Rose oil / MON 8-1-2016 / Big band trombonist / IV units / One doing carbon 14 testing / America's Cup sport / Game piece with pips

Welcome back to another Annabel Monday!!!!!

Constructors: Kurt Mengel and Jan-Michele Gianette

Relative difficulty: Easy, actually. Weird, right? Like this took me 10 minutes less than usual. I'm so proud of myself.



THEME: TO-DO— Theme answers contained "to" and "do".

Theme answers:

• TOY DOLLS (17A: Barbies, e.g.)
• TOUCH DOWN (25A: Land, as a plane)
• TOMMY DORSEY (36A: Big band trombonist)
• TOP DOLLAR (49A: The highest price)
• TO DO LIST (59A: Planner's aid ... or what 17-, 25-, 36- and 49-Across are?)

Word of the Day:ATTAR(53A: Rose oil) —

Rose oil (rose otto, attar of rose, attar of roses or rose essence) is the essential oil extracted from the petals of various types of rose. Rose ottos are extracted through steam distillation, while rose absolutes are obtained through solvent extraction or supercritical carbon dioxide extraction, with the absolute being used more commonly in perfumery. Even with their high price and the advent of organic synthesis, rose oils are still perhaps the most widely used essential oil in perfumery.
...It takes many pounds of rose petals to distill one ounce of essential oil. Depending on extraction method and plant species, the average yield can range from 1:1,500 to 1:10,000.

This is probably my favorite puzzle so far, actually. I dunno, something about the clues and how it's laid out just work really well, and there's a lot of fun in it! There's LATEST - ASAP - NOW, which reads like a three-word short story about a frenzied news reporter. There's the fact that TOUCHDOWN doesn't have the obvious football clue. There's the way the constructors somehow managed to make DOT, of all things, into an interesting clue. Rex, you can't be totally grumpy about this one, right?!? I did get stuck in the lower left corner for a while, mostly out of a stubborn refusal to admit that ATTAR is a real word (which might or might not be why I made it word of the day). Also, I had DNA for 31A for like a million years. Again, this is why I'm an English major, not a bio major.

The theme was...eh. I'm actually great at checking off everything on a TO DO LIST, but the hard part is making one in the first place! I never know what I actually need TO DO, or what I just want TO DO, or what I should DO later rather than sooner, and in the end I just end up kind of going with everything as it comes. But for those of you who live by them, it's a great Monday theme! You can check off "do the first crossword puzzle of the week." :D

Bullets:

• TEPEE (39D: Conical home for a Plains Indian)— Uh...do you mean TEEPEE? Or TIPI? I've genuinely never seen it spelled this way, and I was very confused.
• DIP (1A: Guacamole, e.g.)— Oh my God I know I already wrote about the cool parts of this puzzle, but I just realize this combines with the corner to make DIP and DOT. Dippin' Dots. Like the ice cream. I love this puzzle.

Picture only slightly related.

• YACHTING (38D: America's Cup sport)— As a sailor, I believe I know what I am talking about when I say the America's Cup cannot accurately be described as yachting. The word "yachting" evokes peacefulness and leisure. The America's Cup is about FEAR AND DANGER.
• OTTER (8A: Playful animal on a stream bank)— Otters have been my favorite aquatic mammal since the third grade. Here is why.

Plus, otters hold hands in their sleep so they don't float away from each other. <3 ...well, I read that on the Internet one time, so it's probably true. It's a cute sentiment, anyway.

Signed, Annabel Thompson, tired college student.

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