIND (it had to be either EAST or WEST), CHER, AEGEAN, SLITHER, NESTING, NANETTE, DIGNIFIED and EFFORT. Once R-CH...CARS started showing up in the acrostic, then I knew the subject of the quote would be nature, and the rest just seemed to fill itself in.

The predictable pattern of the quote made this almost too quick of a solve. Once you know it's a placidly expository "there is...in the...of the...etc," it gives a great deal of momentum to the rest of the solution. I guess it's the downside of picking a very beautiful, serene and poetic quotation. I personally tend to prefer the quirkier quips revealing themselves - doing a little more work for the reward of a good chuckle!

Lovely sentiment expressed in the quotation, and what would you give for some nepenthe right now? "...can spring be far behind?" Tomorrow may tell when the duelling emergent furry prognosticators cast their shadows, or not.

Always like the quotes about nature. Not many gimmes for me; RAMIS, CHER, SHIATSU, and NESTled before NESTING. Also Oddball before OFFBEAT, and Cycle before ORBIT. Had to look up Mary Poppins even though I just saw the musical in London. (It was very lively and all the kids there clearly had a great time, including me. Don’t know if there was a wind, but Mary flew over the audience. It was SUPER-califragilisticexpialidocious.) Even with few words to start, the quote gradually filled in, and even more helpful for my solve was recognizing the author. Was happy to get NEPENTHE with just a couple of letters and enjoyed the solve process a lot.

Easy solve for me this week, thanks to 12 gimmes at the outset and a quotation solution that revealed itself pretty readily. Clue/Word I was fun and timely, because Bryan and I are headed for Amsterdam -- our home away from home -- next week. We don't spend much time at Rembrandtplein, though. Museumplein is more our style -- and the Jordaan. The Spui (pronounced "spouw") is a book-lover's paradise, and also has great cafes like Hoppe, which has been around since 1670... Can't wait to be back, soon! Thanks for another fun puzzle, EC & HR!

Like Caitlin, I had ODDBALL penciled in to start. Tricky, with O--B--- the same in both words. Aside from spelling M. ("finger pressure") with a Z initially, I had a ton of gimmes. Nice to know I remember what brings Mary Poppins! The quote is an inspiring reminder of what it's all about.

Double or Nothing is always my favorite among the “middle” puzzles, and it is very easy to make up my own large diagram on paper. [SPOILER ALERT] My immediate “anchor” square was the second square on the top row; BOUNTY/BOAT RACE. I then figured out where to put the CO of COAT/CO-HOST. It was just as well that then I searched to get TYLER PERRY. Since I already had COAT, the last square of the second row had to remain blank. So TYLER PERRY neatly filled up all the other squares of the rightmost column. After that, the rest of it went quickly.

That same glitch keeps on happening. Square 133G, which should contain a “C”, could not be filled. Therefore the music which indicates the successful completion of the puzzle never sounded. [SPOILER ALERT] Other than that, what made this Acrostic more difficult than usual was the small number of answers which are specific facts that I happen to know or could search for. My only gimmes were CHER, NEPENTHE and EFFORT. (The last one was a lucky guess.) I searched to get REMBRANDT, RAMIS, LIGHTHOUSE, AEGEAN and NANETTE. I first had SIESTA intead of CATNAP, and after getting the first two letters, HOOTER instead of HORNED. They DID put in a question mark, but only in a Times puzzle could “on the way out” refer to a word that means “on its way in”. OK, they must have meant something such as an animal that is being born or hatching.