It's a Wordle, It's a Bee, It's a Volplane?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Here is one of my proudest moments in the past couple of weeks. I found every word contained a THE SPELLING BEE wheel of seven letters. Including two words – – pangrams – – that contain all seven letters




Tiny victories.

I have also discovered Wordle. Have you? It’s a on-line word game that looks like this at the beginning.



And the goal is to figure out what the five letter “Wordle” is by trying out five letter words, and then the software tells you whether you have put a correct letter in the correct place, or a correct letter in the wrong place, or chosen a letter that is not in the word at all.

Then, knowing that, you try again. And you get six tries to find the Wordle. I did not do too well on this one, below. Usually I can it in three or four.

But you can see my train of thought, right?




(Once, just once, I did it in two. But that was just lucky.)

There are lots of hints and clues flying around online, secrets to how to “win,” but I never read them because--figuring it out for yourself is the fun part.

And the New York Times Sunday Magazine SPELLING BEE– – that is the first thing I do on Sunday morning. I I cannot proceed with my day until I figure out the word. You have to find all the five-or-more-letter words, all including the middle letter. AND a seven letter word using all the letters. I am addicted to it.







Do you play any of these games? Or others? Do you embrace them, or are you frustrated with yourself for taking the time?

HALLIE EPHRON: I do! I do! My favorite is SPELLING BEE on the New York Times. I also play TILES. Their MINI CROSSWORD. And the regular crossword in the Boston Globe.

I also play bridge online with my sister and her husband and a friend. We having a group phone call while we play which makes it ALMOST like real life.

I know I’d love WORDLE but I am wary of adding yet another time dawdler to my repertoire.

JENN: Hallie, the nice thing about Wordle is that it is only one puzzle once a day and no ads and so far the creator is insistent that it stay that way. I love Wordle! My best is solving it in three.

I play Wordscape (an app) on my phone. Six letters and you have to make as many words as you can out of them. Fun! It’s what I do on planes while waiting to take off. I used to do the crossword every day but not lately as it takes too long. But I am going to check out NYT Spelling Bee - that seems like my kind of thing! I love word games. Plus, they’re supposed to help fight off dementia. So, they’re medicine :)

HANK: Yes, Jenn, isn’t it brilliant how it’s once a day? And Hallie, indeed, you would love it.

RHYS BOWEN: I finally succumbed to Wordless yesterday. Got the first two on the third try. I think they will be easy for me as we do Codewords from the British Daily Telegraph. It’s a blank crossword. They give you two letters corresponding to numbers and you have to fill in the whole crossword from that. Same strategy really.

I also play online Scrabble every day against the computer whom I call Ivan because he’s so terrible. He used words I’ve never heard of and also things like gurrrl and hmm which are absolutely cheating. Even so I beat him quite often. Very satisfying

LUCY BURDETTE: Yes, I’m addicted to Wordle too. Once I won in three tries, but usually much harder. And the spelling bee as well–I use the hints liberally to keep me going so I don’t give up. We used to love playing Boggle, so I bet I would like wordscape as well. Must keep those brain cells flickering…

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I see Wordle everywhere and I haven’t tried it yet, because I’m afraid I’ll become an addict. I’m super old school when it comes to word puzzles - I do the New York Times Sunday crossword. In ink, because I’m a badass, oh, yeah. My kids get me the book collections, and some of the collected puzzles date back to the seventies, so my personal knowledge of ancient culture is a plus.

Online games - I’m Majhong Solitare all the way. The Washington Post has a nice version - you don’t play against anyone, but there is a leaderboard to get the competitive juices flowing.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I see Wordle everywhere but haven’t tried it yet. I do the crossword but not regularly, and I’ve never tried the NYT Spelling Bee but I’m going to check that one out! Right now my brain is in deadline mode and I don’t really want to be distracted.

I am, however, addicted to online Trivia. I get Word Genius and Trivia Genius quizzes and I cannot resist them. I’m sure my vocabulary would be enormous if I could just remember all the weird new words I learn!

HANK: I got a word-of-the-day calendar, and every day, Jonathan and I take turns quizzing each other. Volplane, Catachresis, Nuncupative. And he just did his first Wordle. Which he got in 4.

How about you, Reds and readers?

Adrift on the NO-HELP line

HALLIE EPHRON: I've spent an exorbitant amount of time on-hold, waiting for customer service lately. Verizon makes it nearly impossible to shut down a cell phone. And don't get me started on the hold times of banks and investment firms. The Department of Motor Vehicles doesn't even take calls any more, and I read that the IRS is only able to speak to a small fraction of calls that come into their HELP line.

By the time I reach an actual person, nine times out of ten I've been on hold for more than 30 minutes and I AM GRUMPY. Sick to death of their endlessly looping on-hold muzak.

Poor them. I know, Covid has walloped their staffing.

Still... poorer me.

Before Christmas, I responded to an ad (nice clothing company, not LL Bean) inviting me to shop and get "30 percent off the highest priced item in your cart."

I love their clothing and so I ordered a cozy bathrobe. More than $100, but with the discount, more affordable. A lovely gift for my son-in-law.

Despite the checkout message -- something to the effect: Your discount will be applied after you check out -- a discount was not taken. I was charged full price. Plus tax and shipping.

So I called their customer support and spoke to "Adam." Gave him the order number which he dutifully looked up.

Well, of course, he said, I didn't GET a discount because I only had ONE item in the cart.

Huh?

Yup, he told me. "Highest priced item" means there have to be more than one.

I'd been on one too many holds in the last few months and I... fell silent.

"Seriously?" I asked.

"Seriously," he said.

And off I went on a rant about how this was false advertising, bait and switch, word parsing, etc. and...

He actually laughed at me. Clearly unimpressed.

THEN I said I would be calling a friend who's an investigative journalist (not lying, as you all know). She might be interested in doing a story about this bait-and-switch. Surely I wasn't the only customer who'd been snookered.

He fell silent. Then said he needed to put me on hold.

And spit-spot, he connected me with a supervisor. Who put me on hold for a bit, and then came back on to say the problem had been "taken care of" and I should see the discounted amount refunded. (And I did.)

Take that, Adam.

Have you been battling with "customer service" and who's coming out on top?

Pea protein? Sounds delicious??

 HALLIE EPHRON: Have you noticed how the recipes that turn up these days in newspapers and magazines are vegetarian? Steak and fish and pork chops are taking a backseat to lentils and beans and pasta and celery root and potatoes. I've been fascinated but wary of the plant-based meats that show up in the meat section of the market.

Last week I bought a package of Beyond Sausage - Italian spicy sausage made with pea protein. No animal gave any part of itself to make those links. And, an added bonus, the package they rested in was recyclable cardboard, not the usual gonna-be-here-for-centuries Styrofoam they use to package "real" meat.

The ingredients list: Water, pea protein, refined coconut oil, sunflower oil, natural flavor, contains 2% or less of: rice protein, faba bean protein, potato starch, salt, vegetable juice (for color), apple fiber, methylcellulose, citrus extract (to protect quality), calcuim alginate casing.

No gluten. No soy. No GMOs.

So of course I worried: did that mean "No taste"? And with water as the #1 ingredient, would the "sausage" brown and caramelize?

I decided to try some in a lasagne. I make mine with no-boil lasagne noodles, tomato sauce zuzzhed up with sauteed sausage and mushrooms, layered with ricotta cheese, parmesan and mozzarella. Nothing fancy, just basically following the recipe on the no-boil noodles package.

I'm here to report: I am a convert. The "sausage" did brown nicely. I chopped it up into bits and it added a meatly texture as well as good flavor to my sauce. The lasagne was excellent. I wouldn't have guessed the "meat" in it wasn't meat. Reheated it was still good. Frozen and thawed and reheated? Still good.

If I want a barbecued steak or seared tuna or turkey wing, I'm still going to opt for a dead animal. But I'm happy to report that I'll have no problem cutting back on how much actual animal meat I'm eating. Good for me. Good for the planet.

Have you been enticed by the no-meat meats? What about the plant-based chicken or egg or dairy substitutes?  What do you think?