MGWCC #785 — “Tentative Meta”

[DrTom]

Fun and very happy to get a week 3.

From one doc to another great job Dr Tom!!! I’ll have to look up that paper…

I want to echo what was said about the muggles. This is an amazing group and I can’t imagine life without all of you

Stay well

Wow, Newtown Square. I had forgotten what a lovely area that was. Years ago, while at Temple Hospital, I dated a girl from there. We used to go running (back when I actually did that for fun) in the nearby State park.

Good luck finding the Maggot therapy one, I'm not even sure how someone stumbled into the Nitroglycerin one. I checked Pub Med and Google and can't turn it up. It was probably in the late 90's and it fascinated me that something first noted during the Civil War was now flying around in decubitus care circles.

[Wendy Walker]

@Streroto and @DrTom : I had Mohs surgery for a skin cancer back in 2012 at Penn, and the nature of the procedure is such that you spend a fair amount of time with the dermatologist working on you. He told me that early in his career he had developed an interest in the dermatitis caused by stinging nettles (he was a country boy from central PA) and even wrote a paper about it (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14744424/). His mentor advised him that if he didn't want to become known as an expert in the topic and see nothing but nettle stings, he might want to focus on other interests!

[DrTom]

I also tried to limit my focus on those little microsurgeons (excellent at debriding wounds by the way, take only dead tissue and do not harm viable flesh!) because I did not want to be thought of as a fly-by-night type of individual.

Here was an interesting bit of trivia. Before the use of these "living debriders" (and those are maggots not divorce lawyers) became more popular you had to order them from Dr. Ron Sherman at the University of California, Irvine. Can you guess how he got them to you...yep flew them in.

[lbray53]

Solved with some help. I failed to follow through on something that I noticed early and needed to be reminded to go there.

EDIT: Now officially beamed. The long time between board updates made me nervous.

[Jeremy Smith]

Awaiting the beam. Finally!!! That took much too long!

[Bob cruise director]

@Bob cruise director and I got it! Great meta, DT. We can always count on you for a fun ride.

Thanks Marge. If you were in Florida today it would be a water ride. I'm about to grow webbed feet, but at least it is good for the flowers!

I'm always surprised we haven't seen a botanical meta from you? I mean I can see clues like:
Got out of bed = AROSE
Hot place to be = INFERNO
Sugar used in cooking = CASTER
Say again = REPEAT

Time for you and your solving partner to start constructing!

@DrTom

Somehow, I think that if I started constructing or if @MaineMarge and I started constructing, with all the work to be done around the yards, completing the WSJ/MGWCCC/SSS/MMM and other things, our spouses (why isn't the plural of spouse spice like with mouse) would believe that would be a bridge too far. Much too far.

[DrTom]

@Bob cruise director and I got it! Great meta, DT. We can always count on you for a fun ride.

Thanks Marge. If you were in Florida today it would be a water ride. I'm about to grow webbed feet, but at least it is good for the flowers!

I'm always surprised we haven't seen a botanical meta from you? I mean I can see clues like:
Got out of bed = AROSE
Hot place to be = INFERNO
Sugar used in cooking = CASTER
Say again = REPEAT

Time for you and your solving partner to start constructing!

@DrTom

Somehow, I think that if I started constructing or if @MaineMarge and I started constructing, with all the work to be done around the yards, completing the WSJ/MGWCCC/SSS/MMM and other things, our spouses (why isn't the plural of spouse spice like with mouse) would believe that would be a bridge too far. Much too far.

Oh, I'll bet if you had more than one spouse things would indeed be spicy. I think it is the same reason you work on your house and your friends house you do not work on hice or why you don't hear the reindeer's hooves on rooves. But imagine if you had to follow the rules with mice; a single mouse would be a mie and if you had only one louse it would be a lie (which is probably true).

[schmidzy]

Finally beamed up. Bravo @DrTom on a terrific guest appearance!

[littlepigeon]

welp, so this week i'm certainly looking forward to the prospect of solving what is clearly just a delightful meta...

lol. "prospect" is somehow still being too generous to myself, i think.

after last week's brutal week 2, i'd been perhaps overly optimistic that this month's week 3 would just come breezing right in, both swiftly and satisfactorily doing the recalibrating necessary if i'm to at least have a shot of making it off the ground this week (necessary, in any case, in my mind, so).

but per usual the joke's on me, as so far i'm maintaining a super cool fun status of "embarrassingly directionless." my guess is that i'll inevitably end up cold calling some of y'all for a nudge, but for now i'm trying to hold off on doing so in the hope that an aha moment might still manage to conjure itself up out of thin air.... wish me luck!

[Trish]

Solved from the beaches of Lake Erie this week. Very fun puzzle! Got a little off course but saw our mistake and quickly corrected to get where we needed to be.

[ZooAnimalsOnWheels]

I have been beamed aboard. Fun Aha! and not as daunting as I first believed.

[DrTom]

I have been beamed aboard. Fun Aha! and not as daunting as I first believed.

and daunt think for a minute I don't appreciate your efforts!

[DrTom]

I have been beamed aboard. Fun Aha! and not as daunting as I first believed.

So can that officially be listed as an Erie way to solve a puzzle? Scary!!! I say Superior effort, obviously Huron the right track.

[sharkicicles]

What a wonderful surprise to see @DrTom’s byline on the MGWCC this week. Unfortunately for me it couldn’t have come on a worse weekend because I’ve been up in Michigan for an auto race and spending 12 hours a day helping out the team isn’t very conducive to working on metas. Hope to be able to take a look when back in Chicago tonight. In any case congratulations on the meta!

[HeadinHome]

A bonus with a@DrTom meta is that the laughs keep coming all week as people post their experiences with his puzzle. Makes the thread almost as entertaining as the puzzle!

[StunGun]

What a fun solve! And it's kind of a meta meta. Came to me a 5 AM as I was pushing the dog off the bed.

BTW, maggot debridement therapy (MDT) is also known as "myiasis."

Never seen that as an answer in a crossword.

Yet.

(sound of gauntlet thrown on ground)

[DrTom]

What a fun solve! And it's kind of a meta meta. Came to me a 5 AM as I was pushing the dog off the bed.

BTW, maggot debridement therapy (MDT) is also known as "myiasis."

Never seen that as an answer in a crossword.

Yet.

(sound of gauntlet thrown on ground)

Well, splitting hairs, myiasis (or fly strike) is the parasitic infection of the human body by fly larva, wound myiasis is the infection by fly larva of a wound per se, and therapeutic myiasis (or MDT) is the very effective, but rather creepy, thing we are talking about. Nothing is as disconcerting, regardless of its therapeutic value, as watching Uncle George's wound dressing undulate.

Luckily when they were naming it the word did not come out myaisit. If that were the case, when some enterprising intern of other clinician suggested this treatment could be beneficial the affirming response would not have been, "You bet! myaisit is! (groan)

OK, I guess I am going to have to figure our how to work that into a clue, this is going to bug me....

Glad you enjoyed it, oh, and my apologies to the dog.

T

[minimuggle]

Thanks to a nudge I'm ashore. At least I hope I am. Just realized I forgot to indicate that it was not a solo solve. I'll send a message to Matt. Although it won't matter if my answer is wrong. Wonderful puzzle Dr tom. Really impressive.

[Bird Lives]

Congrats to DrTom on pitching in the majors. As for the puzzle, sometimes it helps me to know who the constructor is. Not this time. If it had been anyone else, I might have seen what was going on without needing a nudge.

[MarkWoychick]

Submitted an answer with the help of a nudge - waiting to be beamed. But the bigger story here is Muggledom's own Dr. Tom as guest constructor. Now I have another brush with greatness story to go along with running into Mark Wahlberg at Walgreens! Congrats, @DrTom, and I hope to hear more about how this came about on a Tuesday call some day