Garbage boats / MON 6-9-14 / South Dakota's capital / "The Naked Maja" artist / Beetle's boss, in the comics / Serb or Pole / Condescend (to)

Constructor: Tom McCoy

Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: Kerning! — Theme clues describe a one-word thing but the letters in the clues are spaced far apart. The answer is a familiar two-word phrase made up of the one-word thing preceded by an adjective meaning, basically "spaced far apart." (Hey! Explaining themes isn't always as easy as it looks!)

Theme answers:

• 20A: WIDE RECEIVER (T e l e p h o n e h a n d s e t)
• 28A: EXTENDED STAY (C o r s e t p a r t)
• 48A: LONG DIVISION (A r m y u n i t)
• 58A: STRETCHED OUT (T h r e e s t r i k e s ... or description of the theme clues)

Hi, everybody. PuzzleGirl here filling in for the vacationing Rex Parker. Rex is off on a 14-day Caribbean cruise aboard a luxury yacht. Or he's in Minneapolis. One of the two. I feel like I haven't been here in ages! So nice to see you guys! What's been going on? My son turned 15 yesterday and we took him and a bunch of other teenaged boys to a paintball park. Wow. Never been to one of those before. Some of the people looked like they took it pretty seriously. In fact, we're pretty sure we saw some honest-to-God mercenaries there presumably honing their skills. On the other hand, the ref my son's group had said his previous group was all six-year-olds and whenever they got shot they cried. So I guess it's a diverse clientele.

What about this puzzle though? Simple (cute) theme idea, straightforward cluing, it's definitely a Monday. This was only the second time I've solved online since the NYT updated its applet and navigating the grid was the biggest problem I had (and it wasn't very big). I like the update a LOT better (I mean, it wouldn't take much since that last one sucked ferociously), but I'm not quite used to it yet. Absolutely no complaints. Looking forward to using it more and becoming adept at it.

I think my favorite part of the puzzle was its Scrabbliness. It's fun to come across an X or a V or a J when it just blends right in and doesn't seem forced. The other thing I want to say is that I like how the addition of the first words in the theme answers makes the answers unrelated to their clues. If that makes any sense. Like if EXTENDED STAY had been clued "v i s i t," that would not have been very impressive because in that case the clue is basically a synonym for the second word in the answer (STAY = VISIT). Or if LONG DIVISION had been clued "m a t h o p e r a t i o n." You get the idea. If you're new to solving you may not have noticed that, but it definitely makes the puzzle more elegant.

Let's take a look at some highlights:

• 16A: POLAR vortex (Winter weather phenomenon). PuzzleHusband and I were talking about the "derecho" we had here in the Washington, DC, area two years ago. And, pointing to the popularity of the phrase "Polar Vortex" this past winter, he suggested that weather people are just making up words to jazz up their jobs at this point. "Polar Vortex" sounds a lot more glamorous than "Really F**ing Cold," doesn't it?
• 18A: JINX (Curse). Washington Nationals pitcher Jordan Zimmermann pitched a two-hit shutout this afternoon against the San Diego Padres. He had a perfect game going until apparently someone, somewhere said it out loud.
• 64A: COOT (Codger). Can women be old coots? Or is it specifically masculine? If it's possible for a woman to be an old coot, I believe that term will describe me perfectly sometime in the next few years. I am definitely getting more cantankerous by the day. (For some reason, my Google image search for "coot" brought up this picture of Joe Namath and Farah Fawcett and, well, I couldn't very well NOT use it.)
• 69A: PEEVE (Tick off). And this is how I know I'm turning into an old coot. I have So Many peeves! I think I acquire one or two new ones every day!
• 5D: Your MAJESTY (way to address a queen). I just love this word. It's better then "your highness," don't you think?
• 22D: VEEP (#2 exec). I watched the first season of Julia Louis-Dreyfus's sitcom back when I had a broken ankle and was in bed for six weeks. (I mean, I watched a LOT of shows during that period.) Loved "Veep" but haven't gotten back to it. Not sure we have whatever channel it's on any more. It seems like every time I log onto our cable account they've added a channel I don't care about and/or taken away a channel I love. They really just do whatever the heck they want, don't they? Kinda like insurance companies. But PLEASE don't get me started on insurance companies.
• 49D: V-NECKS (Features of some daring sweaters). The clue to this one made me laugh.
• 55D: MOODY (Subject to emotional swings). I'm pretty sure I've told you this story before, but I'm going to tell it again. Back in the mid 1980s I lived in New York and used to hang out at a bar called the Possible 20. At that time, radio personality Frankie Crocker of WBLS used the song "Moody's Mood for Love" as his show's sign-off. The song was on the jukebox at the Possible 20 and was played every once in a while. But one night for some reason everyone happened to be actually listening when it came on and the whole bar sang along. A lot of people in that bar worked in the music business and some of them were very talented singers. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think it would have been just as good if it had been a bunch of regular folks though. Honestly, it was magical. It's one of my favorite memories of New York (and of ever if truth be told).

• 57D: STATE (Misery or Missouri). Awesome clue.

See you back here tomorrow.

Love, PuzzleGirl