Eero's Aloe

Perhaps because for the first time in six months the five-day forecast in the newspaper contains only one word--"sun"--or maybe because yesterday I received in the mail a settlement check from a corporate law suit I didn't even know I was involved in--I have decided today to be totally sanguine, at least until something alters my mood. So I am going to dedicate my good will to one of the most reliable and intellectually valuable features of daily life: the crossword puzzle.

How much do I adore crossword puzzles? Let me count the ways. They provide excellent mental exercise every morning, something doctors and gerontologists suggest helps cerebral functioning and staves off the ravages of aging, including Alzheimer's. They are excellent fodder for filling waiting periods, speeding up the passage of time in doctors' anterooms and long air flights. They provide intellectual challenge in an otherwise dare-to-be-dumber world. They enhance vocabulary, especially of three and four-letter words of at least 50% vowel composition. I generally learn some new tidbit every day. And they reinforce my own sense of intellectual competence.

Today's LA Times sample was typical. Wednesday's puzzle is of average difficulty, falling between the absurd simplicity of Monday's Romper Room exercise and the brain-twisting agony of Saturday's entry. The breadth of knowledge required to fill in answers involves familiarity with Ben Jonson, ancient Egyptian dynasties, Hinduism, ornithology, Maureen Dowd, western songs, Madame Curie, 1950's comics character Dondi, Latin, Gloria Steinem, AOL and the San Antonio Alamodome. I finished the puzzle in eight minutes. No wonder I made it onto "Jeopardy" (twice).

I play a game with myself each morning to see how quickly I can complete the puzzle. Naturally, since many of the common crossword answers have become ingrained in my head, I am quicker to the draw. Rare is the puzzle that does not include aloe, eer or een, eero (Saarinen), obit, ibid, the directions ese or wnw, and other kneejerk abbreviations. If I don't finish the early-weekday puzzles in five minutes I am disappointed. The fastest I can complete one is four minutes, limited by the speed of my writing. By Thursday and Friday the degree of difficulty has me in the 8 to 10-minute range. The Saturday puzzle is a gret challenge in itself. I am usually groggy after a late-Friday poker game, and really struggle with the elusiveness, usually requiring twenty minutes to decipher its vague clues and multi-lettered answers. This is the only puzzle that I will occasionally not complete, leaving me grumbling for several unsatisfied minutes. The Sunday entries are usually much snappier, requiring only the solution of the theme, and I'm usually done quicker than I am with the Saturday stumper.

I suppose all the self-puffery is useful to gird myself against the Great Stupidities I am about to encounter in every bureaucracy that has me in its incompetent thrall. A feeling of intellectual superiority may be frail armor but there's something to be said for self-esteem, esteem which is buttressed by my daily tangle--and usual victory--over the crossword puzzle.