"Happy Together" - February 25, 2022

[Joe Ross]

*click*me*

credit: @Wendy Walker

[Joe Ross]

[Bird Lives]

[Puzzle mom]

I had to backsolve for the “ L”
I ended up using lime thinking maybe it was rosemary and thyme…. But I didn’t love it. It doesn’t quite match the clue and it’s not initials. I submitted and ended up getting confirmation after that It was the right answer. @ship4u pointed out the r&r.

I never even saw the initial letter connection

[escapeartist]

My initial answer to 10D was RANDR - that helped to put the pieces together.

[DaveKennison]

Okay … I can now post a possibly funny story about my initial attempt to solve the meta: As I said in an earlier post, I saw the gimmick and wrote down the five letters involved, but I was tired and got one of the letters wrong. So … it is often said that “ignorance is BLISS”, but the result of my ignorance was “BRISS”! (After a nap and a good laugh, I fixed it and reported the correct answer … .)

[Ergcat]

My initial answer to 10D was RANDR - that helped to put the pieces together.

Similarly, my initial answer to 1A was AANDW but after I found out it was wrong, I forgot all about it when I started to work on the meta! Took me a long while before I saw the connection !

[meowmiao71]

I initially thought the answer had to be DANDY because it sort of fit (D and Y) but no amount of reverse engineering could make it work. Finally noticed M and M and got it from there!

[brewmaster]

Anyone else get thrown off by 8Down (AMC) as a possibility for B&B Theaters?

[Dplass]

Okay … I can now post a possibly funny story about my initial attempt to solve the meta: As I said in an earlier post, I saw the gimmick and wrote down the five letters involved, but I was tired and got one of the letters wrong. So … it is often said that “ignorance is BLISS”, but the result of my ignorance was “BRISS”! (After a nap and a good laugh, I fixed it and reported the correct answer … .)

BRISS definitely doesn't make you happy!

[Joe Ross]

Mood for a (Mon)Day:

I like a bit of heavy cream or half&half with my very good coffee. So, I'm not sure if I like my coffee because it reminds me of Guinness, or if I like Guinness because it reminds me of my very good coffee.

Happy New Week, Muggles!

[pjc]

Congrats to the those who got it and found this one easy! I went down a billion fruitless rabbit holes. Examples:

- Trying to find answers in the grid or clues that might be alternatives or clues for the FULL wordings of the long answers (closest I got was the stretch of ROOMANDBOARD and RENT)

- Speaking of RENT, MAME was close by and STAR was an answer, too, so musicals seemed to be a possibility, but LES (of LES MISERABLES) was my only other semi-find.

- Roman numerals were part of a clue/answer; trying to dig those out of the long answers and corresponding them to numbered squares started me with J and O - and I thought for sure JOLLY was falling out, but, alas.

- There are five three-letter sequences that cross themselves in the grid, like:

S
SKA
A

but I could only get gibberish out of the resulting letters.

- Then there was the three-letter answer (ALI) that was also a prefix to a long answer (ALIVEANDWELL). Nothing there either.

- And then....

Never thought to do the initials of the words surrounding the ANDs! Ah, well, streak broken.

On the positive side, Boswords starts tonight!

[MaineMarge]

It took my meta partner to see the initials. I was off in the weeds (or woods) somewhere.
Like the day in June we take an afternoon of R&R for a trek deep into our woods to see the big stand of Lady Slippers we have found hiding there.

25D Three Times a Lady? How about 5 times?'

[LadyBird]

It's Paczki time!

[bradisbrad]

MAT meeting MIXANDMATCH at the T and DWELT crossing ALIVEANDWELL right where it would spell "dwell" really had me thrown off. That had me looking for places where three letters crossed each other, as they would make the + symbol, like ALI and ALIT, and RANTANDRAVE with AVEC (of which I saw 5, of course!)

I even had all the initials for the theme answers written down and played around with R&B, but I just never fully made the connection on the alternatives throughout the grid.

[Colin]

Mood for a (Mon)Day:

I like a bit of heavy cream or half&half with my very good coffee. So, I'm not sure if I like my coffee because it reminds me of Guinness, or if I like Guinness because it reminds me of my very good coffee.

Happy New Week, Muggles!

Thank you for sharing Joe… amazing talent, great memories and I am now in the mood for the week (although still a little close to the edge!)

[rosiegirl]

MAT meeting MIXANDMATCH at the T and DWELT crossing ALIVEANDWELL right where it would spell "dwell" really had me thrown off. That had me looking for places where three letters crossed each other, as they would make the + symbol, like ALI and ALIT, and RANTANDRAVE with AVEC (of which I saw 5, of course!)

I even had all the initials for the theme answers written down and played around with R&B, but I just never fully made the connection on the alternatives throughout the grid.

I started down that rabbit hole, too. Words with 1 letter different that crossed over the long answers...WELT (well), RENT(rant), BARED (board)...just couldn't get all 5 and they didn't lead me anywhere.

[Streroto]

As I have shared with a couple of other Muggles, I took this a step too far. I found Bliss easily enough, but felt that maybe I needed to take it a step further and match it up with a ___ and ___ type approach. Since peace and bliss is a reasonably well-known expression, and peace a five letter word, I submitted that. My daughter-in-law came up with bliss, and when she did so I realized that was probably going to be the right answer. Oh well, I guess we’re always afraid of being pageanted.

Stay well all

[Al Sisti]

Mood for a (Mon)Day:

I like a bit of heavy cream or half&half with my very good coffee. So, I'm not sure if I like my coffee because it reminds me of Guinness, or if I like Guinness because it reminds me of my very good coffee.

Happy New Week, Muggles!

Thank you for sharing Joe… amazing talent, great memories and I am now in the mood for the week (although still a little close to the edge!)

Yes, and Howe!

[Deb F]

I spent a day trying to really complicate this. I was thinking the Happy Together might be leading to words that could be found elsewhere in the puzzle that derived from the long clues--i.e. Mix and Match=MIAMI; Alive and Well=ADVIL--or ALI; Room and Board=Omar; but, try as I might, could not find a fit for Bigger and Better or Rant and Rave. Then, after a couple other paths that didn't pay off either, put it down for a day. Coming at it with a fresh outlook led me to the trail that led to BLISS.

Good luck, Muggles! Have a good week.