Green dwarf / SUN 6-28-15 / Actress Birch of "American Beauty" / Admiral Zumwalt / The City of a Thousand Minarets / Physics Nobelist Martin, discoverer of the tauon / Mountain, in Hawaiian

Constructor: Jeremy Newton

Relative difficulty: Big

THEME:"Getting in the Final Word"— Theme answers are familiar phrases containing the word "in." The phrases are situated so that the first part crosses (goes "in") the second part.

Hi, everyone! PuzzleGirl with you for your Sunday puzzle. Not sure how I always seem to get stuck with Sundays when I fill in. I find Sunday puzzles really ... big. Nothing wrong with that, I guess. It's just my preference to have my puzzles a little smaller. I guess what I'm saying is size does matter, people. Anyway.
I got an emergency call from Rex tonight because his power went out and so here we are. Unfortunately, I was pretty busy today and I've got an early start tomorrow, so I don't have a lot of time to be hanging out with you. Or maybe that's fortunate. Depends on who you are, I guess. Let's just make the best of it, shall we? Here are your theme answers.

Theme answers:

• WHAT HAPPENS [IN] VEGAS(30A/13D: Shorthand pact for a wild trip)
• YOU'VE GOT A FRIEND [IN] ME(52A/49D: 1995 Oscar-nominated Pixar theme song)
• COULD YOU PUT THAT [IN] WRITING(80A/58D: Request for an official document)
• DOUBLED OVER [IN] PAIN(101A/90D: Reacting to a gut punch, perhaps)
• JUST [IN] CASE(3D/18A: "To be on the safe side...")
• KEEPING [IN] MIND(16D/21A: Remembering)
• CALLING [IN] SICK(67D/104A: Talking with a fake rasp, perhaps)
• CAME [IN] LAST(109D/125A: Got the booby prize)

I rather enjoyed this puzzle. The theme was pretty easy to figure out and then it was just a matter of coming up with the phrases. Not too much junk in the fill either. For a Sunday anyway. "YO, DOG" (6A: "Sup, homie") tripped me up a little. Shouldn't that be DAWG? But my only erasure was RANTS for VENTS (103D: Lets it all out), so I guess it was overall easy? I don't know. So hard to judge difficulty.
"NAG NAG NAG!" (23A: "Geez, get off my back already!"), TOWN DRUNK (114A: Stock character like Mayberry's Otis), and OPIUM DEN (36D: Smoke-filled establishment) are all fantastic entries. And I loved the clues on ST. PETER (89A: Guard at a gated community?) and TATTOO (70D: Something you can't get off your chest?). Other than that, well, I thought it was just a big old Sunday-sized puzzle that was pretty fun to slog my way through. Let me know what do you think! And with any luck, Rex will be back tomorrow.


Love, PuzzleGirl