FAREWELL LINDA G

To the crossworld, Linda G wrote about the New York Times crossword puzzle every day in her blog Madness ... Crossword and Otherwise and, incidentally, about her family and her job. Or was it the other way around. We learned this week that she will no longer be able to continue her blog. She had gone into hiatus earlier this year and came back just a little shaky because job and family were more important to her than writing about crossword puzzles but that she would try to keep all three balls in the air at once. She apparantly lost that battle.

She used a photo of Ava Gardner as her avatar and, since I never met her, that is how I pictured her. A celebrity photo has never been put to better use.

I solve the Times puzzle every night before I go to bed and my first stop to check my answers was her blog. She was not one of those Super Solvers who blew through the puzzle in less than 5 minutes. As a matter of fact, I have no idea how long it took her to complete the puzzle - she never said. I learned the expression " I declare this puzzle solved" when she reached the end of the line and could not finish. This didn't happen often but enough to humanize her. I shamelessly appropriated the expression for myself .

I was introduced to some other blogs through her site, most particularly Robert Loy's Green Genius where he wrote about his family and country music, Anna Southward's A View from my Window where she presented her poetry and graphics (N.B.: A Crossword Pantheon Moment this blog) and Wendy's I estivate, therefore I am a blog about the music of the Boomer Generation and my youth.

So Goodbye Linda. I hardly knew ye. And every time I see Ava Gardner, I will think fondly of you.