Thursday, October 22, 2020, Ed Sessa

 

Good morning, cruciverbalists.  Ed Sessa follows up his Wednesday October 7th puzzle with a Thursday offering featuring some challenging clues/answers and an interesting grid.  The entries at 55 and 58 Across combine to reveal the theme.  Candidly, even with the reveal, it took this mulling marine mammal many more moments to make sense out of Ed's machinations.  By that time, the theme answers were all in place but I had not the slightest idea that that had already occurred.

THEME:   JUMPING JACK FLASH  

55. With 58-Across, cardio exercise ... and what's hidden in three puzzle rows?:  JUMPING.

58. See 55-Across:  JACKS.

Okay, so JUMPING JACKS is the theme.  Now, just what the heck does that mean?  Ed has a reputation for presenting solvers with challenging (puzzling?) themes and today is no exception.

There are several possible ways to begin to interpret the theme.  Jack B. Nimble leaping over candlesticks would certainly be a Jumping Jack.  Jumping Jack Flash would be a gas.  Jack Rabbits could provide some hip-hop fun.  Perhaps, though, it is a reference meant to be taken at face value.  Jacks who jump.

On three puzzle rows, JACKS are JUMPING across the black squares to combine the final letters in the first answer with the opening letters in the second answers.  The results form the JACKS' surnames and all, of course, share the same first name, JACK.

It is probably a good idea today to start off with a look at the grid rather than waiting until the end of the write-up.  Ed elected not to use circles so this will make the theme's mechanics easier to see.

As can be seen, in red above and below, here are the JUMPING JACKS :

20. Across - Showing shock: A GASP and

21. Across  - Squalid quarters: RAT HOLE.

AGASPRATHOLE  - SPRAT, Jack Sprat

THE SPRATS

35. Across - Like a pendulum's motion: TO AND FRO and
37.  Across - Light at some roller rinks: STROBE.

TOANDFROSTROBE - FROST, Jack Frost

JACK FROST

42. Across - One of the Magi: CASPAR and

45. Across - Sidewall-sharing abode: ROW HOUSE.

CASPARROWHOUSE - SPARROW, Jack Sparrow

CAPTAIN JACK SPARROW

 

Across:

1. Radio toggle: AM FM.  As Chairman Moe rightly pointed out last Friday, AM FM  radios have become a bit archaic in our digital world.

5. A minor, for one: CHORD.  A bit of misdirection.   A person less than eighteen years old?  Something of lesser importance?  No, and no.  A musical triad.  A CHORD in  the key of A Minor, the relative minor of C Major.

10. Animal shelter sight: CAGE.  Clear The Shelters is a nationwide ongoing campaign to reduce the number of animals in CAGEs.

14. Big do: GALA. In this case do means a social event.  GALA, or Fete or Ball.  These choices have been offered to us many times before.  AFRO would have fit but would not have worked out.

15. Place where fast bucks are made: RODEO.  Here, fast bucks is not a slang term for easy money.  A bucking bronco, or a bucking bull, or ....  a bucking tortoise?

16. Team that pulls for its driver: OXEN.

OXEN PUT BEFORE THE CART

         
17. Delivery made by mouth: ORAL REPORT.

19. Tear apart: REND.  REND means to tear something into two or more pieces.

23. Surrealist Tanguy: YVES.  YVES Tanguy (1900 - 1955) was a French surrealist painter.

REPLY TO RED - YVES TANGUY - 1943

25. Color in four-color printing: CYAN.  The four colors are CYAN, Magenta, Yellow and Black.  The inks can be combined in various proportions to form a vast array of colors.

26. Open, in a way: UNCAP.

29. Fraternal order member since 1868: ELK. The Benevolent and Protective Order of ELKs (BPOE).

31. Blocks that lock: LEGOS  LEGOS are plastic toy building blocks but they have been used to build some amazing things.  It's difficult to say how these particular buildings will hold up in the next big earthquake.

38. Critical hosp. area: ICU.  The Intensive Care Unit.

39. Going up in smoke: AFIRE.  On fire or burning.  Or, as Ray might put it:

41. Ref. whose first edition took decades to complete: OED.  Volume One of the Oxford English Dictionary, covering only A and B, was published in 1888.  Volume 10/2 which covered V to Z was not published until 1928!  The OED started an online version in 2000.  A completely revised Third Edition is expected to be completed in 2037.  

48. Warn: ALERT.

49. Business VIP: CEO.  Chief Executive Officer.

50. Engrave?: INTER.  The answer is not meant to be the prefix meaning among or within.  This time, taken as the bad pun of a clue intends, INTER, with the accent on the second syllable, is used to mean place in a grave or a tomb.

51. Scintilla: IOTA.  How did the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet come to represent a very small amount?  Some etymologists say that it came about because IOTA is the smallest letter of that alphabet.

53. Carry-on item: TOTE.  As with OREO, ACAI, APSE, EURO, ASTA, ODIE, AGUE, ELAN, etc., etc., etc.,  TOTE is a short, vowel-rich word that can be a big help to constructors.

61. Court loser, maybe: PERP.  Short for PERPetrator.

62. "You had your chance": TOO LATE NOW.   I will pass on the possible Carole King link and go with the Chuck Willis song from 1956.

65. What a slight favorite has: EDGE. 

66. Satchel Paige's first name: LEROY. LEROY Robert Satchel Paige was a baseball player who pitched in the Negro Leagues and in the Major Leagues.  He began his career in 1924 with the Mobile Tigers.  In 1965, the then 59 year old Paige pitched three innings of one-hit ball for the Kansas City Athletics.

SATCHEL PAIGE

 

67. The Big Easy, informally: NOLA. New Orleans, LA.  This clue/answer likely put a smile on the face of one of our Cornerites.

68. Motley: PIED.  In this case, both the clue and the answer are synonyms for varied in color.  The Motley Piper?  Pied Crue?

69. Shangri-las: EDENS.  EDENS are (mythical) delightful places where one dwells in a state of happiness and contentment. We've got to get ourselves back to the Garrrrrrdennnnn.  Or, perhaps, to Woodstock.

THE GARDEN OF EDEN   

70. Pairs: TWOS.

Down:

1. In the past: AGO.  One of the most well-remembered uses of AGO was employed by the gentleman referenced at 47 Down.  Bill & Ted's ORAL REPORT was far better than Bart Simpson's.

FOUR SCORE AND SEVEN...

2. "Mary Magdalene" star Rooney __: MARA.  You'd think that MM would be familiar with a 2018 movie called "Mary Magdalene" but that is not the case.

3. Symbol on a pole: FLAG.  Fun With FLAGs was a recurring bit on The Big Bang Theory.

4. Kuala Lumpur native: MALAYAN.  Kuala Lumpur is the capital city of Malaysia.  In graduate school, the MALAYAN students would casually refer to "K.L." in conversation the way I would refer to "L.A."  It was a good lesson in the shortcomings of parochialism.  

KUALA LUMPUR

5. Thin pancake: CREPE.  Oh, to be in Paris snacking on a CREPE with Nutella and bananas.

6. Old school dance: HOP.  A perfect fit for today's theme.  Is this Ed sharing a little joke with us?

AT THE HOP

7. Sign of some gas leaks: ODOR.  The natural gas that we use has no ODOR.  Mercaptan, which does have a distinctive, rotten egg ODOR is added to the gas to make leaks easier to detect.

8. Set up again, as pool balls: RE - RACK.  The RACK is the frame that holds the balls before they are broken up to start the game.

A NICE RACK   

9. Slightly touched: DOTTY.  Slang for somewhat mad or eccentric.

10. Forensic team member: CORONER.  A CORONER is the public official who investigates violent, sudden, or suspicious deaths.  Here, a CROSSWORD CORONER.

11. Feat on ice: AXEL.  Another bit of whimsy from our constructor.?  An ice skating JUMP, the AXEL is named for it's creator, Norwegian figure skater Axel Paulsen.

TANYA HARDING

12. Code carrier: GENE.

       What did the DNA strand say to the other DNA strand?

       Do my GENEs make me look fat?

13. Close: END.  If you look up the difference between Close and END, both as nouns and as verbs, you might encounter the word "ergative".

Sorry, but I could not resist this bit of plagiarism.

18. Got back to, in a way: RSVPD.  It is a bit odd to see the way that "Respondez S'il Vous Plait" has morphed into a verb.  The "D" stuck on the end is something that Ed is probably still trying to figure out how to tweak.

22. Stop: HALT.

24. Feudal laborer: SERF.  A SERF was an agricultural laborer bound under the feudal system to work on his lord's estate.

26. Erie Canal city: UTICA.  Because of the large amount of both political corruption and organized crime in the city, UTICA was known as "The City That God Forgot".

27. Diet drink spec: NOCAL.  I first put LO CAL into the grid but UNCAP made it clear that I needed to cut out even more calories.  NO CALories. 

28. Something to believe in: CAUSE.  St. Jude is referred to as the Patron Saint of Lost CAUSEs.

ST. JUDE

30. Longest river in France: LOIRE.  The LOIRE River is the longest river in France but, at a length of approximately 1,000 kilometres, it is only the 171st longest river in the world.

32. Date, with "with": GO OUT.

33. More than a little plump: OBESE.

34. Meal with matzo: SEDER.  At the traditional SEDER meal, the story of the Jewish People's miraculous Exodus from slavery in Egypt is retold so that it will be remembered from generation to generation.  Matzo, AKA "the bread of affliction" is the unleavened bread served as a reminder that in their hasty departure there was insufficient time to allow bread to rise.

MOSES PARTING THE RED SEA    

36. A long way: FAR.

37. Verb that becomes its homophone by changing its vowel: SEW.  So, is it going to be Sow or Sew?  It could have been Sow and, if so, it could have been clued with wild oats.  It turned out to be SEW.  Sew what?

40. Trunk supporter: ROOT.  Oh, a tree reference. 

43. Groomed oneself fastidiously: PRIMPED.

44. At the pinnacle of: ATOP.

46. Try to belt: HIT AT. 

47. Words engraved under the Lincoln Memorial?: ONE CENT.  I first tried to think of a quotation etched into the Memorial, itself.  The question mark at the end of the clue should have alerted me to skip that thought.

49. Paddled, perhaps: CANOED.

52. Book list listing: TITLE.  I went to a book store for their sale which was "One Third Off on All TITLEs".  I picked up a nice copy of  The Lion, The Witch.

       

54. "Love Train" singers, with "The": OJAYS.  Released in 1972, Love Train reached Number One on the Billboard Hot 100.

55. Sci-fi good guys: JEDI.  A Star Wars reference.  The JEDI Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Galactic Empire.  Dark Helmet, from Space Balls, is not a JEDI.

MAY THE SCHWARTZ BE WITH YOU !

56. Encourage: URGE. 

57. "It's My Party" singer Lesley: GORE.  This one was a gimme.  So was the choice of the audio/video clip.

LESLEY GORE - 1964 

59. Recognize: KNOW.

60. Without help: SOLO.   ALONE would not fit.  We'll save the "Han Solo crashes his airplane" jokes for another time.

61. Word with rally or talk: PEP.   A  PEP Rally is sometimes held before a big game.  A PEP Talk is sometimes given to the team by a coach at halftime.

63. Actor Chaney: LON.  LON Chaney, Jr. appeared in many movies and television shows.  His most famous role was as The Wolf Man.

64. "Where __ I?": WAS.  Honestly, at this point, I really cannot remember.

Have a great Thursday, everyone, and let's stay safe out there.

 

MM OUT

Thursday, October 15, 2020, John Michael Currie

 The Following Program Is Brought To You In Living Color On CCTV 

 

After being afforded a break last Thursday, thanks to the efforts of Chairman Moe, it is now back to work for this malingering manatee.  It has already been more than a month since I started working on my first blog post.  That bit of perspective is far easier to face than the fact that it is 2020 - and nearing the end of 2020 at that.  Do you remember that Tommy Chong line? "I'm not into time, man."  That seemed pretty funny fifty years ago.   Far less amusing now.  Regardless, let's now share a bit of our precious time looking at this week's Thursday puzzle.

THEME:  MAKE MINE A DOUBLE (NOT A BAD IDEA AT THAT)

First off, a hearty Crossword Corner hello to John Michael Currie.  This is his Los Angeles Times debut puzzle.  Welcome, John!

The reveal comes at 64. ACROSS:  Pass coverage tactic ... and a hint to the answers to starred clues: DOUBLE  TEAM.

In football (and basketball) jargon, DOUBLE TEAM means to block or guard an opponent with two players at the same time.  Our constructor,  John Michael Currie, has placed the names of two sports teams next to each other so that the result is an adjective modifying a noun.  The results are, themselves, things with which most people are, at least, somewhat familiar.

While most team names are pluralized, today the constructor has chosen to go with answers in the singular.

* 17. ACROSS  Striped marine predator: TIGER  SHARK   TIGER SHARKs are found in temperate and tropical waters.  They can grow to a length of between sixteen and seventeen feet

   

* 10. DOWN  Navy Stunt Pilot:  BLUE ANGEL  Originally formed in 1946, The BLUE ANGELS are the U.S. Navy's precision flying team.  They are thrilling to to watch perform.  They should be.  The annual operating budget for the team is approximately $40 million and each plane, as specially equipped for their use, runs between $50 and $60 million.

* 24.  DOWN  Boeing 737, for one:  TWIN  JET.  The most current version of the Boeing 737 airplane, the 737 MAX, has certainly had safety issues.   More than 10,500 Boeing 737's (all versions) have been built.

* 35.  DOWN  Pollux, for one:  GIANT  STAR.  Castor and Pollux were twin half-brothers in Greek and Roman mythology.  Their names were assigned to two stars in what we call the constellation Gemini (the twins) .  It turns out, however, that Castor is actually comprised of three binary stars.  Perhaps the stars should be renamed for the McCaugheye septuplets.

Across:

1. Whale newborn: CALF.  When they were little kids, my children enjoyed listening to "Baby Beluga".

5. Mallorcan seaport: PALMA.  PALMA is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of The Balearic Islands in Spain.  It is situated on the south coast of Mallorca on the Bay of Palma.

Palma De Mallorca

10. "Jazz Samba" guitarist Charlie: BYRD.  Jazz Samba is the name of a record album released in 1962.  Stan Getz and Charlie BYRD were the featured musicians.  Here is the track titled "Samba Dees Days" :

14. Stench: ODOR.  Alternative clue:  An aroma often emanating from crossword puzzles.

15. Neptune's realm: OCEAN.  Originally, Neptune was the god of fresh water but by 399 BCE he became identified with the Greek god Poseidon and thus became the deity of the OCEAN.  The female counterpart is Salacia.  Salacia is unrelated to the word "salacious" but is part of the derivation of "salient".

NEPTUNE

16. Show the way: LEAD.

19. Tucson school, for short: UOFA.  U OF A - The University of Arizona.

20. Adjoining, in hotel lingo: ENSUITE.  A master bedroom bedroom with a private bathroom = EN SUITE.

21. Portal: GATEWAY.  A rabbit hole was Alice's GATEWAY to Wonderland. 

23. Words after boy or so: DOI.  "Boy DO I."  "So DO I."

24. "Rooted in real" chip brand: TERRA.  Not a computer chip but a snack chip.  TERRA boasts that their chips are made "from real root" vegetables.

25. Landlocked Afr. land: ETH.  ETH is the International Olympic Committee's abbreviation for Ethiopia.  Somalia and Eritrea block ETHiopia's access to the sea.

28. Put in the cargo hold: STOW.

STOW IT !

30. Epic featuring the Trojan Horse: AENEID.  The AENEID is an epic poem written by Virgil sometime between 29 BCE and 19 BCE.    It tells the story of Aeneas who traveled to Italy and became the ancestor of the Romans.  The word is constructor's friend with four vowels out of six letters.

34. Bit of sediment: DREG.  DREGS is a nickname for what are called "lees" during wine making and "sediment" when in the bottle.  DREGs are composed of dead yeast cells and bits of seeds, grape skins and other solids.  Sometimes, winemakers choose to extend the time that wine stays in contact with the lees to impart added flavor.  

36. Hits the slopes: SKIS.

38. Wide open: AGAPE.

39. Like some bonds: IONIC.   A chemistry reference.  "The name is Bond, IONIC Bond.  Taken not shared."  We saw James Bond's iconic line "Shaken, not stirred" in a recent puzzle.

41. Platform-promoting org.: RNC.  This one was a head scratcher for a moment until it dawned on me that RNC stood for the Republican National Committee.

42. Grand __ National Park: TETON.  GRAND TETONS is a clue/answer not to be taken too literally in a family friendly puzzle.  Check this out with any French/English translation app.  "Hey, Jacques, take a look at those GRAND TETONs!"  "Pierre, you have been in zees mountains for far too long, n'est-ce pas?"  

43. Bat mitzvah scroll: TORAH.  The TORAH is a hand written copy of the first five books of the Old Testament of the Bible.  It is written with a quill on parchment made from the skin of a Kosher animal.  At a Bat Mitzvah ceremony, a girl of at least twelve years and one day (regarded as the age of religious maturity) reads from the Torah in front of the assembled congregation.

44. Barely open: AJAR.

       When is a door not a door?

       When it's ajar.

46. Chaps: LADS.   A LAD is a boy or a young man.  The Four LADS, on the other hand, is a Canadian singing quartet.  In the 50's, 60's and 70's they recorded several hit songs.  The members of the group are no longer LADS.....   

Istanbul Is Not Constantinople

47. Kind of column or cord: SPINAL.  (....and neither are these folks).

This Is Spinal Tap - Oy!

49. Flightless Aussies: EMUS.

EMUS

51. Mao __-tung: TSE.  Mao TSE-tung, often called Chairman Mao, was the founding father of The People's Republic of China.  He led the Chinese Communist Part from 1949 until his death in 1976.

MM Daughter Doing Her Best Chairman Mao

52. Avocado __: TOAST.  I had never heard of Avocado TOAST until a few years ago and now it seems to be quite the ....

54. Fleeting trend: FAD.  Memorable FADs have included Davy Crockett hats, Pet Rocks, Streaking, Chia Pets, Live Strong Braclets, Pogs, Lava Lamps and the list goes on and on and on and on.  The etymology of the word FAD might be  from the English "fiddle-faddle" - morphing into Fidfad and then, simply, FAD.  Alternatively, it came from the French "fadaise" meaning trifle or nonsense.  Fadaise, in turn, comes from the Latin "fatuus" meaning stupid.  Hmmm.

56. Modern Library title, e.g.: CLASSIC.  Founded in 1917, The Modern Library is a publisher of books many of which are considered to be CLASSICs. 

59. Players with possession: OFFENSE.  In football, soccer, and basketball the OFFENSE has possession of the ball.  Baseball is the only sport where the Defense has possession of the ball.

63. Overthrow: OUST.  "Throw the Bum out!"

66. Song often sung in Italian: ARIA.  Alternative clue:  Song often sung in crossword puzzles.

67. Loosen, as laces: UNTIE.

68. Send forth: EMIT.  Volcanoes, for example, EMIT Carbon Dioxide and Sulfur Dioxide along with ash, smoke and water vapor.

69. King with three daughters: LEAR.  Shakespeare's tragedy, King LEAR tells the tale of a king who bequeaths his power and land to two of his three daughters.  Things do not end well.

Regan, Goneril, King Lear and Cordelia

70. Bay Area-based coffee company: PEETS.

71. Towel holders: RODS.

Down

1.  République de __ d'Ivoire:  COTE.  French is the official language of the country that we, in English, call the Ivory Coast Republic.  En francais, c'est  le Republique de COTE d' Ivoire.

2. Deuce follower: ADIN.   Is it going to be a card game reference?  A trey?  No, this time it's a tennis term for Advantage In.  AD IN means that if the person serving wins the next point then the server will win the game.

3. Enters in a record book: LOGS.

4. Anna who was an early pioneer of psychoanalytic child psychology: FREUD.  Anna FREUD was the sixth, and youngest, child of the better known Sigmund Freud.

5. Colorful reminders: POSTITS.  Post It Notes. POST ITS were invented accidentally by a scientist working at 3M  Company (Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing).  He was trying to develop a very strong adhesive but instead invented a "low tack, pressure sensitive, reusable" adhesive.  The rest is, as they say, history - including the competing claims and law suits.

6. Feel yesterday's workout, say: ACHE.

7. Grassy ground: LEA.  Alternative clue:  Fields often seen in crossword puzzles.  This is getting redundant.

8. Simpson with a blue do: MARGE.

Marge Simpson

9. Turkish metropolis: ANKARA.  ANKARA, the capital city of Turkey, is also (at the risk of being redundant) neither Istanbul nor Constantinople nor Byzantium.  

Ankara At Night

11. "That smarts!": YEOW.   Synonyms for YEOW include "Ouch", "That smarts", and "Hell's bells!"

YEOW !

12. Tennis nickname: RAFA.  RAFAel Nadal is a Spanish professional  tennis player.  He wore a $725,000 Richard Mille watch during the French Open.  Tennis has been very, very good to him.

13. WWII turning point: DDAY.  June 6, 1944.  D-DAY is, repetitiously, Day-Day.  The day before was Day Minus One (D-1) .  The day after was called D Plus One (D +1), and the day after that was D+2.  D-Day was the Day.

18. Kia subcompacts: RIOS.  Kia is a Korean automotive company.  Their model line up includes the Sedona, the Telluride, the Sportage, the Optima and the RIO.  The RIO is a sub-compact model.

A Kia Rio

22. Pup's reward: TREAT.

The Eyes Have It

25. Prepares to publish: EDITS.

26. Scout group: TROOP.  The ultimate classic song about a Boy Scout TROOP has got to be Tom Lehrer's "Be Prepared".   Remember, as you listen, that this was 1953!

BE PREPARED ! 

27. Artist Matisse: HENRI.  HENRI Matisse, the painter, provides a wonderful excuse to add a bit of culture to this endeavor.

The Cat With Red Fish - Henri Matisse - 1914

29. Fried side: OKRA. A nice rhyming clue. OKRA is a staple of Southern cooking that is too often seen in crossword puzzles.

31. Bother greatly: EATAT.  The overuse of EAT AT in crossword puzzles is beginning to eat at me.

32. Devices with earbuds: IPODS.  IPODS have been almost completely replaced by the music playing capabilities of those electronic devices that we, somewhat quaintly, persist in referring to as phones.

33. Thick: DENSE.  The element Osmium is twice as DENSE as lead.  Under "normal" conditions it packs 22 grams into each cubic centimeter.  A teaspoon of it would weight roughly 3.5 ounces.

37. Con: SCAM.  In the immortal words of Carmine Sabatini, "This is an ugly word, this, scam."

Carmine Sabatini On the Equities Markets

40. Disorderly state: CHAOS.

45. Ridged chips: RUFFLES.  In this case, RUFFLES is a reference to the brand of potato chips and their advertising slogan.

48. Under the weather: LAIDUP.  Both the answer, LAID UP, and the clue, Under the Weather, are colloquialisms for being ill or injured.

50. Call at home: SAFE.  A baseball reference with a bit of misdirection.   The constructor might have wanted us to think about calling, or calling on, someone at home.  Below, the runner never touches the plate but is called SAFE because the catcher is blocking the plate but he does not have the baseball.  See Rule 7.13.

The Umpire Signals Safe At Home

53. Quick bread that may have raisins: SCONE.  We've all eaten them but what, exactly, makes a SCONE a SCONE?  It's an "unsweetened or lightly sweetened biscuit-like cake made from flour, fat and milk sometimes having added fruit."

55. Try to stop: DETER.

56. Steamboat fuel: COAL.

       Did you hear the joke about the guy who hated coal?

       Never mined.

        

57. It may be at the end of the line: LURE.  The expression "end of the line" refers to a conclusion or a final outcome.  But here, that path is a dead end.  This time it turns out to be a fishing reference.  Cleverly clued.

58. The Bosporus borders it: ASIA.  One of the least-cliched clues for ASIA that we have seen in a while.  The Bosporus is a narrow, internationally important strait.

59. Parting words?: OBIT.  No, the answer is not Good Bye, Au Revoir or Zai Jian.  It is OBIT, short for OBITuary.

60. Missing fish in a Pixar film: NEMO.  The motion picture Finding Nemo grossed about One Billion USD at the box office.  The sequel, Finding Dory, grossed another billion.  This Marine creature paid to see neither.

Dory and Nemo

61.  Voiced:  SAID

62. Ambulance pros: EMTS.   Emergency Medical Technicians.  For the final time, alternative clue:  Personnel often found in crossword puzzles.  Definitely over used.

65. Sporty truck, briefly: UTE.  On the first pass, we often do not know if the answer is going to turn out to be UTE (a nickname for Utility Vehicle)  or SUV (an abbreviation for Sports Utility Vehicle).  Of course, the classic use of the word was in the motion picture My Cousin Vinny.

TWO UTES

That wraps up another Thursday exposition.  Lots of animal friends stopped by to visit this week.  Well, I guess that is to be expected.  Two other good friends showed up, also.  I would bet that many of you were you able to identify them.

___________________________________________

___________________________________________

MM OUT