"More Options"

[Bird Lives]

Barring a miracle of the puzzle's life extending for eight days (seven, but who's counting), here is the final roster:


1. Laura M
2. FrankieHeck
3. boharr
4. Meg
5. Kay W
6. Cindy
7. ChrisKochmanski
8. oldjudge
9. Tmart
10. Dave C
11. DJB
12. SewYoung
13. Beth Tyrpin
14. lbray53
15. Dannyvee
16. Tom Wilson
17. whimsy
18. Schmeel
19. hazmat
20. ReB
21. cbarbee002
22. DrTom
23. Rpardoe
24. Cinny
25. Dow Jones
26. C=64
27. hcbirker
28. Cindy N
29. Jaclyn
30. Hector*
31. Bob cruise director
32. BarbaraK
33. m5rammy
34. markhr
35. Jeremy Smith
36. Richard B.
37. Joe Ross
38. michaelm*
39. bhamren
and a last-minute, Saturday night entry
40. Wendy Walker

[Bird Lives]

Here's the solution.
.

.
The entries for the starred clues are, in part or in whole, options taken in a well-known lyric poem.

Something something something TO MARKET
Something something something STATE HOME
Something something something ROSE BEEF
Something something something NUN
And something something something OUI, OUI . . . .

I did not receive any wrong answers, so I’m assuming that everyone who tried this one sooner or later got all the way home.

The judges were very flexible and accepted not only TOES (the preferred answer), but also TOE and the more technical anatomically correct term PIGGIES.

Thanks for all the kind comments. I hope everyone enjoyed this one.

[Joe Ross]

Fun puzzle. I like that it wasn't perfectly defined. Thank you, Jay!

Having said that, I submitted in the singular, which the meta clue indicated.

[Wendy Walker]

Bird, could you explain BEAM, please?

[Joe Ross]

Bird, could you explain BEAM, please?

"BEAM me up!"

[whimsy]

Before I latched onto the correct nursery rhyme, I was looking at the first long entry and OPTING to add MORE. But I was thinking of "To Market, to Market, to buy a fat PIG! So the first few letters I had to add to that were actually T-O-E! Tantalizingly close on many levels but for all the wrong reasons. Couldn't get any farther using that and eventually found the right porkers. But it was embarrassing it took me so long since the bulk of my 40+ year career in teaching was spent with 1 and 2 year olds...... and if I had a nickel for every time I talked or touched tootsies or piggies........

Puzzle was so clever and playful! Thanks, Bird!

[Bird Lives]

Bird, could you explain BEAM, please?

[A gloss on what Joe Ross posted]. On the Monday Muggles board, "Beam me up," is the counterpart to "Ashore" on the WSJ board.

[boharr]

Bird, could you explain BEAM, please?

[A gloss on what Joe Ross posted]. On the Monday Muggles board, "Beam me up," is the counterpart to "Ashore" on the WSJ board.

I thought Beam Me Up went with Gaffney. What happened to Off the Couch for MMM?

[Bird Lives]

Bird, could you explain BEAM, please?

[A gloss on what Joe Ross posted]. On the Monday Muggles board, "Beam me up," is the counterpart to "Ashore" on the WSJ board.

I thought Beam Me Up went with Gaffney. What happened to Off the Couch for MMM?

OOps.My mistake. I lost track and wrote an errant clue.

[KayW]

A most fun puzzle. I think Brian's "Family First" puzzle the prior week put me in the proper mood/mode. And thanks to Jay for giving me credit even though technically I was only 20% correct - I submitted TOE.... or is it 10%?

[Joe Ross]

[A gloss on what Joe Ross posted]. On the Monday Muggles board, "Beam me up," is the counterpart to "Ashore" on the WSJ board.

I thought Beam Me Up went with Gaffney. What happened to Off the Couch for MMM?

OOps.My mistake. I lost track and wrote an errant clue.

Your clue was correct. The explanation was off.

[Al Sisti]

I got a kick out of our Zoom meeting this week, when someone innocently said that he/she "couldn't get a toehold" on the puzzle. "Innocently"? Hmmm... you never know with this group...

[bhamren]

I will admit that I cheated on this puzzle and told Bird Lives about it.

I brought up the puzzle in the app and looked for a way to print (my preferred method). I noticed Solve All (or something like that) and it solved the entire puzzle. I just wrote down the the starred answers and the result made it obvious.