MEOW #63: Sick Day

[Cinny]

The cat is out - finally.
Nice puzzle, Josh - even if it is hard on these old eyes!!

[madhatter5]

Nudge Saturday!

Look for four words that share a common (and perhaps unexpected) theme

Can you think of a way to connect the theme of the puzzle to the theme you have discovered?

"Oh man I'm really feeling ___" (fill in crucial phrase here)

[lbray53]

I finally finished.

Clearly a CAT event for me. As in catastrophe.

I have never been good with this kind of puzzle, but the website was helpful.

I had three of Josh's four words immediately but could not find anymore.

I spent 38 years in the insurance industry in the midwest and had more CAT experience than I wanted.

[DrTom]

At first I thought I didn't like this one; I was wrong. Very neat, even if it did take several nudges to get me there,

[benchen71]

Needed the nudges, but got there in the end.

[whimsy]

Well, finally!
Cat is ready to depart --

[madhatter5]

If you unplug a cat is it free of charge?

[Laura M]

Noped out when I saw it was a word search, but came back and solved it with the spoilers (not submitting). Very clever, but I still prefer crosswords :-)

[madhatter5]

Solution:

There were four meteorological terms embedded in the word search. If you looked "under the weather" you spell out the answer, RHINOPHARYNGITIS

[ship4u]

New to this, but I don't think I would have solved it in a million years. I prefer dogs to cats, anyway. How's that for sour grapes?

[whimsy]

Once I understood what I was looking for via the nudges, I had about 3 dozen words circled (ovaled?) in the grid. But only the RAIN and HAIL as possibly grouping together in a theme -- ? But I did have TORN and CAST and ADO and OVER..... Duh! Finally put two and two together!
Oh, and @ship4u, I prefer bunnies (Could anyone have guessed?) to either of the other two!
SmackDown time!

[woozy]

The J in JOVE distracted me so that I could not see OVER ever. I got HAIL and RAIN but with the boggle effect there was nothing about those words to distinguish them for the several dozen other four digit words that one naturally finds. Being diagonal TORNADO was certainly going to be overlooked so I'd never get it. I got CAST and if I had gotten OVER maybe I'd have gotten the under the weather hint (I did get it with nudges).

I was fairly convinced because of the boggle effect and the RED HERRING clue that we absolutely were *not* supposed to be finding words but I couldn't think of a proper pun for RED HERRING upside-down roman 18. (Josh tells me the IIIVX was completely unintentional but I can conceive of getting those letters without deliberately trying for roman numeral 18). I was really surprised when the nudges cam and I found out we actually were supposed to find words.

[Dplass]

The J in JOVE distracted me so that I could not see OVER ever. I got HAIL and RAIN but with the boggle effect there was nothing about those words to distinguish them for the several dozen other four digit words that one naturally finds. Being diagonal TORNADO was certainly going to be overlooked so I'd never get it. I got CAST and if I had gotten OVER maybe I'd have gotten the under the weather hint (I did get it with nudges).

I was fairly convinced because of the boggle effect and the RED HERRING clue that we absolutely were *not* supposed to be finding words but I couldn't think of a proper pun for RED HERRING upside-down roman 18. (Josh tells me the IIIVX was completely unintentional but I can conceive of getting those letters without deliberately trying for roman numeral 18). I was really surprised when the nudges cam and I found out we actually were supposed to find words.

There's also an enticing "SOLVE..." if you look hard enough.

[DrTom]

I got VERY distracted by all the medical stuff:
IVIG
CAST
AIL
ICU
BID
etc.

Finally I saw HAIL, RAIN and OVERCAST (TORNADO took a while) and got "Under the Weather" which I was going to submit (15 letters, an affliction) until someone asked me, "but did you get the meta" and I thought "Hey what if...." Couldn't believe I almost missed my old friend Rhinopharyngitis.

[rjy]

Unfortunately I thought the SUBMIT button was a legitimate part of the puzzle and could never make any combination of circled words return a fruitful response, so I gave up. Later saw it was just an unwanted part of the software... oh well. Clever puzzle in hindsight, but not in the cards for me. On to the next one!

[vandono]

I had so many things circled the first time through. Then, like DrTom, focused on medicalese. Even at some point circled Roman numerals because some really seemed to stand out. (Let's see if they map to letters of the alphabet!) Then with the hint got the weather ones circled... but never clicked with the obvious-in-hindsight "under the weather". So clever, that one. I should've seen it. Live and learn.

[MaineMarge]

Though not the answer@madhatter5 had in mind, I thought I should get honorable mention for CARPAL TUNNEL when I found WRIST coming down the diagonal to meet the T of CAST on the left.
Josh liked it too.