Letter after sigma / MON 8-5-2019 / Measure of light's brightness / Smidgen / Horace, as a poet / Slangy "sweetheart"

Constructor: Tracy Gray

Relative difficulty: Easy



THEME: Downward Dog— Theme answers were Down clues of two or more words where the second word is a dog breed.

Theme answers:

• SHADOW BOXER (3D: Air-punching pugilist)
• THE GOOD SHEPHERD (7D: 2006 Matt Damon spy film)
• CHEMISTRY LAB (9D: Place with beakers and Bunsen burners)
• LASER POINTER (21D: Lecturer's implement with a light at the end)
• DOWNWARD DOG (28D: Popular yoga pose...or a literal hint to the ends of 3-, 7-, 9-, and 21-Down)

Word of the Day: LATH (5A: Plasterwork backing) —

A lath or slat is a thin, narrow strip of straight-grained wood used under roof shingles or tiles, on lath and plaster walls and ceilings to hold plaster, and in lattice and trellis work.^[1]

Lath has expanded to mean any type of backing material for plaster. This includes metal wire mesh or expanded metalthat is applied to a wood or metal framework as matrix over which stucco or plaster is applied, as well as wallboardproducts called gypsum or rock lath.^[2] Historically, reed mat was also used as a lath material.

(Wikipedia)

Hi everyone, it's another Annabel Monday! My summer is going pretty great. I need to get outside more though, I spent this whole weekend vegging out, LOL. Oh well, Mondays are the day when I go to the farmer's market! *Sigh* I love being an adult. You get to go to farmer's markets.

I found this puzzle pretty middle-of-the-road. Nothing particularly stood out as amazing, and there were no discernable "mini-themes", but there was also a blessed lack of baseball and I didn't find any overused clue/word combos. Can't even fault it for how hard a time it gave me looking for a word to use as Word of the Day, since it's a Monday and it's okay to not use rarer words! I just hope I won't be ACHY or TEEMing with anything bad after staying up to write this. And that I won't SPRAIN my hand or feel the ONSET of POX. I guess words evoking pain are a little bit of a mini-theme after all then.

I lloved the theme--I really like dogs and I also really like Monday themes that incorporate downs, it's boring to see across-onlies all the time. However, Rex pointed out (very ASTUTEly?) that this theme was actually used just last week (July 31st) in an American Values Club crossword constructed by Steve Faiella:

if you're looking for the relevant DOWNWARD DOG it's 19-Down

Rex assures me this is just a weird coincidence. Which, yeah. It's just kind of unfortunate for both constructors. Or not--great minds think alike, after all!

Bullets:

• CHEMISTRY LAB (9D: Place with beakers and Bunsen burners) — OK since we're drawing attention to the "Lab" part of the answer I need to post my awesome lab Rosie!!! We got her as a tiny baby puppy and now she's eleven and loves to yell at you until you pet her.

• SHOE (59D: Pump or oxford) — I just wanted to relay one of my favorite comments I've heard at this job: "I just got back from a library conference. I've never seen so many pairs of sensible shoes in one place!" I love librarians and their shoes--yet another reason to become one; I hate heels!!
• AMBER (71A: "For ___ waves of grain" [line in "America the Beautiful"]) — Did you know the author of "America the Beautiful" was a Wellesley grad?! Her name was Katharine Lee Bates and we sing it at, like, every Wellesley event. Except we replace "brotherhood" with "siblinghood"! Because we're cool like that.
• SIESTA (34D: Nap south of the border)— Sounds very similar to another word, as Sesame Street, also ASTUTEly, pointed out in 1994: 

Signed, Annabel Thompson, tired twentysomething.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

[Follow Annabel Thompson on Twitter]