41. Finish a Sunday NY Times crossword with help from only three people, chosen beforehand.

I love the New York Times crosswords, especially the Sunday ones. Once upon a time (a few years ago), Holly and her cousin Polly and I worked together to solve a Sunday Times crossword, and it was a very satisfying puzzle to solve. Since then, I've been wanting to try again, and see if I could solve another one, still with help.

I made a start on this quest during our trip out east for Richie and Amanda's wedding this summer - I eventually tracked down a book of NYT Sunday crosswords, although it took forever to track down. The airport shops were crawling with NYT crossword books, but none of them were Sunday-specific, or even included Sunday puzzles! (Too hard for all those dumb people in airports, I guess?) I finally tracked down a book of 50 Sunday puzzles in Provincetown, MA, just before the much-hyped drag queen incident. (But that's another story.)

Even getting help from lots of people, these puzzles proved to be ridiculously difficult. After a month or so, we got one solved called "European Journal" (August 18, 2002, by Michael Ashley), but with the help of Holly and Kristi and Janet and various others, so that didn't quite count.

Just recently, though, we completed one with just three people - myself, Holly, and Janet. The puzzle was "High Definition" (April 29, 2001, by Elizabeth C. Gorski), and we solved the whole thing with only one or maybe two educated guesses - which turned out to be right, phew! We solved it on September 30, 2009, while Janet was over visiting. Thanks, Janet! Thanks, Holly! Yay for us! And yay for Will Shortz and his awesome puzzles!