Okay, so, I’ve been hooked on the New York Times crossword puzzles lately. It’s become a daily ritual, you know? But sometimes, I just get completely stumped. Like, I stare at the clues for ages, and nothing comes to mind. I knew there had to be a better way. So, I started poking around, trying to find some, uh, “divination aids,” as they call them, for these puzzles.
I started just by Googling, just typed in “divination aids nyt crossword” to see what I could find. The search results were kind of a mixed bag, to be honest. A lot of the info felt too obvious, some were just showing off videos, and many were just providing answers, you know? Not really what I was looking for. I didn’t want someone to just hand me the answers, I wanted to figure it out but with a little nudge in the right direction.
Then, I stumbled upon this one article that mentioned a “rebus” key. Apparently, it’s this feature in the NYT Crossword app where you can put multiple letters into one square. I never even noticed it before! So I opened up the app, found the “More” button at the bottom left, and then there it was, the “Rebus” key on the bottom right. Tapped that, and boom, a bigger square popped up where I could type in a few letters. Pretty neat, huh?
But it was still tough going. I mean, even with the rebus thing, some of these clues are just cryptic. I saw one clue that said something like, “Divination aids… or a phonetic hint to the shaded squares in this puzzle.” I spent a good chunk of time on that one, I got stuck here for a while. But with persistence and some lateral thinking, I started to crack the code. I looked at all the results and found that one of them had the answer “TEALEAVES” for that clue. It totally made sense! Like, you know, reading tea leaves for fortune-telling. And it fit with the shaded squares, somehow, I guess. I was able to move on and continue. And I found some results showing the exact answer for this clue was “56” on May 2nd and 3rd. That was the very moment I felt excited!
- Started with a simple Google search for “divination aids nyt crossword.”
- Found out about the “Rebus” key in the NYT Crossword app.
- Figured out “TEALEAVES” was a possible answer to a tricky clue about “divination aids.”
- Found out the exact answer “56” for the clue mentioned above.
- Kept at it and made some decent progress on the puzzle.
Honestly, it’s still a challenge, but I feel like I’m getting better. It’s not just about finding the answers online, but understanding the logic, the wordplay, and all that. Now, every day I try to solve a new one, and I feel happy and fulfilled after finishing it. Anyway, I just wanted to share my little adventure with the crossword puzzles. It’s been a fun ride so far!
