There, you all did very well!! It is amazing the number of ways we can find to hurt ourselves. I don't hurt nearly as much as I thought I would today. Mostly scared, I guess. So, a la David Letterman, here are our results: 10- Ladders and stools: Falling and tripping accidents cause injuries to an estimate of 227,769 people. 9- Clothing : Children get tangled and choked in their own clothes, which causes injuries to an estimate of 245,129 people. 8- Cans and other containers: Sharp cans and shattering containers(I'm thinking glass but they don't say that) accidents cause injuries to an estimate of 248,126 people. I am sooo careful with the cat food tins - they are a recipe for disaster. 7- Desks, cabinets, shelves and racks: Falling over, cabinets knocked over and racks dropping on people causes injuries to an estimate of 262,171 people. 6- Tables: Falling off of tables, tables breaking causes injuries to an estimate of 309,252 people. Moral - don't dance on the table!! 5- Non-glass doors and panel accidents: Many accidentally slam doors on their own or other peopleâÂÂs hands and heads causing injuries to an estimate of 321,665 people. 4- Bathroom structures and fixtures: Slipping, falling and hitting our heads and back around in the bathroom is a very common home accident, causing injuries to an estimate of 330,102 people. 3- Chairs, sofas and sofa bed accidents: People routinely and repeatedly fall off of their chairs and sofas, causing injuries to an estimate of 476,109 people. 2- Beds, Mattresses, Pillows: Falling off of beds and materials and pillow cause neck and back problems injuries to an estimate of 560,129 people. 1- Stairs, ramps, landings and floor accidents: Most common home accidents happened when walking up or down the stairs. Broken hands and legs are the usual resulting injuries to an estimate of 2,324,938 people. The above was gathered from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission and National Electronics Injuries Surveillance System (NESS) in 2007 - I don't imagine much has changed. So you see, you did find your way!! For all: Thanks for playing along. I am being so careful not to pull my hip again, and of course, trying to do things to help - geez. I will keep trying - see you all next week!! Nancy.

Well, good for you all!! It is the cross-word puzzle. Not as ancient as I thought!! The title for the world's first crossword puzzle is disputed based on whom you ask. The first puzzle that was called a "cross word puzzle" was written in 1862 by Our Young Folks in the United States. The first "cross word" was "dream". Crossword puzzles are said to be the most popular and widespread word game in the world, yet have a short history. The first crosswords appeared in England during the 19th century. They were of an elementary kind, apparently derived from the word square, a group of words arranged so the letters read alike vertically and horizontally, and printed in children's puzzle books and various periodicals. Although Maleska is usually credited with the first crossword phrase in The New York Times, an 1862 puzzle in the Lady's Book had phrases that are considered modern such as the expression "I did it". Crossword-like puzzles, for example Double Diamond Puzzles, appeared in the magazine St. Nicholas, published since 1873. Another crossword puzzle appeared on September 14, 1890, in the Italian magazine Il Secolo Illustrato della Domenica. It was designed by Giuseppe Airoldi and titled "Per passare il tempo" ("To pass the time"). Airoldi's puzzle was a four-by-four grid with no shaded squares; it included horizontal and vertical clues. On December 21, 1913, Arthur Wynne, a journalist from Liverpool, England, published a "word-cross" puzzle in the New York World that embodied most of the features of the genre as we know it. This puzzle is frequently cited as the first crossword puzzle, and Wynne as the inventor. Later, the name of the puzzle was changed to "crossword". In 1925, the New York Public Library reported that "The latest craze to strike libraries is the crossword puzzle," and complained that when "the puzzle 'fans' swarm to the dictionaries and encyclopedias so as to drive away readers and students who need these books in their daily work, can there be any doubt of the Library's duty to protect its legitimate readers?" The first book of crossword puzzles appeared in 1924, published by Simon and Schuster. "This odd-looking book with a pencil attached to it" was an instant hit and crossword puzzles became the craze of 1924. So, for Annette, TM, Bobbie, Cynthia and Garden Gal: Thanks to all for playing, see you all next week!! Nancy.

Well, yes, I was looking for the Bermuda Triangle, and you all got there - no one lost, I hope? Welcome jackier123 - nice to 'see' you here!! On December 5th, at 2:10 p.m., five U.S. Navy Avenger torpedo-bombers comprising Flight 19 take off from the Ft. Lauderdale Naval Air Station in Florida on a routine three-hour training mission. Flight 19 was scheduled to take them due east for 120 miles, north for 73 miles, and then back over a final 120-mile leg that would return them to the naval base. They never returned. Two hours after the flight began, the leader of the squadron, who had been flying in the area for more than six months, reported that his compass and back-up compass had failed and that his position was unknown. The other planes experienced similar instrument malfunctions. Radio facilities on land were contacted to find the location of the lost squadron, but none were successful. After two more hours of confused messages from the fliers, a distorted radio transmission from the squadron leader was heard at 6:20 p.m., apparently calling for his men to prepare to ditch their aircraft simultaneously because of lack of fuel. A PBY Catalina left after 18:00 to search for Flight 19 and guide them back if they could be located. After dark, two PBM Mariner seaplanes originally scheduled for their own training flights were diverted to perform square pattern searches in the area west of 29°N 79°W. PBM-5 BuNo 59225 took off at 19:27 from Banana River Naval Air Station (now Patrick Air Force Base), called in a routine radio message at 19:30 and was never heard from again. At 21.15, the tanker SS Gaines Mills reported it had observed flames from an apparent explosion leaping 100 ft (30 m) high and burning for 10 minutes, at position 28.59°N 80.25°W. Captain Shonna Stanley reported unsuccessfully searching for survivors through a pool of oil. The escort carrier USS Solomons also reported losing radar contact with an aircraft at the same position and time. When Christopher Columbus sailed through the area on his first voyage to the New World, he reported that a great flame of fire (probably a meteor) crashed into the sea one night and that a strange light appeared in the distance a few weeks later. He also wrote about erratic compass readings, perhaps because at that time a sliver of the Bermuda Triangle was one of the few places on Earth where true north and magnetic north lined up. After gaining widespread fame as the first person to sail solo around the globe, Joshua Slocum disappeared on a 1909 voyage from Martha’s Vineyard to South America. Though it’s unclear exactly what happened, many sources later attributed his death to the Bermuda Triangle. By the time author Vincent Gaddis coined the phrase “Bermuda Triangle” in a 1964 magazine article, additional mysterious accidents had occurred in the area, including three passenger planes that went down despite having just sent “all’s well” messages. Charles Berlitz, whose grandfather founded the Berlitz language schools, stoked the legend even further in 1974 with a sensational bestseller about the legend. Since then, scores of fellow paranormal writers have blamed the triangle’s supposed lethalness on everything from aliens, Atlantis and sea monsters to time warps and reverse gravity fields, whereas more scientifically minded theorists have pointed to magnetic anomalies, waterspouts or huge eruptions of methane gas from the ocean floor. In all probability, however, there is no single theory that solves the mystery. As one skeptic put it, trying to find a common cause for every Bermuda Triangle disappearance is no more logical than trying to find a common cause for every automobile accident in Arizona. And those navy PBM's? Still missing!! In 1986, the wreckage of an Avenger was found off the Florida coast during the search for the wreckage of the Space Shuttle Challenger. Aviation archaeologist Jon Myhre raised this wreck from the ocean floor in 1990. He mistakenly believed it was one of the missing planes. In 1991, a treasure-hunting expedition led by Graham Hawkes announced that the wreckage of five Avengers had been discovered off the coast of Florida, but that tail numbers revealed they were not Flight 19. In 2004 a BBC documentary showed Hawkes returning with a new submersible 12 years later and identifying one of the planes by its bureau number (a clearly readable 23990) as a flight lost at sea on 9 October 1943, over two years before Flight 19 (its crew all survived), but he was unable to definitively identify the other planes; the documentary concluded that "Despite the odds, they are just a random collection of accidents that came to rest in the same place 12 miles from home." Records showed training accidents between 1942 and 1945 accounted for the loss of 95 aviation personnel from NAS Fort Lauderdale In 1992, another expedition located scattered debris on the ocean floor, but nothing could be identified. In the last decade, searchers have been expanding their area to include farther east, into the Atlantic Ocean, but the remains of Flight 19 have still never been confirmed found. And one weird, supernatural footnote: Those PBM's should have had 14 men on board, not 13 (hmmmm). The airman in question, Marine Corporal Allan Kosnar, had been given special permission not to fly that day because he had had a strong premonition of danger. So, for everyone: Thanks for playing, and see you all next week!! Nancy.

Well, I should have been back more often with clues but everything is a struggle right now - I have strep and haven't been able to get in to see my Dr. yet - oh well, tomorrow hopefully. 1. El Nino The most dominant pattern responsible for interannual, or year-to-year, climate variability across the globe. During an El Niño event, warmer-than-normal sea-surface temperatures occur in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, while cooler-than-normal temperatures are observed in the western part of the tropical Pacific. El Niño (Spanish for "The Baby Boy" of the Christmas story) was named more than 100 years ago by Peruvian fishers who noticed the warming water off their shores around Christmas time. 2. La Nina During a La Niña event, cooler-than-normal sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) occur in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific and warmer-than-normal SSTS are measured in the western part of the tropical Pacific. During La Niña, convection over the western Pacific tends to be farther west than the climatological average, bringing heavier-than-usual and more persistent rains to Indonesia and northern Australia, among other teleconnections. Like its brother, La Niña recurs at intervals ranging from about two to seven years, with events typically lasting from one to three years. Researchers believe La Niña behavior could change with global warming, although the exact nature of this change remains uncertain. 3. Montreal Express An informal term for the pattern that results when the polar jet stream arcs from northern Siberia across western Canada, then dips southward across central and eastern North America. Along the northeast coast of North America, a similar pattern in which the cold air originates over Canada is called the Montreal Express. 4. Trade Winds - yep, that's one!! The easterly surface winds prevailing across the tropics. The trade winds, part of the Hadley circulation, got their name at the dawn of the age of oceanic sailing, when cargo traders learned to rely upon them. 5. Vortex The circulation associated with a surface low-pressure area. Vortices can range in size from dust devils to tornadoes to hemispheric patterns. Some more localized weather may be referred to as: 6. Lake Effect Think Buffalo. Lake-effect snow is produced during cooler atmospheric conditions when cold winds move across long expanses of warmer lake water, providing energy and picking up water vapor, which freezes and is deposited on the leeward (downwind) shores. Did anyone see the pictures of the storm-front moving across Lake Ontario towards Buffalo? Truly awesome. 7. Alberta Clipper - An Alberta clipper (also known as a Canadian Clipper) is a fast moving low pressure area which generally affects the central provinces of Canada and parts of the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes regions of the United States. Most clippers occur between December and February, but can also occur occasionally in November. 8. Panhandle Hook - A Panhandle hook is a relatively infrequent winter storm system whose cyclogenesis occurs in the South to southwestern United States from the late fall through winter and into the early spring months. They trek to the northeast on a path towards the Great Lakes region, as the southwesterly jet streams are most prevalent, usually affecting the Midwestern United States and Eastern Canada. Panhandle hooks account for some of the most memorable and deadly blizzards and snowstorms in North America, as well as tornado outbreaks in the Midwest on record. The name is derived from the region of surface cyclogenesis in the Texas and Oklahoma "panhandle" regions. In some winters, there are no panhandle hook storms; in others, there are several. 9. Nor'easter - The usage of the term in North America comes from the wind associated with many different types of storms, some of which can form in the North Atlantic Ocean and some of which form as far south as the Gulf of Mexico. The term is most often used in the coastal areas of New England. A nor’easter is a low pressure area that often passes just off the New England and southeast Canada Atlantic coastline. Winds in the left-forward quadrant rotate onto land from the northeast. The precipitation pattern is similar to that of other extratropical storms. Nor’easters can cause severe coastal flooding, coastal erosion, hurricane force winds or blizzard conditions; these conditions are usually accompanied with very heavy rain or snow, depending on when the storm occurs. 10. Colorado Low - You're right Cynthia, not a rock Mountain High - lol. A Colorado low is a low pressure that forms in southeastern Colorado or northeastern New Mexico, typically in the winter. After forming, the system moves across the Great Plains. Colorado lows produce heavy wintry precipitation, and have a general east to northeast movement, impacting regions as far north as Winnipeg and as far east as the Atlantic coast. If upper level conditions are right, the jet stream can push the low farther south, bringing wintry precipitation as far as Texas. When pushed this far south, the system is often referred to as a "blue norther". Well, thanks for playing!! May the peace of the Season be upon you and yours!! Merry Christmas - see you all next week. I'll leave you with a song. Nancy. Here is a link that might be useful: Southern Cross - CSN