Puns on *LESS words today. I really liked the ones involving a drastic change to the first part of the word, SEAMLESS my favorite. So ...
read morePuns on *LESS words today. I really liked the ones involving a drastic change to the first part of the word, SEAMLESS my favorite. So funny to think about a coal miner, his/her shoulders sagging as he/she waves bye-bye to a beloved work site. BASELESS was amusing too, evoking a picture of a soldier roaming the world, BASE-less like a ronin.

Seven themers are rarely easy to fit into a grid. Paula does have the huge advantage of working with seven themers sharing a common four-letter ending, which makes intersecting themers much easier than normal (MOTIONLESS / SEAMLESS). Still, all those themers take up so much space that there are bound to be compromises in the short fill.
I like that Paula tried for some bonus fill, even what with the seven-themer challenge. Entries like POOL CUE, THE CAPE, MY STARS, IN HELL, even a little PASCAL (one of my first programming languages!) added zest to my solve.
I see you though, ISOLA, ON OR, EMAG, ENCL, MTGE, etc. That's too much in one puzzle for my taste, but I can appreciate Paula's decision to push the boundaries, using a good amount of crossword glue in order to cram in some bonus fill. Ah, the trade-offs constructors are eternally faced with.
[It has arms and waves] hinting at SEA made me laugh. I love that kind of riddle, as they remind me of many a beloved children's book I read as a kid. Or yesterday. (A major reason why I'm able to read more than 100 books a year is because most of them have "for kids age 9-12" on the back cover.)
I didn't love the themers where the kooky definition was a little too similar to the original meaning — HELPLESS is defined as "unable to ... act without help," which doesn't seem very different from the kooky clue — but I thought the idea was generally neat and made for an entertaining solve.