Bird feeder material / MON 9-4-17 / Degs. held by Bloomberg and George W. Bush / Miso bean / Mythical 100-eyed giant

It's Annabel, back at college and hopefully going to a Labor Day BBQtonight! This one was actually somewhat harder than I'd bargained for, so I'm coming to you a little bit LATH - er, late - DUH. Hopefully your heart did not ACHE from my absence.

Constructor: TRACY GRAY

Relative difficulty: PRETTY HARD FOR A MONDAY TBH



THEME: BBQ— The last word of each theme answer is something you might find at a BBQ.

Theme answers:

• WAITS IN THE WINGS (17A: Is ready for one's star turn, say)
• RESERVOIR DOGS (23A: 1992 Tarantino crime thriller)
• MILITARY BRATS (52A: Children of armed forces personnel, slangily)
• BACK DOOR SLIDERS (58A: Fast, sharp-breaking curveballs)
• BBQ (38A: Cookout, briefly...or a hint to the ends of 17-, 23-, 52- and 58-Across)

Word of the Day: ERIES (34D: Iroquois foes) —

The Erie people (also Erieehronon, Eriechronon, Riquéronon, Erielhonan, Eriez, Nation du Chat) were a Native Americanpeople historically living on the south shore of Lake Erie. An Iroquoian group, they lived in what is now western New York, northwestern Pennsylvania, and northern Ohio before 1658.^[1] They were destroyed in the mid-17th century by five years of prolonged warfare with the neighboring Iroquois, especially the Seneca, for helping the Huron in the Beaver Wars for control of the fur trade."^[1]

Their villages were burned as a lesson to those who dare oppose the Iroquois, adding to their loss of life and likely forcing emigration. The Iroquoian confederacies were known for adopting others into their tribes, and true to form, the remaining defeated Erie are believed to have been absorbed by other Iroquoian tribes, particularly the Seneca, and possibly their kindred Susquehannocks with whom they shared the hunting grounds of the Allegheny Plateau and the Amerindian paths through the gaps of the Allegheny. Whatever their individual fates, the remnant tribes^[2] living among the Iroquois, gradually lost their independent identity.

(Wikipedia)

Hi! By the time I'm working on next month's Annabel Monday, I'll officially be a junior in college! Which I honestly cannot believe even a little bit. Wasn't I just a freshman, like, two seconds ago? Ahem - puzzle!

I got stuck all over the place on this one. Both bottom corners tripped me up, and I was so convinced that SUET was actually SEED. I also took issue with some of the clues - how am I supposed to know so much about sports like baseball and tennis for 61D, 58A, and others? Also, what the heck is a gimlet? Maybe it's just me, though. I did love the fill itself - LATH and TSLOT were both totally new for me, and I didn't run into any of those overused crossword words.

The theme was OK. Seasonal, I guess. I'm a little annoyed BURGERS didn't make it in there, and neither did POTATO SALAD or PASTA SALAD,  because those are the really iconic BBQ foods. I would like to know if anyone has ever actually eaten potato salad at a BBQ. I always take a little to be nice and then eat like maybe a bite of it because honestly potato salad isn't really that good? I don't know why people are always bringing it.

Bullets:

• ORGY (69A: Anything goes-party)— First of all, I think Tracy Gray knew exactly what she was doing making this one #69, so props to that. Second of all: seriously?!?! "Anything-goes party"? That's uuuuusually not what "anything goes" means. I dunno.

There probably really was a swan coming for me and it probably looked exactly like this EVIL

• DUCKS (5A: Birds that waddle) — We don't have ducks on campus, but we do have geese. And swans. I once was hanging out with a group of friends by the lake on campus, thought I heard a swan noise, and immediately bolted away from all of them because I was worried a swan was going to come attack me. Those birds are ruthless, I tell you.

• SKI (10D: Hit the slopes)— I think everyone who's ever skied before has an embarrassing story about it, so here's mine! The first time I was learning to ski, when I was like 5, I swear I didn't fall down once...until I was getting off the slop and some equally-young snowboarder ran over me. I had to be carried off the slopes by, I guess, ski medics? Is that a thing? Anyway, that was the end of my skiing vacation, I just watched winter sports movies for the rest of the trip.
• GLEE (21A: Exuberance)— There's only one thing this word makes me think of at this point. Curse you, Ryan Murphy, for doing this to the 2010s!

Signed, Annabel Thompson, tired college student.

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