Thursday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: November 22, 2018

My time: 14:13.

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No Thanksgiving theme today.  Instead Randolph Ross gives us some word play based on missing letters.  The themed clues, given in all capital letters, have one missing letter each, which is reflected in the answer.

The clue "OWARD" I kept thinking might be implying [t]OWARD but it's meant to be [c]OWARD, or a HEADLESS CHICKEN.  Get it?  The "head" of the word, the letter C, is missing.

"QUARR[y]" is, similarly, BOTTOMLESS PIT.  "SEASO[n]" is ENDLESS SUMMER --- this was the first themed answer I got.  I had some trouble with "[b]IKINI," because why is a bikini a TOPLESS SWIMSUIT?  It has a top!  I don't get it.

Anyway, that's a fun theme.  But why no Thanksgiving?  There is a place for turkey!

Everyone knows what the UKRAINE is.  But I have the word sense of geography in the world.  It's apparently a neighbor of Moldova!  They had a 1990-92 conflict over a semi-autonomous region called Transnistria.

PRO RATA is a Latin phrase meaning in proportion.  It is sued in investment to mean an appropriate allocation of funds.

And I'll stick with Latin phrases for $200, Alex.  "Quod ERAT faciendum."  What is, "what was to be done"?  Yes, and we also would have accepted What was to be constructed.  Used in geometry when there was nothing to prove, but there was something being constructed, for example a triangle with the same size as a given line.

Despite my absolutely immense multiverse-spanning knowledge of comic book characters, I couldn't quite come up with Linda LEE, Supergirl's adopted Earth naame.  Kara Zor-El is her original Kryptonian name, before all the reboots.

The Greek letter PSI has come up a lot (in the plural) on this blog, but today it's clued as "letter that appears twice in the Schrödinger equation."  Since mathematicians use PSI to designate wave functions, and atomic particles are wavelike in nature, the equation is meant to explain the behavior of atomic particles.

ELKO is a city and county in Nevada.  It is home to the Cowboy Poetry Gathering.

"Jewish holiday with costumes" is PURIM. It celebrates the story of ESTH. and how she saved the Jews.  And Haman was hanged on the gallows he built for Mordecai.  I wasn't aware costumes came into it.  One reason may be because the story celebrates "the hidden" --- the miracle that appears to be a series of regular events. Another reason to is to save beggars from embarrassment.

The Golden Horde is the name given to the Mongol Khanate, so I wanted to write Mongol, but it doesn't fit.  It's TATAR.

California has several places named SHASTA, including a lake a mountain, but the SHASTA-Trinity National Forest in the northern part of the state, is the one clued at here.

Maurice Ravel, early 20th-century French composer, was known for his difficult pieces.  "Gaspard de la NUIT" is one of them.  It is based on a poem; the titular character is meant to be the devil.

Winner of 12 Olympic medals DARA Torres appeared on May 5.

BALI was noted as "Island of the Gods" on October 2, 2017.

Clever clues: "Distress signal?" is ACHE.  "Some lumps" is SUGAR.  "Superior floor, e.g." is LAKE BED.  "Took the heat off of?" is DISARMED.

And I shall STOP here, since that's all that was new or troublesome to me today.  Thus ENDS IT.  Time to eat stuffing.