"Mishmash," 1/22/17

I don't want to get too cocky, because some week coming up will probably be a disaster, but we nailed this puzzle. We've been pretty on top of things for a few weeks in a row now. Maybe it's time to try some Thursday/Friday/Saturdays? Then again, Rex says this puzzle was easy and I thought it was kind of hard, so again: check yourself, self. I have a lot of gripes with this puzzle, so let's get going.

Time to finish/time I gave up: 38:47
Did I finish it without help? Indeed
Did I check puzzle? If yes, how many letters were wrong? N/A

Commentary:
We got off to an extremely ugly start on this one. Nothing in the top half was immediately obvious. After almost 10 minutes this was all we had:


You'll note that several of those paltry few answers are wrong, so it wasn't promising. I'm proud to say that it was not long after this photo that I got the first of the theme clues (66A "America"? OFTHEEISINGSONG), which cracked open not only how to do the theme but a lot of the surrounding fill. Unfortunately, that was my favorite of the theme clues--the rest of them are either not funny or nonsense. I take particular issue with 81A Grant a girl permission to dis Drake? LETHERRIPRAP. "Drake" does not equal "rap." Drake is a rapper. Grant a girl permission to dis Drake's genre, I guess? Also, what is riprap? (Answer: this rock stuff. Thanks, internet.) Rex does a lovely job of complaining about 3 of the other themers.

I did think a couple of the clues were cute, especially 38D Half of a swinging couple? JANE and 52D One lifting spirits? TOASTER.

I'm too young for this $h*t

• I'm slightly too young for Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, but I have seen it, and also it's not that hard to guess that Daffy dueled with Donald, so this one is ok.
• Cale Yarborough is a NASCAR racer from the 60s to 80s. To be fair, I don't think I can name any current NASCAR drivers either.

Really?

By Isaiah Thomas - A Little Pretty Pocket-book, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3205574

• What is ONEACAT??? (19A Baseball-like game) The picture on Wikipedia is from 1767. And it's from the article called "Tip-cat." One-a-cat is the 4th name on the Wikipedia article for this stupid game. It's particularly cruel because it has the same number of letters as "cricket," which is something that people have actually heard of.
• 26A Copies, informally REPROS "Hey dude, those are some sweet repros you made of the Mona Lisa. How much you charging?"
• 27A It shows who's who or what's what IDTAG. Nametag, yes. ID card, maybe. ID tag, blech.
• 65A A- NINETY. I am still not sure what this is, even after googling. I guess probably this plane thing? That is the first hit for the search "a-90." However, first I searched "a-ninety," (which, let's recall, is what the puzzle actually says) and Google provided me with:
• the definition of the word ninety (a number that is ten times nine, in case you weren't sure)
• the definition of nonagenarian (a 90-year old person)
• an article called "45 Life Lessons Written by a 90-Year-Old Woman," from the esteemed PopSugar
• an article called "Trump and Clinton Get Ready for a Ninety-Minute Campaign," from The New Yorker. If only I could go back in time and tell Hillary to opt for a slightly longer campaign.
• EDIT (later that day): My loving father has explained this to me--not "A (dash)" but "A minus"! Aha! This is sadly ironic because I tried to fit "minus" into the spot for "ninety" at least once, even though that doesn't really make sense.
• 77D It lies between Cleveland, O., and Buffalo, N.Y. Having made this drive many times in my life, I didn't have any trouble coming up with Erie, PA. My question is--why O? Why not OH? I happen to live in O. and I can tell you that people don't call it that.
• 88D Relative of "Aargh!" ACK This clue brought to you by Cathy.

Things I learned today:

• An alienee is one to whom or to which ownership of property is transferred. Can someone explain the root of this to me? Is it alien? Lien? A cursory online dictionary search was unhelpful. (I get the -ee part.)

• Julie Chen is someone from TV.

• Pamulaparti Venkata Narasimha Rao (28 June 1921 – 23 December 2004) was an Indian lawyer and politician who served as the 9th Prime Minister of India, from 1991–1996.

• "Rostra" is the plural of "rostrum," which is a platform or stage for public speaking.

• That T (crossed with 119D Poland's main airline LOT) was the last letter we filled in, and a good guess by my husband. Can't wait to fly LOT air sometime!

• Terri Lyne Carrington (born August 4, 1965) is a three-time Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer, composer, singer, record producer and entrepreneur.

• Lorna Doone is not just a cookie.

• Thyroids need iodine. I know both of these words, but I'm so tired of looking things up that someone will just have to tell me the science about this later.

Times I got to use my French major this week

• Semaine
• 104A French ___ FRY. Just kidding.

Fritz out!

"Grammar Lesson," 1/15/17

O Best Beloveds, I am sorry I didn't post last week. We were on a long road trip and I was too tired. It's a shame, too, because we did do the puzzle and I really enjoyed it. (And, it had SEGO lily in it, which, you may recall from a past post, I formerly didn't know about, but now I know it forever.)

Time to finish/time I gave up: 29:59 BOO YAH
Did I finish it without help? Sure did
Did I check puzzle? If yes, how many letters were wrong? N/A

Commentary:
I enjoyed this puzzle because I like grammar. I actually found the theme clues were easier than the fill in some cases, which helped us blaze through this one. PASSIVEVOICE helped me back into SOFTTACO--I am a big fan of both of those answers. Rex gripes about the theme clues a little (ok, a lot, like he does), but they didn't bother me. He also gripes about being forced to think about ANNCOULTER, but I'm with him on that one, as typing her name made me actually shudder.

We struggled with the NE corner, partly because of that FIGWASP (F_GW___ was not looking good), and partly because we went the wrong way with 15A Apple product and had "cores" for a while, and also "corer," before getting to CIDER. We also had "Tse" instead of TZE for 59D Chinese philosopher Mo-, which, let's be honest, we were just guessing anyway, but it just added to the whole mess.

I gotta say, I was pretty bummed by the amount of work-related clues in here. Come on, NYT, just give me Sunday. 23A Source of stress for many modern workers INBOXES, 39D Something set in a meeting AGENDA, 80A Result of a year-end review, maybe RAISE. I guess we could also throw in 92A ____ pad MEMO, but it's not 1990.

I'm too young for this $h*t

• See above memo pad.
• 122A ____ Aquino, Time's Woman of the Year in 1986. I understand that perhaps I ought to know about CORAZON for other reasons, but this clue just made me laugh at its unabashed 30 year old reference.
• And, I am reluctant to admit this, but I can't stop thinking about that commercial that used to run during football all the time, where the guy says, "It's a quee-no!"

Really?

• 74A ___ department REC. I'm all about some Parks and Recreation (shoutout to 38D Foe of the Cheyenne PAWNEE) but this could have been basically anything. How is department supposed to help clue REC in any way? Am I missing something?
• Rex explains this one: "102A: Specimen, for example: Abbr. (SYN.) — "Specimen" is a SYN(onym) of "example"; tricky." Ok now I at least understand what is going on but I still don't like "specimen" and "example" as synonyms.
• 82D Lacks HASNT. Too old British-y. This clue hasn't my approval.

Things I learned today:

• 75A Uber-owned company that makes self-driving trucks OTTO. I both appreciate the pun and am terrified that we live in this future world.
• The word "panegyric." Husband with a better vocabulary than mine to the rescue again.
• Hint: it's not pronounced "pain jai rick," and if you say that out loud, some husbands might laugh at you.

Times I got to use my French major this week

• Voila
• Heure
• Ici
• En garde

Fritz out!

"Rolling in the Aisles," 1/1/17

Happy New Year! I just typed "17" in the date for the first time, always a thrill.

Time to finish/time I gave up: 1:01:49
Did I finish it without help? Yeah, but it was a struggle.
Did I check puzzle? If yes, how many letters were wrong? N/A

Commentary:
I suffered from serious crossword newb syndrome today, as I did not understand until we thought we were done and it said "wrong" that you had to put 2 letters in those boxes with the circles. Is this more obvious in the print version? Or do people just know these things?

I knew that the circles were the theme clues, but we kept trying to make it work as "missing h" or "extra a" and it didn't quite gel. Especially because the "ha" goes in the down clues on the edges and the across clues for all the other ones. It was very confusing. Struggled a lot with the SE corner also. But we prevailed in the end! 

A few side notes: 
There are 2 Star Wars clues in here (29A Companion of Han in "The Force Awakens" and 48A Calrissian of "The Empire Strikes Back," REY and LANDO, respectively. I assume these puzzles are finalized earlier than a few days before, but a nice reminder of Carrie Fisher nonetheless.

Also several French language clues in here. Completing crosswords is probably now the 2nd most useful thing my college major has done for me.

42A Home of the Triple-A Mud Hens TOLEDO. As a loyal supporter of the Columbus Clippers (and formerly the Buffalo Bisons), I've seen my fair share of the Mud Hens. They're no Clippers or Bisons, I'll tell you that much.

80A It comes in tubes. The answer to this is RIGATONI, but that's not why I remark on it--any time the construction "it comes in ___" is deployed, I think of:

I'm too young for this $h*t

• I have nothing for this category this week! But don't get too excited, crossword author Matthew Sewell, I'm gonna nail you on some other categories.

Really?

• 60A Pulled off DID. Did. Yup. Yeah sometimes you have to put "did" in your puzzle, but I'm sure there's a better clue out there somewhere.
• 99A Beverage with a floral bouquet ROSETEA. Ok, I guess that I will grant that this is probably a flavor of tea that people have, but I find this to be lame and "bouquet" to be deliberately misleading. (I'm still salty that this didn't turn out to be "moscato," which is what I triumphantly filled in when we had OS.) (Although, I will also grant that moscato is probably not floral. I don't do sweet wine so I'm not quite sure.)
• 110A Miles away NOTNEAR. "Not near" is NOTAPHRASE.
• 90D Vital lines AORTAE. Is this an optional jerkface way to say "aortas?" These are the same people who correct other people when they say "alumni" when they mean "alumnus."

Things I learned today:

• Adrian I was an old pope. I'm not interested enough to find out more about him.
• Dcon (DCON? D-con?) is a glue trap brand. I try not to look at the boxes in the store because they always have dead mice on them. Poor little upside down mice with X's for eyes!
• A petard is a small bomb/explosive. Of course I know that petards are for hoisting oneself, but I always thought they were swords. I don't know why. I guess I conflate the image in my mind with "falling on one's sword." 
• Also, for a long time I thought the phrase was "foisted by one's own petard." To foist is to put something unwanted into/onto something else. One thing you really don't want in you is a sword. (Or a bomb!) It works.
• "Slue" is a violent or uncontrollable sliding movement. Thankfully Jamie knew this one was the answer to 38D Zig or zag, otherwise I would have been annoyed enough to put this in one of my other scoff-worthy categories. First of all, I don't know the word "slue," (well, now I do) but secondly, I wouldn't call zigging or zagging violent/uncontrollable. I think zig or zag is more like a wide receiver's route. Which, now that I think about, does often end violently.

Crosswordese fails

• Eero Saarinen was a Finnish American architect known for his neofuturistic styles. I'm sure he's very important and all, but his father is named Eliel and when you google his name, "eero saarinen father crossword" is one of the suggested searches. Clearly Eliel was so used to being in crosswords, he wanted his son to achieve the same level of long-lasting fame, and so named him Eero.
• See also Xaiver Cugat, whose Google hits are actually all from sites like "crosswordanswers.com"
• See also also "Elephant pluckers of myth" ROCS. 3 strikes here--1 strike for when you start typing elephant pluckers in Google it suggests "of myth"--that's when you know you're in trouble. Second strike for all the hits being "crosswordsolver.com." Third strike for the roc in question being the 4th hit in the results, falling behind 3 different pages for ROCS Staffing and Recruiting Services for Entry-Level Jobs in Virginia. I bet they get a lot of crossword solvers who apply.

Fritz out!

"Married Couples," 12/25/16

Time to finish/time I gave up: 34:14
Did I finish it without help? Yes! With some guest star solvers at my side!
Did I check puzzle? If yes, how many letters were wrong? N/A

Commentary:
Merry Christmas! I completed this puzzle with my dad and sister since we are all holidaying together, and it was a delightful experience. The puzzle didn't give us much of a challenge, and sadly, it had nothing to do with Christmas. It didn't really have much to do with anything, including its purported theme, "married couples." Ah well, it's always fun to puzzle with family. Here are some of the entertaining ideas we had:

The first theme clue (22A Play by heart) is supposed to be an overlap of "dramatic pieCE" (play) and "CEnter" (heart). Before we understood that it was an overlap, though, I thought it was a "dramatic pie center..." perhaps a HUMAN HEART??? Think Arya Stark's revenge... 

25A Monastery title is FRA, but we were also hoping for BRO, or perhaps BRA (alt. of BRAH, obviously)

70A Cry at a surprise party just before the honoree arrives Sadly we couldn't make "Oh my god...she's going to be so surprised..." fit. (Wiig's SNL character)

I'm too young for this $h*t

• 90D "Well, Did You ___?" (Cole Porter tune) The answer is EVAH, and this song is from a 1939 musical. At first we had in EVER (which is a real word), and when that looked wrong, we were kind of hoping it would be EVEN (Cole Porter can't even) (yes I just linked back to my own blog. A throwback reference for my faithful readers, that's how you build loyalty.) But alas, it was the non-word, evah.

Really?

• 56D "Quite true" ITISSO. It is so? Who is the speaker here? Spock? My sister really wanted this to be INITDO, as in, "innit, tho/doe?" Excellent try, Fran.
• 63D Toward the back AREAR and 66D Very loud AROAR. Maybe the crossword creator was hoping that the proximity of these clues would make us think they were a cute little pair. He was wrong, because instead we think they are nothing.

Things I learned today:

• Fasces: (in ancient Rome) a bundle of rods with a projecting ax blade, carried by a lictor as a symbol of a magistrate's power, and used as an emblem of authority in Fascist Italy.
• Vänern is the largest lake in Sweden, the largest lake in the European Union and the third-largest lake entirely in Europe after Ladoga and Onega in Russia. More interesting than that is the fact than in the year 530 there was an epic Battle on the Ice of Lake Vanern. Ice battle! No mention of how many people fell through into the lake. 
• Eileen Fisher is a fashion designer. I don't really do high fashion, but I have to say, from what I see on Google Images, I'm not impressed. 

Crosswordese fails

• 100D Hawks' hangouts AERIES. I knew this one from my years of inconsistent crossword puzzling, and also from the American Eagle spinoff store called Aerie. What a yawn of a clue.

Fritz and Holomans out. Enjoy your Christmases and/or other holidays!

Sunday, 12/18/16

Time to finish/time I gave up: 32:43
Did I finish it without help? Yes, but it wasn't an unqualified success...
Did I check puzzle? If yes, how many letters were wrong? 1. Blast. I don't want to talk about it, it was a stupid mistake.

Commentary:

I feel like I need to label this post with a *spoiler alert* because the theme takes you by surprise! Halfway through, you realize that...the clues at the bottom are the same as the ones at the top! "Mirror Reflection" was a real mind-blower. I don't really think I liked it, though--I agree with Rex's summary today. One redeeming quality was that every time an answer we liked turned out to be wrong on the top, it ended up being right on the bottom. E.g., "Wait a minute, Egyptian queen isn't Cleopatra? Nefertiti I guess..." [15 minutes later] "Oh, it's Cleopatra too! Nailed it."

I'm too young for this $h*t

• 32 and 113A One of Frank's wives AVA and MIA. I admit to Sinatra being a bit of a blind spot for me, but I am truly not interested in learning about all of his philandering. I have no joke to make here because I don't want to read the Wikipedia article. (We are talking about Frank Sinatra, right?)

Really?

• 56 and 85A Anagram of the letters O-N-D. Is this the worst clue of all time? This is the equivalent of, say, cluing "snorkel" as "rhymes with shmorkel."
• 15D Suffix with schnozz OLA. For those times when calling someone's nose a schnozz just isn't hilarious enough.
• 51D Raise again, as a flag REHOIST. This is not a thing.

Things I learned today:

• Australia exports both tin and rum. What a boring fact.
• Side note: I thought the Caribbean had rum exporting on lock--TRIANGLE TRADE, FOOLS. (My dad sang this song repeatedly while I learned about this concept in 7th grade, and now I will remember triangle trade forever. Thanks, Dad!) 
• Xoth is the home star of Cthulhu. Yikes, that is a geeky thing to have learned. I mean, I like being a nerd, but come on, you have to draw a line somewhere.
• 12A Old German ruler nicknamed "The Short" OTTOVI. If anyone knew who this was, you deserve a prize. The Wikipedia article on this guy is quite brief. It doesn't even say how short he was.
• Fun fact: My sister, who is 6'3", calls me Shorto. I am 5'10", which is far above average for a woman. So, don't be so quick to assume that our friend Otto was diminutive! 
• A redan is a V-shaped fortification. Through subsequent wiki-reading, I have learned that the term is also applied to a certain type of golf hole construction: "Macdonald's oft-quoted description from Scotland's Gift: Golf is as follows: 'Take a narrow tableland, tilt it a little from right to left, dig a deep bunker on the front side, approach it diagonally and you have a Redan.'" Wikipedia author, I think you and I have different definitions of "oft."
• Elul is the month after Av in the Jewish calendar.
• 90D City that, despite its name, is smaller than Little Rock BOULDER. This is a pretty funny clue, and I learned that Boulder is not very big. Or Little Rock is quite big? I don't really know anything about either of them, turns out.
• Ferenc Molnar is an author, and he wrote the play Liliom. Which, as it turns out, is the basis for Carousel, so that's your second sweet musical reference of this post.

A new section! Things I learned in other weeks that came back today: a jab at crosswordese. [This section sponsored by the Otoe.]

• This only sort of counts: 5A Tinker, for one, in olden days SHORTSTOP. I've seen Tinker in the context of "Tinker to Evers to Chance" in a previous puzzle, but it wasn't enough for me to remember his name. Just got SHORTSTOP from context of other letters. I suspect Evers is the MVC (most valuable crosswordese) of these 3 really old baseball players. File also under "too young for."

Fritz out.

PS: for those wondering, I didn't win my fantasy football game last week. But I only lost by 13 points!

Sunday, 12/11/6

Time to finish/time I gave up: 25:09
Did I finish it without help? Yes!
Did I check puzzle? If yes, how many letters were wrong? N/A

Commentary:

This was certainly the easiest of the 3 Sunday puzzles that I have written about so far. The theme clues were easy to crack, and there weren't too many places we got tripped up. 25 minutes! Not bad for when you are also watching football at the same time. (Shout-out to everyone who is in their fantasy playoffs! My team made it, but we're facing Le'Veon Bell, who has 24.5 points at halftime. Bite me, Le'Veon Bell.)

I'm too young for this $h*t

• 29A "Fernando" band ABBA. It's not that I had trouble figuring out a 4-letter band ending in __BA, it's just that I don't know the song "Fernando." [listens to song] Verdict: not bad. Better than I expected for an ABBA song.
• Thing I am just the right age for: 101D "____even" ICANT. Arguably, I'm even too old for this one. Way to keep up with your millennials, Tom McCoy. Here's a joke for your Sunday: Why do teenage girls travel in groups of 3, 5, or 7? Because they can't even!

Really?

• 54A Skimobile, informally SLED. First of all, when you look up "skimobile," the first thing that comes up is the definition: snowmobile. Wouldn't we normally just say snowmobile then? Second, do people informally refer to their snowmobiles? As sleds? "Hey, watch me ride my tricked-out sled, brah." I dunno, maybe they do.
• Side note: when I clicked on the dictionary definition of skimobile, it suggested that I look up "words that rhyme with skimobile." Intrigued, I did. Some highlights are: bearded seal, glockenspiel, orange peel, pimpmobile, stainless steel. (Now I am watching "Peeno Noir" from Kimmy Schmidt.)
• 55A "Tell me how you really feel!" SAYIT SAY IT
• 49D Target demographic for Hot Wheels BOYS. Boooo to gender-typing toys. There are approximately 8,000 other ways you could have clued "boys."

Things I learned today:

• A newt is called an EFT in its terrestrial juvenile phase. 
• OBOLS are Coins that pay for passage over the River Styx. I also learned, while googling this, that 6 obols make a drachma, 70 drachmae make a mina, and 60 minae make one Athenian talent. This makes slightly more mathematical sense than Harry Potter currency (29 knuts in a sickle, 17 sickles in a galleon. Why would you possibly pick those numbers, J.K.?)
• Isadora Duncan was a famous and maybe racist dancer from the 1800s.
• Ipse dixit is a dogmatic and unproven statement. Wikipedia encourages one to see also "truthiness." 
• Jean Arp was a German-French sculptor, painter, poet, and abstract artist in other media such as torn and pasted paper. Bet he features in the new section below at some point.
• ALGAL is the adjectival form of alga/algae, and also the answer to ____ bloom (result of fertilizer pollution.)

A new section! Things I learned in other weeks that came back today: a jab at crosswordese. [This section sponsored by the Otoe.]

• 11D "Rosy-fingered" Greek goddess EOS. She's back! I did know that the dawn is always rosy-fingered thanks to my 12th grade English teacher, who shouted about it repeatedly. I kept a list of funny Mr. Duffy quotes, which I found while cleaning out my childhood bedroom recently. Example: "We didn't have any soccer camps. We had violence!" Unfortunately, the rosy-fingered dawn did not make it into any of the funny quotes.

Fritz out.

PS: Now that I have finished writing this post, Le'Veon Bell has 45.3 points, and there are still 7 minutes left in the game. I can't even.

Sunday, 12/4/16

Time to finish/time I gave up: 43:26
Did I finish it without help? No :(
Did I check puzzle? If yes, how many letters were wrong? 2. We figured out one of them but had to reveal the other. Read on to find out more!

Commentary:

I loved the theme clues of this puzzle! I think my favorite was 66A ___ a new film adaptation SEANPENNED. Silly wordplay gets me every time. I note that Rex [Parker, inspire-r of this blog] was not impressed, but he has done approximately 1.2 million more puzzles than I have, so it was good enough for me. You will see that there are a great deal of "Really?" questionable fills listed below, though.

Everything went pretty smoothly for us except the two crosses where we got stuck. One that we missed at first but then corrected after the check was 39A Many a suit has one, for short/39D Goya subject, MBAS/MAJA. Here is my entire knowledge base about Goya: Spanish painter. (Or, maker of cans of beans.) We had BAJA at first (a Spanish word!) and were just punting on the suits as "BBAs," thinking a BBA was some kind of fancy lapel or something. Wordplay, you tricked me this time! We figured out MBAs after the check. Imagine my surprise when I looked up "maja" just now and discovered it's a nude painting! I feel like I got tricked into looking at a naked lady by the New York Times! It's the new rickrolling!

We never did get 119A Actions of environmental extremists/106D ___ lily ECOTAGE/SEGO. Ok, eco-tage like sabotage, I get that now. We went through every letter of the alphabet and tried a few ("Ecotape? Maybe like they taped something off?" "Ecotale. Like, they told a tale to create fake news and alarm people.") before giving up. Thinking it was that long A sound instead of the French "tage" was a killer. I'm bitter that "sego" lily was no help. I googled it, it's a stupid-looking flower anyway. I hate you, sego lily.

I'm too young for this $h*t

• 47A ___ Doggie of old cartoons AUGIE. I can do old Looney Tunes cartoons, but I wasn't a Hanna-Barbera kid. Augie Doggie looks pretty cute though.
• A couple of the theme clues stars were borderline for me. I knew James Garner was a person, but had to look up who he is ("Oh! The old guy from The Notebook!"), and Shelley Long squeaks into my knowledge because Jamie and I have been watching Cheers on Netflix.
• 57D Michael ___, Brett Halliday detective SHAYNE. Ok, Michael Shayne is from the 1930's. Everyone is too young for this one.
• 70D Singer Marie TEENA. Yes, I'm too young for Teena Marie. We kept thinking Marie was the first name and got all the way to TE_NA and were debating Elba vs. Alba [77A Italy's Isola d'___] before I pulled Teena Marie out of my brain.
• Bonus points for this puzzle creator for including things I am exactly the right age for:
• 34D Hogwarts groundskeeper HAGRID
• 57A "The Lion King" villain SCAR

Really?

• 21A Harshly bright AGLARE. Every time I walk into Target I'm like, "ugh, it's so aglare in here."
• 99A Giggled TEHEED. Te-hee? With one E in the "tee" part? Does this laugh sound like "teh-HEE?" Thinking about this made me tehee and I woke up my baby.
• 7D Sunbathing locale POOLAREA. Ah yes, the pool area. I had "pool deck" in here briefly, and Jamie really wanted it to be "poop deck," but instead it was just the uninspiring pool area.
• 62D Naval conflict SEAWAR. I mean, I guess that's a thing. Just like an army conflict is a land war ("Never get involved in a land war in Asia!") and an air force conflict is a sky war. Someone help me out here.
• There were a lot of questionable "saying" clues in this puzzle. See 31A "Phooey!" AWRATS, 43A "You think I won't!" DAREME, 81A "Ha! I was right!" TOLDYA, 84D "A likely story!" YEAHIBET, 94D "I'm waiting...?" WELL. Try to employ these phrases in your upcoming week. Especially "Aw, rats!" And/or its clue, "Phooey!"
• 90A Like food EATABLE. All I have to say about this one is "tehee!"

Things I learned today:

• 28A Sibling of Helios and Selene, in myth EOS. Apparently is the goddess of the dawn; not affiliated with the lip balm. 
• 89A Cads ROUES. I did not know this word, but intend to call people roués whenever possible from now on. Jamie rightly points out that it's featured in "Sixteen Going On Seventeen" from The Sound of Music, though: "Eager young lads and roués and cads/Will offer you food and wine." That's my husband!
• 9D Borodin's prince IGOR. Prince Igor is an opera by Alexander Borodin. An opera clue! Where's my dad when you need him? (Answer: at church probably?)

Fritz out.

PS this is the 3rd time in my short few weeks of consistent crosswording that the OTOE have made an appearance. Otoe, your PR people are on point.