DOAs Saturday Puzzles: An Answer Key for the March 1 2025 Rebus

 This is a quote from T S Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral, I

The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason. 

 

 

If you enlarge, you can see hints for the words in the puzzle.

Posts Resume Next Week

 

I am down and out with some bizarre thing. What would mom say? This too shall pass. Take care!

Five Things Friday March 7, 2025

 Ah, spring is in the air. March is going to be jam packed for us at DOA Central. I’m hoping for some nice outside time. Don’t jinx me, now.

The eternal question “What makes us human” answered at last!

Forget about last week’s grenade. Get yourself a phone book somehow and let our friends at The Art of Manliness show you how to tear that baby in half.

We haven’t had any stylin’ suitcases for awhile. How about this adorable little dolls house?

Our dogs don’t like us to be out of their site, especially the big girl who is a mix. If constant adoration isn’t for you, try one of these breeds.

Keep it classic.

DOA On TV March 2, 2025

 

NCIS Origins

No show again this week.  A commercial for it during Survivor says the next episode is March 24.

 

Will Trent: Abigail B 

 In another episode split between the GBI (Will) and the Atlanta Police Dept. (Ormewood and Angie), Will is out walking in a park and stops to use the rest room. As he's tying Betty to a bench (this freaked me out and I thought she'd be gone when he got back), he sees a little girl being dragged along by the hand by a man.  Something in her face bothers Will, and when he comes rushing back out and grabs Betty, he isn't able to see her anywhere.  Following the route they seemed to be taking, he finds men's clothing on the ground, and a pink puffy little girl's coat.

He's certain the girl has been kidnapped, and he's right, as the GBI helps him track down the man, then tries to get him to say where the girl is.

Lightening the episode are Angie helping a man get to the ER after a car knocks him off his bike, and Ormewood moonlighting by doing security for a reality TV star for the weekend.

 

 

 

Survivor 48: The Get To Know You Game

This group of players is hitting the ground running.  Everyone has hard hitting, sure fire techniques for game dominance   Some actually think getting to know the other players is a key strategy, others have no time for it. 

Playing harder than everyone is Sai, who is pushing everything.  An alliance that suits her needs.  Finding a Beware Advantage with a tumbler code that unlocks an idol.  Deciding who goes home first.

I loved the opening challenge that had the pristine new group crawling under a net in some mud.  Then three players try to climb up on a platform using themselves and some sandbags to get there.  So much slimy sliding!  There is just something so comical about the mud caked players. 

Following the initial challenge, one team got full camp supplies.  The other two teams sent a player off to compete for a smaller camp supply set.  I liked how the two were tasked with following the trail of a buried rope, to get a pot down off a tree, which they used to try to fill a glass jar with water to float a key to the top.  One of the guys was using brute force on all the challenge pieces, and he broke his water jug, ending his chances.  Magnanimously, he helped the other guy finish filling his jug and get the final key.

Last season had so many villainous players, it was a bit daunting to watch.  The players this time all seem to be ready to power their way to the finish, they are so competitive.  We will see how many allow villainy to rule their games.

My favorite player is Eva Erickson, a Minnesota native who is captain of a men's hockey team. She's a powerhouse competitor, and so likeable.  She reveals in a touching scene to a fire fighter dad that she is on the autism spectrum, and she doesn't want everyone to know right away, so they will accept her for her skills.  She says she can get overwhelmed and asks if that happens if he can subtly help her calm back down.  Those two.  The best team ever.   I hope she wins it all.

First out was Stephanie, a blond, laid back seeming woman who had decided to play it cool and relaxed, and not be her usual take charge self.  Sai had no time for getting to know her or anyone and out she went.

I wanted to link this first post of the season to the Survivor recaps done by Entertainment Weekly's Dalton Ross.  I always agree with him on game play and characters, though not on overall pick to win out of the gate.

https://ew.com/survivor-48-premiere-recap-everything-you-didnt-see-on-tv-11686766 

 

Elspeth: Tearjerker

A young woman has dinner with an older man in a fancy restaurant.  He indulges in the food and drink he usually doesn't allow himself to have.  At one point, the woman puts something in his drink so obviously, I would have thought everyone in the restaurant would see.

Off to his apartment they go, with the woman sending a steak dinner in a package down a trash shoot on the way.  She helps him get his pajamas on, buttoning them up as if he's a child, and then she tucks him in and leaves.  On the way out, she has on long gold gloves so as not to leave finger prints.

Cue the wife next door in her mini-apartment waking up with her lover, who finds his body.

 

Elspeth has a bit of trouble with this one, as there are many things that don't add up.  She does find her prey, but something about the woman appeals to her and she doesn't want to find her guilty and bring in the police once she understands what really happened, though of course she does. 

Matlock: Pregame

Still struggling with her newly renewed guilt at Ellie's death, there's an odd scene where Matty munches (?) marijuana with Senior and they have a sort of bonding moment, attempting to let go of their various guilts.

 

Alfie, who hasn't been on much since earlier in the season, gets to come to work with Matty for Family Day .  He does a good job of acting like the sullen grandson who doesn't care for Matty much, while he's really there to find a way to get location information on Julian during the key time of the information coverup.   There's a moment where Matty is sneaking into Olympia's office to get Alfie's missing wallet with their real address in it, that it seems as if Olympia knows all about Matty's subterfuges.  But no, she recognizes Matty is high from her time in Senior's office.

In a new wrinkle, Matty has a sister named Bitsy who just needs to stop by and make sure everything is alright with Matty since she avoided a family event and has not been communicating.  Bitsy seems a bit much.

DOA's Saturday Puzzles An Answer Key for the Witchcraft for Wayward Girls Wordfind

 Here you go, in case you missed any words.  The review for the book Witchcraft for Wayward Girls should be on my book blog now, so head on over for the scoop.

 

 

 

DOA's Saturday Puzzles: A Rebus for March 1, 2025

 Welcome to March!  We got this.  As you secretly suspected, I use Bartlett's Familiar Quotations for my various puzzles that are based on quotes.  I was going through the book chronologically, but here I just opened to a random page and picked out something that I thought would make a good rebus puzzle.  ^-^

 

 

Click to enlarge.  I used the Festisite Rebus Maker for this Puzzle.

Five Things Friday February 28, 2025

 There we go, February gone in a trice. Not a bad month, unless you were anyone at all.

Thankfully, The Art Of Manliness is here for you in case things really go south.

Best hope it’s just grenades and not a saucer attack!

Forget all of that, and work on your trip planning for Route 66. Don’t forget to stop for fudge.

It has been a very cold winter. The tiniest pup can give off the most heat, so hope on these cold nights your chihuahua chooses to sleep by you, not your spouse.

I bet it’s only me guessing the correct word starts with an F.

The Seeds of Spring 2025

 These are my seeds for spring 2025, so far.  I will be looking on the racks for morning glory varieties, sweet peas, sunflowers and a few marigolds.

DOA On TV February 23, 2024

 

NCIS Origins  There was no new episode this week.  The 14th episode will be airing Monday the 24th.  Then there's a bit more skipping.  Although the show is renewed for season 2, this season only has 18 episodes, and there aren't enough to show one each week.  There's an odd bit of scheduling!

 

Will Trent   Mariachi Shelley's Frankenstein

I was completely wrong, the brother in law didn't kill anyone. He turned out to be hiding his drug use from everyone though, which made him continue to look suspicious when the lights went out and he was creeping around.

 

A huge storm takes out the power in the building.  Angie and Will get awkwardly stuck in an elevator, then there's blood dripping down on them.   Angie gets a boost from Will and she sees her witness is dead on top of the elevator.  Once the brother in law is cleared, there's another stabbing, so everyone knows the real killer is in the building.  It's cat and mouse in the dark in a very intense episode.  

Some side characters are featured, such as the coroner who has to try to help the girl with multiple stab wounds. Though he was a surgical resident, he didn't take that path after a tragedy in the operating room.

The girl who is stabbed has, unknown to her, a mariachi band waiting to play to celebrate her birthday.

Excellent episode. 

Elspeth   Foiled Again

A new college admissions officer is found dead in a fencing practice room, cause of death : cat hair.

Leave it to Elspeth to latch on to mild mannered educational consultant Lawrence Grey, whose students were suddenly getting turned down for admission to the admissions officer's college. 

I must know if Carrie Preston did her own fencing.  It was so much fun, her against Matthew Broderick.

 Teddy, Elspeth's son makes an appearance, and he allows her to meet his boyfriend Roy.  Roy is much too nice and lets her quiz him for 90 minutes.

Kaya has her classwork complete so she can apply to become a detective.

 

Matlock    This Is That Moment

Olympia and Julian take opposite sides of a custody case, and their own divorce troubles keep popping out in the court room.

The case brings Matty right back to her own court appearance where she's taking custody of her grandson Alfie from her daughter Ellie who is a drug addict.  Past Matty is so full of righteous anger against her daughter, and in the present she's seeing that case with new eyes.

She asks Edwin if he blames her for Ellie's death (it happened right after the hearing, after Ellie begged her not to take Alfie) , and Edwin says sometimes.   You can keep nothing from Matty, she finds the correspondence Edwin says he lost from potentially Alfie's father.  It's a sad episode all around.

 

Watson  and House

I had forgotten for last weeks post I had watched the first episode of Watson, which I hoped to like.   I liked the idea of a clinic treating rare disorders, and like Watson and his aide Shinwell Johnson as characters, but the three young doctors and the clinic and the administrator were just off putting, so I decided to not watch more.

 

Oddly, this week, I was combing through the various services to find something to watch, when I came across House.  My husband and son both watched the show and really liked it, so I finally took a look.  I watched the pilot, then another episode.

The setup is way close to Watson.  House is this brilliant diagnostician.  He has three young assistants to bounce ideas off off.  There's a hospital administrator he clashes with, trying to do as little work as possible.  He only wants cases that interest him, apparently.

 

In this case, House is a rude, nasty piece of work.  He tosses ideas out for what may be wrong with a patient (the first one had a tapeworm in her brain, the second patient is suffering somehow from a measles virus from childhood), his assistants test for the diagnosed illness but also treat it to see if it works.  Holy sheet.

The cases are fascinating, the assistants in this case are great, the administrator is ace at her job, she just needs to get House to do his job.   

I won't be watching House, though, with such a piece of work as a main character.

 My theme was renewal, thinking of spring incoming and the ever present theme of starting again fresh.

 

YLSKB RLII QK MIZSFKW, HTUS RLII BMULSJ DM, Z RETIK JUTRFE TO SKR HUTMB; ZSW MKTMIK RLII BFLII OZII LS ITYK LS YLSFZJKB ZSW EZUYKBFB NKF FT HTXK. ILOK LB KFKUSZI; LF LB Z MKUMKFDZI UKSKRZI TO QLUFE ZSW JUTRFE.

 

VINES WILL BE PLANTED, CORN WILL SPRING UP, A WHOLE GROWTH OF NEW CROPS; AND PEOPLE WILL STILL FALL IN LOVE IN VINTAGES AND HARVESTS YET TO COME. LIFE IS ETERNAL; IT IS A PERPETUAL RENEWAL OF BIRTH AND GROWTH.

 

Emile Zola

 

DOA's Saturday Puzzles A Word Find for Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix

 This week is word find week.  I've just finished reading Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix, and these are key words from the tale.

 

 

 

Real Pizza

 

Five Things Friday February 21, 2025

 What a long, dreadful February. How can a short month be so annoying? Good thing Fridays always come, and the weekend beckons.

This one took me a moment.  Brain is gone.

Art is always a balm, unless it’s surrealistic and a tiny bit disturbing.

Then again, spring, birdhouses and flowers.

Also, relax and enjoy the pink paper dolls. Nothing could be more soothing.

Attention, shoppers! Here’s a guide for the bargain hunter in you.

Codswallop

 A lifetime of reading puts words into your head unbidden, while doing such things as reading the news.

 

 

The Perfect Library/Office/Craft Room

 Does exist. My Happy Place.

DOA On TV February 16, 2025

 

A big week for TV.  All good episodes, and a peek at an FX series called The Old Man.

 

NCIS Origins:  Monsoon

 

Monsoon is another largely Franks episode.  He steps in to help a homeless veteran whose friend is "gone".  The man leads Franks to a homeless encampment where they find his friend has been murdered, hit in the head with a brick.

As the team fans out trying to piece together what happened, we see in flashback Franks running drugs after his return home from the war.  His motorcycle and the stash are stolen at a gas station and he starts the long walk home.  He meets Tish as she needs help with a flat tire, and afterward she helps him with a haircut as she's a stylist.  

In the present day, he's been stalking a laundromat trying to find the man who attacked her, lying about being at work.  When that all comes out, she packs her things and leaves him.

For Gibbs, a lot of memories of his time overseas come up while working with the homeless vets, and he takes a brochure about a support group where vets can talk about their experiences, then sits in with the group  at episodes end.  For all he's been through, and all he's been learning working at NCIS, there's still a vulnerability and a type of innocence about Gibbs.

 

Will Trent: No Faith In Second Chances

This was an action packed episode, full of twists and turns.  At the end I'm going, oh no, you're not ending with that.

I have to note there are two cases this week, with Will and Faith trying to identify a completely burned body, and winding a narrative through a tale of a man who wants another man's wife.

The key story is a shocking episode opening with a farmer who hears pounding on his door, so he gets his gun and calls 911 to say someone is breaking in.

Next we find Angie and Ormewood at the farm, trying to figure out why someone broke in and killed the farmer.  Fanning out across the property looking for evidence, and they find a girl dead, her tongue cut out.

The scene mirrors the crime scene where John Shelly's high school girlfriend was raped and murdered identically, the crime he was sent to prison for.

Though warned not to get too involved in cases anymore, Angie digs in on the case, and John tells her he was innocent, and that he confessed because his mother was dying.  A box of notebooks kept by John's mom are what makes Angie think he may be innocent, but there's another killing, identical to the others.  John tries to escape his apartment with a cooler with a tongue in it.

In side bits, Will and Marion, his new love interest share a salmon dinner at Will's place.

Sunny defies Amanda and invites her dad to the apartment for dinner. When Amanda busts in, there's a huge confrontation.  You invited him into my home, she says.  This is laden with, all his enemies could find her place and come for Sunny and Amanda.  I love Sunny and her dad and wish they could be together.

 

So, at episode's end Angie asks Will for help.  She feels the answer is in the notebooks and she missed it.  She tells Will she never felt anything off about John when she met him, and her instincts would have told her he was a bad guy. 

It seems obvious to me John's brother in law is the culprit in the old killings and the new ones.  There's a possibility its a lawyer who is a dark and sketchy guy, but nah, the Brother in law has means, motive and opportunity.  Let's just fast forward to next week and take that man down.  Bingeing is simpler. Just keep going till the end!

 

Elspeth: Tiny Town

I've caught up to the weekly release of episodes.  This Valentine's Day episode is completely charming! 

There's a street installation in NYC  called the Iris which gives New Yorker's a peek at a street in a small Scottish village, and the village a peek at a busy New York street.

A musician sits and watches the NYC street and he and the waitress from the pub nearby have been watching a couple meet and hope their romance will thrive. Instead, another man enters the scene and appears to threaten the woman who falls and drops a heart shaped box of chocolates, then suddenly she's choking and falls dead. The musician can't get anyone's attention to help her.  

Soon enough the NYPD is on the scene, with Kaya, Detective Edwards, and Elspeth leading the investigation.  It's totally charming the way Angus is watching this scene anxiously, when suddenly Elspeth does what she does, suddenly peeking in from the side of the screen.  She's in pink with a fuzzy hat with hearts.

 

Angus is smitten immediately, and as they communicate by phone, each from their own side of the screen, Elspeth begins to be charmed as well.

There are romantic side stories for the Captain who has been taking dance lessons to surprise his wife for Valentines Day, and for Kaya, whose hunky new Coroner roommate brings her a cupcake from "work".  

Matlock: A Traitor In Thine Own House

Sarah is still angry at Matty's betrayal last week in giving her case to Billy at the last minute.  She teams up with Shae, who'd like to lay Matty out on The Rack and get a few secrets from her.

 

While working on a case of corporate espionage, the two do everything they can to make Matty uncomfortable.  Matty fights back by reporting Shae to HR for harassment and ageism.  Edwin and Alfie help set up a ruse that has Shae flying to Georgia to talk to an old coworker of Matty's, only it's Edwin in disguise.

In another twist, Edwin and Matty are wanting to try to find Alfie's father.  They've no leads or clues, except Edwin does have one, which he lies to Matty about.  It looks like Edwin wants a case of his own.

 

 The Old Man

 

Jeff Bridges play the titular old man.  When we meet him, the show emphasizes his age by having him get up to go to the bathroom multiple times a night,  he has trouble putting on his socks, and he constantly makes what I call "old man noises".  Don't ask Mr DOA about those, nope. 

He calls his daughter, and he says something feels "off" lately.  He sets up a string trap with cans outside his bedroom door. That night, he hears something downstairs and carefully makes his way down. His two rottweilers have a man cornered in a hall downstairs.  Dan just pulls out a gun and kills the guy, then calls 911.

After talking to police, he gets a go bag ready and leaves the house with his two rottweiler dogs.  Dan gets a call from an old fellow spy, John Lithgow's Harold Harper.  Harper appears to want Chase to go to ground, disappear, and never be heard from again as it would bring up a past Harper doesn't want known.

I only watched the first episode but I liked it. Fast paced. Fun to see Bridge's character take down much younger men, with the help of his faithful dogs.  Lithgow's character is hard to read. Is he really helping or is he just trying to shut Dan Chase up.  I like how Chase refuses a deal that includes never contacting his daughter again, because they're important to each other, clearly, and it sounds from their conversations as if she know his past.

 

DOA's Saturday Puzzles: An Answer Key For The February 8th Puzzle

 Doesn't it look so simple now?  I took the "hard" setting, too.  Hmm, is there only one path? Tsk.  Different puzzle maker next time, lol.

DOA's Saturday Puzzles: A Cryptogram for February 15 2025

 Happy Saturday!  It's Cryptogram Week here at DOA Central.  Find and replace those intriguing letters below with the proper ones.  This is a little longer quote than usual, but it struck my fancy. :)

 

 

YLSKB RLII QK MIZSFKW, HTUS RLII BMULSJ DM, Z RETIK JUTRFE TO SKR HUTMB; ZSW MKTMIK RLII BFLII OZII LS ITYK LS YLSFZJKB ZSW EZUYKBFB NKF FT HTXK. ILOK LB KFKUSZI; LF LB Z MKUMKFDZI UKSKRZI TO QLUFE ZSW JUTRFE.