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Sorry for the delay in getting this post done. In short, I fell into a couple of rabbit holes involving: a) travel planning / arranging and b) not entirely successful attempts at organizing. I hope to get a bit more caught up before I leave again in in (gasp!) a few days.

The reason I had flown to the New York area instead of home was because my favorite crossword tournament of the year was that weekend. I like Lollapuzzoola because the puzzles are particularly creative and, frankly, just a little bit twisted. I was particularly eager to go this year since I’d missed last year due to a genealogy conference.

I stayed at the Moxy Hotel, which claims to be at Times Square but is actually at 36th and 7th, which doesn’t quite qualify in my opinion. At any rate, it’s a short walk from Penn Station, so it was convenient. I had stayed there once before and it’s decent, and relatively reasonably priced for New York. I checked in, walked over to a nearby Vietnamese restaurant to get supper, and had an early night.

In the morning, I had a leisurely breakfast at a nearby coffee shop before taking the subway uptown to Columbia University and walking over to Riverside Church, where the tournament was being held. I checked in, topped up my blood caffeine level, and connected with a few friends before things started. I also showed off my eclipse photo to anyone who would stay still long enough to look.

Puzzle #1 was by Matthew Gritzmacher and Doug Peterson. It was pretty straightforward and I was confident that I’d solved it cleanly. So I was surprised when my score was missing from the standings. I texted the organizers asking what had happened. Uh, remember jet lag? I discovered that I’d written my contestant number incorrectly on the back of the puzzle. Fortunately, they corrected my error quickly.

Puzzle #2 by Sara Cantor was slightly trickier, but there was nothing about it that one wouldn’t encounter in, say, a New York Times crossword. So things were still going well.

Puzzle #3 by Ricky Cruz was in the shape of a box,, with answers wrapping around onto adjoining surfaces. I’ve done plenty of puzzles in this form before and, while they aren’t my favorite, they’re not actually scary. I thought I had solved cleanly, but when the results came in, I apparently had three letters incorrect. They don’t provide scans of your puzzles, so I’m not sure what those were.

I had done the smart thing and ordered pizza for lunch, satisfying one of my New York needs. I got one slice with mushrooms and one with black olives, as well as some coke zero. It was delicious, but probably didn’t help with my level of alertness (or lack thereof).

And then it was time for the dreaded puzzle #4, which is always the hardest puzzle at Lolla. This year’s torturer was Adam Wagner. I was completely confused at first, then started to find some things I could fill in, but I was still struggling. I did make some progress and I did finish the puzzle, but I did not completely grasp the trick in the theme. Surprisingly, I ended up with only one mistake, but whew!

Here is a brief spoiler (encoded using a href="https://rot13.com/"rot13:

Gur tvzzvpx gung v zvffrq jnf gung gur erirnyre ersreerq gb jbeqf va fbzr bs gur pyhrf, abg va gur nafjref. Guvf vf gur frpbaq gvzr V'ir frra gung qbar va n chmmyr jvguva gur cnfg srj zbaguf, fb V ernyyl fubhyq unir pnhtug ba. Ohg, znlor abg, fvapr gur gevpx nyfb vaibyirq hfvat gjb yrggre nooerivngvbaf sbe qnlf bs gur jrrx (r.t. Zb sbe Zbaqnl, Gh sbe Ghrfqnl, naq fb ba), juvyr V trarenyyl guvax bs qnlf nf univat guerr yrggre nooerivngvbaf.

Puzzle #5 by Will Nediger was back in the Things I Can Solve category. It was also the sort of theme that I enjoy, so was a nice end to the main part of the day. I knew I wouldn’t be in the finals (and, frankly, I wouldn’t want to be solving on a big board in front of everyone), so I could kick back and relax. In the meantime, Ben Zimmer and Neville Fogarty had a cute little game to keep us occupied while the judges were tallying the final scores.

So, how did I do?

I finished 86th out of 165 in the local division (which is people who haven’t finished in the top 20% at other tournaments). I think that's pretty solidly middle of the pack. But I was 169th out of 249 in the express division. (which is everyone) and that’s the fairly pathetic score I should really be counting. That’s actually reasonably consistent with my performance at the past couple of Lollas I’d been to.

And, of course, I was extremely jet lagged.

I took the subway back downtown and, given my state of exhaustion, decided that a container of yogurt and a granola bar was a perfect choice for dinner. I faffed around on-line for a little while, then collapsed into bed.

In the morning, I walked over to Moynihan Train Hall, got a bagel (from H&H Bagels in the station), and took the train down D.C. I normally just take the regional, but I’d had a $50 credit for a one-way Acela trip, which made it the cheaper option. And, gee whiz, an early(ish) train on a Sunday is pretty uncrowded. There were no issues with the metro either.

And then home. In other words, the usual chaos of unpacking and doing laundry and trying to get caught up.