Do you like puzzles? Do you like political humor? Do you like vaginas?
Then you're in luck! Sunday Puzzle has all three!
Yes! As a public service, Sunday Puzzle now features at least one puzzle each week in which a vagina appears in the clues or answers.
If you have your own vagina, you already know how nice they can be. If you don't, here's your chance to enjoy one vicariously -- and to exercise your wits at the same time.
In addition to a vagina, today's Sunday Puzzle features a 15-clue JulieCrostic, an Ana-Gremlin, a poll, and a special bonus puzzle: Where's Rush?
Plus: the answer to last week's Puzzle-In-A-Poll, which no one managed to solve!
Last week the puzzle-in-a-poll went unsolved. Several of you picked the correct poll option (Wait -- is this a vagina question?) But no one figured out why that is the correct option.
Here the puzzle is again:
I had an interesting vision. In it, a soldier spoke about the importance of taking part in this year's presidential election. I realized there was a deeper meaning to the vision. It seemed almost like a take-off on a familiar phrase. And I think the letter V is important. Can you help me figure what the person in the vision was really saying?
"Encourage people to take part in this election!" -- a soldier, Canada/Mexico/the US. That means...
So what does that mean?
There are plenty of clues to the answer in last week's diary. But if you still can't figure it out, don't despair -- you'll find the answer at the bottom of today's diary.
First, though...
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JulieCrostic
If you're familiar with how these puzzles work, jump right in. (If you're not, you can find an explanation and a practice puzzle over in Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up.)
1. once he was bernard, but now she's judi
2. famous bell
3. medicare opponents
4. with 13, candy
5. where I'm bound
6. x follower
7. upside-down bush?
8. often followed by 5
9. kind of wife
10. represents 106 received items
11. udall
12. cut
13. see 4
14. said to be lost, but it probably was never there
15. ooh, that's good!
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Ana-Gremlins
It's been quite a while since I've posted an Ana-Gremlin, so for those of you who've forgotten how they work (or those of you who've never seen one of these before) here's an explanation.
Ana-Gremlins are anagram puzzles consisting of an ordered list of related words. They could be the months of the year, the days of the week, names of world leaders, the words of a poem -- almost anything.
Before the items in the list get anagrammed, each item (a) gives one of its letters to some other items on the list, and (b) gets one new letter from some other item on the list. The result is a list of one-off anagrams. The challenge is to reconstruct the original list. (As a help in solving, the words appear in alphabetical order of the unanagrammed words.)
For example, if I gave you
3. ran
1. vine
2. gold
4. propels
the answer would be:
ORIGINAL ANAGRAM LOST GAINED
3. and ------ ran ------- [ D ] -- [ R ]
1. live ----- vine ------ [ L ] -- [ N ]
2. long ----- gold ------ [ N ] -- [ D ]
4. prosper -- propels --- [ R ] -- [ L ]
Read the original words in order, from 1 to 4, and you get: "Live long and prosper!"
Got the idea? Then here's today's puzzle.
5. ?
7. cause
4. Hi!
6. natal
3. trees
2. saving
1. say
Note that word # 5 has been omitted. So no letter is taken from or added to # 5, and the LOST and GAINED slots in your chart for that will be empty.
Well, we can't have empty slots, can we? So please put an O in those places. You'll see why when you've solved the puzzle.
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Where's My Vagina?
Every week there's at least one vagina present somewhere in the puzzles. It might be in the clues; it might be in the answers. But it's there.
So where is it this week?
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Where's Rush?
Pucklady and I enjoy using Rush Limbaugh in the JulieCrostics. If there's a posterior, a butt, or an anus in the answers, Rush is the ideal clue.
Well, I was all set to use Rush in the clues today but when I went to look I couldn't find him. Somehow he sneaked off while I wasn't looking. But I know he's hiding somewhere in today's puzzles. Can you find him?
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The answer to last week's Puzzle-In-A-Poll
I'm surprised no one solved this, since I literally gave you the answer.
"Encourage people to take part in this election!" -- a soldier, Canada/Mexico/the US.
As Fordian Analyst correct figured out,
a soldier =
A GI, and
Canada/Mexico/the US =
NA.
But Fordian went astray in guessing that "Encourage people to take part in this election!" translated to vote, and that vote could be abbreviated as V. Nope!
As stated in the introduction to the puzzle, this is based on a well-known phrase. It's a question which appears in a much-parodied commercial...
The commercial features people with mustaches...
White mustaches...
I assume most of you have figured it out by now. The commercial is Got Milk?. "Encourage people to take part in this election!" is GOTV (familiar abbreviation for Get Out The Vote).
And that means the phrase represented in the vision was a literal vagina question. Indeed, it was the same vagina question I used last week as the subtitle of the diary: "Got Vagina?"
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And lastly, today's poll. No puzzle, just a very easy question: