The Washington Post - 12.11.2019

c8 eZ re the washington post.tuesday, november 12 , 2019

ACROSS

1 Sports agent,

briefly

4 Lavish meal

9 Behold, to

Brutus

13 “A nother

Green World”

musician Brian

14 Foamy coffee

drinks

16 Bar measure

17 *Big top

19 “The

Handmaid’s __”:

Atwood novel

20 This, in Spain

21 Acapulco aunt

22 Final Olds

produced

24 Injured-arm

support

26 *School

keepsake

29 “Under Siege”

star Steven

31 Prof.’s degree

32 See 38-Down

33 Restaurant Arlo

Guthrie sang

about

36 Early 20 00s

Apple product

37 *“The Daily

Show” network

41 Hard to find

42 Cosa __

43 Tr ident-shaped

Greek letter

44 Angry

46 Pick up the

pace

50 *2 01 2 Channing

Ta tum film

54 Around, in dates

55 Tr y to bite,

puppy-style

56 Tr iage ctrs.

58 Broadway

brightener

59 Hawaiian coffee

region

60 Show starter

... and a hint to

the answers to

starred clues

63 Nobelist Pavlov

64 Cantankerous

65 __ Bo: fitness

system

66 “The Lion King”

lioness

67 Davis of “Do the

Right Thing”

68 Cal. spans

DOWN

1 School day

interlude

2 Maroon, at sea

3 “The Merchant

of Venice”

heiress

4 Winter bug

5 Down __:

Maine nick-

name

6 Room at the

top?

7 Pilfer

8 Olympic

diver’s goal

9 Aromatic

compound

10 Personal

magnetism

11 Pre-

Revolutionary

furniture

style

12 French summer

15 Secret supply

18 Scam

23 “Dropped”

’60s drug

25 Battering wind

27 Cathedral areas

28 Nutritional

supplements

co.

30 Pot top

34 Pop singer

Lauper

35 Novelist

Umberto

36 Blackboard

chore

37 Legendary

lover

38 With 32 -Across,

Adam and Eve’s

transgression

39 To the __

degree

40 Gillette’s

__ II razor

41 Turntable

speed, for short

44 Longtime Tom

Petty label

45 Defensive retort

47 The “T” in NATO

48 To yota Prius,

e.g.

49 Loire Valley city

51 Bucky Beaver’s

toothpaste

52 Wails with grief

53 Shore birds

57 Apple Watch

assistant

59 Family reunion

attendees

61 Ace

62 “Science Guy”

Bill

LA TIMES CROSSWORD By Kurt Krauss

MONDAY’S LA TIMES SOLUTION

© 2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC. 11/12/19

BY LELA NARGI

H

umans aren’t t he only animals

that fall in love. In fact, as

much as 70 percent of birds

may form long-term pair

bonds. That is, they stay to-

gether year after year. Or in some cases,

they split up, then come back together

when it’s mating season. And every year,

the pair, or just the male, performs a

fancy mating dance. Trevor Price, a biolo-

gist at t he University of Chicago, has long

wondered why they do it.

You can see some of these dances on

YouTube. In the Andes Mountains in

South America, water birds called hood-

ed grebes have bright red eyes. They h ave

spiky ruffles around their heads that

make them look like Dr. Seuss charac-

ters. They perform complicated tangos

in lakes.

Scientists weren’t sure for a long time

what purpose the mating dances served.

That’s b ecause some of these birds may

have gotten together last season, says

Price. They’ve already successfully had

babies together. They don’t need to at-

tract each other anymore.

“It’s such an obvious question,” he

says. “Why bother with the dance when

you could just get on with raising your

brood?”

He thinks he may have found an an-

swer. Perhaps 1 million years ago or more,

a male grebe needed bright colors and

tricky moves. He evolved to have them so

he could convince a female that he was Mr.

Right. His colors and dances raised her

hormone levels. This caused her to lay

extra eggs. It also may have made her

work extra hard to take care of their

babies, even to the point of exhaustion.

F or bird pairs,

love t akes o≠

with a fancy

mating d ance

chip says

hooded grebes, which live in argentina and chile, are

considered critically endangered. the biggest threats

are climate change and competing for food with fish

that are not native to the area.

kidspost

kidspost.com

Want more animal

stories? look for our

archive of stories about

endangered species.

today

high temperatures could near

40 degrees, and snowflakes are

possible but with no accumulation.

illustration by arav tandon, 6, arlington

Over many generations, though, male

grebes started to look less dazzling. Their

partners figured out how many eggs to

lay, so they didn’t have to work too hard.

But the flashy mating behavior stayed the

same. Explains Price, “If a guy brings

home 12 roses every day, and on the 10th

day he doesn’t, that might [upset] his

wife.” So the birds are stuck forever in

their mating rituals.

This is true for zebra finches, waved

albatrosses, tropic birds and juncos, too.

If you look out your window, you might

catch common cardinals feeding and

singing to their partners to make them

happy. Humans “have a sense of well-be-

ing” from our relationships, says Price.

“A nd animals do, too.”

Bird couples can split up, Price says.

“But there are tremendous advantages

to not getting divorced. A [familiar]

mate can hit all the right buttons.” One

study separated canary couples for the

winter. When the birds got back togeth-

er, they bred a whole month earlier than

usual.

It’s n o secret that birds are endangered

everywhere in the world. At least 800

million of them die every year by acciden-

tally hitting windows, Price says. The

same number die from attacks by house

cats. Price hopes that if people can

understand that birds, like humans, feel

emotions, they will care more about their

survival. “There are a lot of things you see

in your backyard that look like love,” he

says. You can help that love continue by

keeping your kitties inside.

[email protected]

photos by tom stephenson

today’s News

Australia’s m ost populated state

declared a state of emergency

Monday because o f raging wildfires.

David Elliott, New South Wales

state emergency services minister,

said residents were facing what

“could be the m ost dangerous bush

fire week this nation h as ever s een.”

Fires in t he state’s northeast have

killed three people, destroyed more

than 150 homes and s corched more

than 3,800 square miles o f forest a nd

farmland since Friday.

Medical workers have t reated more

than 100 people for fire-related

injuries, said D ominic Morgan,

ambulance commissioner.

Fire conditions in New South

Wales are forecast t o be worse

Tuesday than they w ere Friday.

The region’s fire s eason has started

early a fter an unusually warm, d ry

winter.

Australia i s the w orld’s driest

continent after Antarctica, which

scientists say leaves A ustralians

particularly vulnerable to weather

extremes tied to a changing c limate.

— Associated Press

Wildfires threaten

people, forests and

farms in Australia

A waved albatross couple,

above, and a tropic bird pair,

top, bond o n the Galapagos

Islands. As much as 7 0 percent

of birds in the world may form

long-term pairs. And many

birds d o flashy dances before

mating.

Adapted from an

online discussion.

Dear Carolyn: I

love my fiance

and until recently

thought we had a

wonderful

partnership.

We’ve lived

together for eight years and he

makes more money and works

longer hours, so I do almost all

the housework. He’s not only

kind and thoughtful but always

seemed appreciative of the work

I do around the house.

Recently I was hospitalized

for two weeks. When I came

home I found he had never once

walked our dog — just let the

poor thing out into our tiny yard,

and he didn’t clean up. The

house was an absolute wreck, he

didn’t cook or clean anything,

left pizza boxes stacked on the

counter, and dirty laundry piled

on the laundry room floor. I was

still recovering and that was

kind of a nightmare to come

home to.

I asked him why he didn’t do

anything, and he said he’s no

good at that stuff and knew I’d

want to do it “the right way”

when I got back.

We moved in together right

out of college so he’s never taken

care of a place by himself. I

asked him if he wanted to learn,

but he said he doesn’t see a real

problem with the shape the

house was in. Would you

consider this a big enough issue

to delay our summer wedding?

— Still in Shock

Still in Shock: Uhhh, yes?

Yes, I would consider it a big

enough issue that you’re looking

at 100 percent housework for the

rest of your life with this man

and, worse, his utter comfort

with your exerting yourself on

your mutual behalf while he

does nothing, believing... can

you hear my print voice rising as

I type?... it’s a favor to YOU that

he does! Right out of your

sickbed!

And the poor dog, suffering

such neglect. Is it one of those

dogs that likes the poop scooped

in a certain way that your fiance

just isn’t good at?

I was actually leaning

sympathetic to the guy at the

start, expecting him to have been

under duress with you in the

hospital and with maybe too

much going on at work — and

certainly that will stress a partner

out significantly. It’s hard to do

housework when you’re wearing a

groove between your office and a

loved one’s hospital room. But

“he’s no good at that stuff and

knew I’d want to do it ‘the right

way’ when I got back”??? A person

actually said that!? To a loved one

who’s been sick?!

And who on earth thinks

there’s a right way to pick up dog

poop?!

Choose one: the Maya

Angelou quote — “When

someone shows you who they

are, believe them the first time”

— or a straight-up “Oh Hell No.”

I hope you mend soon. So you

can walk away unassisted.

Re: Shock: This may be kind of

obvious, but if you want kids,

prepare yourself to take on

parent/teacher conferences, boo-

boos, homework,

extracurriculars, getting them to

and from school/day care, sick

days and doctor visits, double to

triple the laundry, cooking,

clutter and dishes, because he

will not suddenly start helping

just because he’s fathered a

human. You are standing at the

edge of the abyss.

— Anonymous

Anonymous: Quadruple the

laundry, or more.

That last line, though. Thank

you.

Write to carolyn hax at

[email protected]. get her

column delivered to your inbox each

morning at wapo.st/haxpost.

 Join the discussion live at noon

fr idays at live.washingtonpost.com

Not much of a housekeeper or a keeper

Carolyn

Hax

nick galifianakis for the Washington post

darren pateman/epa-efe/shutterstock

New South Wales in Australia

declared a state of emergency after

fires there killed three people and

destroyed more than 150 homes.