Wednesday, 2/14

NYS 4:48
LAT 3:53
NYT 3:18
CS 2:59

(post updated at 8:50 a.m. Wednesday)

Happy Valentine's Day! I will mark the occasion by...er...doing nothing. Doing something would entail digging the car out, and the lake-effect snow will continue through the night. I know, I know—if it ain't 10 feet of snow, it's hardly worth complaining about. But even 8 to 10 inches is a mess when it blows and drifts and is then followed by bitter cold. So if you're lucky enough to be in a non-snow-buried region, get out of the house and do something fun with a friend or loved one, will ya?

Curtis Yee's Sun puzzle happens to be holiday-themed, with a perfectly symmetrical batch of [LOVE] rebus squares. Not every theme entry's romantic—you've got your [LOVE] HANDLES and TOUGH [LOVE]—but many are. Two of the cleverest clues lurked in the upper left corner, which is generally where I start solving, and I drew a blank for way too long. [What many regular people eat] turned out to be BRAN, and [Ford explorer?] was HAN SOLO. I liked this LOVEly puzzle, I did.

Having celebrated the holiday three days early with the Sunday heart rebus puzzle, the NYT has a standard Wednesday offering from Paula Gamache. Paula opts to TURN UP THE HEAT with theme entries that progress from ICE to WATER to STEAM. 1- and 2-Down are both laundry detergents (FAB and ERA), though not clued as such. The longer down entries seem to tell a gripping tale: HASHISH? TUT-TUT. STRIKE TWO! SIDEBAR...SEE YA! SKIPS TOWN via QANTAS.

Updated:

Raymond Hamel's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Love Songs," features four performers of "___ Love" songs—Real, Puppy, Baby, and (my favorite) Modern. Kinda cute seeing BABYLON elsewhere—can you hear THE SUPREMES singing, "Baby-lon, my Baby-lon"?

Another love songs theme in the LA Times crossword by Matthew Lees, with song titles ending with the words Love, Valentine, Roses, Kiss, and Heart.