Quasar

This was the crossword puzzle in the New York Times yesterday. 

Tausig’s crossword is a so-called Schrödinger puzzle, named for the physicist’s hypothetical cat that is at once both alive and dead. In a Schrödinger puzzle, select squares have more than one correct letter answer: They exist in two states at once. “Black Halloween animal,” for example, could be both BAT or CAT, yielding two different but perfectly correct puzzles. Only 10 such puzzles have now been published in Times history.

It’s the theme of Tausig’s puzzle, though, that makes it special. Four entries in Thursday’s crossword can include either an “F” or an “M.” Both are correct; neither is wrong. For example, “Part of a house” can be either ROOF or ROOM. The long “revealer” answer, tying those select entries together and spanning 11 squares smack-dab in the middle of the puzzle, is GENDER FLUID.

I'm cleaning owl pellets.

Gradual process.

There are at least five skulls and sooooooooo many mandibles and lots of vertebrae. Also lots and lots of ribs.

Here are the most complete skulls (and one mandible)

The process here is:

Clean the bones

Paint the pendant backing

Plan the layout of the pendant from a selection of cleaned bones

Put down a thin layer of resin and place the bones, then let the resin cure so that the bones don't float or move when you fill the tray

Fill the tray to the top with resin, pop any bubbles before letting it cure

Once it's cured and full, carefully drip on more resin to create a domed top that covers all raised parts of the bone and magnifies the contents of the pendant.

The other option was one of the bite risk tags they put on cages at the shelter, because no one knows the flag colour for biting (houndstooth).

After running a thousand errands, working hours of overtime, and being stuck in seemingly endless gridlock traffic commuting to and from their jobs, millions of Americans were disheartened to learn that it was, in fact, only Tuesday.

“Tuesday?” San Diego resident Doris Wagner said. “How in the hell is it still Tuesday?”

Tuesday’s arrival stunned a nation still recovering from the nightmarish slog that was Monday, leaving some to wonder if the week was ever going to end, and others to ask what was taking Saturday so goddamn long.