TOMEP = TEMPO

OLYRG = GLORY

SINOIV = VISION

ROAPND = PARDON

CARTOON ANSWER:

THE HIGH JUMPER WAS SUCCESSFUL IN PRACTICE, BUT HIS COACH WORRIED HE WAS – – –

TEOGRVIIDON = OVERDOING IT

Happy Monday, Jumble friends! I hope your St. Patrick’s Day weekened was as restful and relaxing as it was for me. Looking back at last week’s puzzles, we had some really challenging anagrams with the most searched for being FEWLAF, CATEU, and STULEA. Today gives us a fresh start to the week, so let’s see what David and Jeff have to offer.

Right from the start, TEMPO required an extra an glance and I don’t remember it being used recently so it was an excellent anagram choice to get my brain in gear. The next two words were both immediately visible with GLORY being in alphabetical order when solved. PARDON took the longest for me to decipher and is my choice for the most difficult anagram of the day. We last saw it on 10/17/17 where it was jumbled as PNDORA and it troubled me just as much then as it did today. With all of the clue words complete it was time for the cartoon.

The setting for Jeff’s panel was immediately recognizable as a training field where an athlete can be seen coming to rest on a landing mat after his jump. The bar is clearly still on the stand and the jump appears to be successful. Reading the dialogue, the athlete inquires as to what his coach thought of the jump with the surprise response being “I think you should stop and save your energy for the meet”. The coach (who looks shockingly similar to Mike the painter from Friday’s Jumble) can be seen making a slow down motion with his right hand expressing his opinion that the athlete shouldn’t over exert himself.

There were a few excellent details that Jeff added to his piece that really made the cartoon pop. The chain and pendant that the athlete was wearing around his neck can be seen still in the air as he makes his landing. The shading under the athlete’s back and action lines in an arc also added to the realism that the athlete had just landed. My favorite details though were the athletes training in the background with one person sprinting and another person doing a pole vault. Although they were difficult to make out, they helped tie together some of the events in a track and field event.

The layout for the final solve was expertly crafted by David and didn’t give anything away. This cryptic layout had me baffled so I decided to tackle the two letter word first. There were so many 2-word combinations available that it didn’t help so I just started self-jumbling all of the letters. On my 6th attempt I had OV together leading me to find OVER. The -ING ending came next with OVERDOING quickly coming into view. IT was all that was left to bring this moderately challenging puzzle to completion.

Did anyone else notice that the cartoon sentence was in bold face print this morning? Maybe it was just my newspaper but it really stood out and is a huge change from what I’m accustomed too. Maybe Jeff and/or David will clue us in if this is a change that they’ve decided to make. Have a marvelous Monday and I’ll see you tomorrow!