New York Times, Tuesday, January 14, 2020

This puzzle began life as my first serious attempt at a themeless. I had the idea of pairing GRUMPY CAT and ANGRY BIRD, but they were nowhere near enough for a theme, so I planned for them to be the basis of a mini-theme in a themeless grid. I added MAD DOGS to the mix, but It still wasn't enough for a full-blown theme, so I worked up a few (18 to be exact) iterations of grids with just those three.

Some months later (I tend to let grids ferment a while), I came upon GROUCHY LADYBUG, and that threw everything up in the air. I've read the story many a time to my kids, so I had to add it. And when I found RAGING BULL, everything fell into place, and I abandoned my themeless goal.

But of course, the entry lengths wouldn't cooperate, so I had to get creative. Breaking up GROUCHY LADYBUG and nixing the "The" makes it awkward as heck, but I wanted it in there, so I gritted my teeth and found a way. At least it split cleanly into a 7-7. In my view, having it there, even in such a disjointed fashion, is better than not having it. (Others may disagree.)

But I had to jettison MAD DOGS. You would think a shorter entry like that could be worked in somewhere, but it was not to be. I even tried putting MAD and DOG in opposite corners, but it resulted in too much dodgy fill and having two split-up theme entries was definitely over the top.

Aside from MAD DOG(S), I think I have all instances of well-known crabby critters. If you think of any others, please let me know. As for my themeless dreams, I guess it's back to the drawing board.

Memorial puzzle! It made me grumpy when GRUMPY CAT passed away recently. Or wait, is today Garfield's birthday? I hate Mondays! What, it's Tuesday, you say? The only thing I hate more than Mondays are Tuesdays!

Why is catty crankiness so amusing? Sometimes the only thing that puts a smile on Catwad's face is making other people miserable, so I bet he smiled — a little — at today's theme. I know I did. Ah, schadenfreude.

At first, the loose-seeming collection of animal book / movie titles made me grouchy. Ah! (Animal) + (synonym for irritable) = a tight theme, indeed. ANGRY BIRDS was a huge hit, and if you haven't heard of it, it's two words that you can infer from the clue. Same with GRUMPY CAT, although who wouldn't love a mug like his?

The GROUCHY / LADYBUG gave me a long pause, though. I've checked out about 2,000 kids' books from our library, and this one didn't ring a bell. "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," yes. "Brown Bear," absolutely. Maybe "The Grouchy Ladybug" is to Eric Carle as "The Twits" is to Roald Dahl. Not every book by a superstar writer is going to stand the test of time. That said, it does work in the interest of a solid theme, so I'm okay with it.

One aspect of the puzzle that made me the opposite of grumpy was Jim Peredo's gridwork. Four excellent big corners, chock full of CABARET / OVULATE / DEMIGOD and AT ANY RATE / SIBERIA / TOUCANS? With just a bit of ERG and TEDS to hold it all together? Favorable trade-off, to say the least!

Although, the CARR / MANRAY borders on unfair for newbs. Especially given the unfamiliarity of GROUCHY / LADYBUG, I'd have asked for a revision there, looking for something less flashy but more oriented toward allowing a victorious solve.

Jim lives about an hour away from me, and with some crossword people coming into town this past weekend, it would have been perfect to get together. Two sick kids + a sick wife + a sick and exhausted Jeff = having to pass, which made me cantankerous. Nice to have a puzzle like today's to take away a little of the cat scratch fever.