On-air challenge

Today’s theme is the Roman numeral 9. Every answer is a word, name, or phrase ending in the letters -IX. (Ex. Religious cross –> CRUCIFIX)

1. Something added at the start of a word to make a new word

2. Largest city in Arizona

3. Popular streaming service

4. Number of letters in the alphabet

5. The composer Mendelssohn’s first name

6. Keanu Reeves film with three sequels

7. Shape of a DNA molecule

8. 1960s-’70s TV detective series starring Mike Connors

9. Snack consisting of granola, dried fruit, and nuts

10. “Purple Haze” guitarist

11. Longtime queen of the Netherlands

12. Throw away

13. Fancy synonym for “long-winded”

14. Something added on at the end of a book

Last week’s challenge

Last week’s challenge came from Mike Reiss, who’s a showrunner, writer, and producer for “The Simpsons.” Think of a famous singer. Replace the last three letters of the first name with an E. Also replace the last three letters of the last name with an E. The result will be a world-famous location. What singer is this?

Challenge answer

Whitney Houston, White House

Winner

Dan Dabrowski of Alexandria, Virginia.

This week’s challenge

This week’s challenge comes from Joel Moorhead, of Downers Grove, Ill. Think of a word that means exceptionally good. Add two letters at the end of to make a word that means the exact opposite. What words are these?

If you know the answer to the challenge, submit it below by Thursday, October 16 at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle.

Starting Sunday, actor Jason Ritter will be back onscreen as attorney Julian Markston in Season 2 of the CBS legal drama “Matlock,” loosely inspired by the 1980s and ’90s Andy Griffith show of the same name. He still gets a thrill when he thinks about the cast he gets to work with, which includes Skye P. Marshall, Beau Bridges and Oscar winner Kathy Bates.

In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.

“You almost, but not quite ever, forget that you’re working with an absolute acting legend,” Ritter says. “Kathy is so sweet and so kind and such a team player and collaborator that it helps to sort of stop that voice in your head from going like ‘It’s Kathy Bates!’ every time it’s a scene with her.”

The 45-year-old L.A. native, part of an entertainment family that includes his late father, sitcom legend John Ritter, didn’t offer up many details about the new season but did say viewers can expect more on-the-edge-of-your-seat episodes. (If you need a refresher of last season, episodes of “Matlock” are available on Paramount+.)

“It has the same pace and fun mystery as the first season, but now my character’s secrets have been revealed,” says Ritter, who regularly posts about the show and his fellow actors on Instagram along with humorous bits.

At home with actor-wife Melanie Lynskey, whom he married in 2020, and their 6-year-old daughter, there aren’t any great mysteries that need to be solved, but there is work to do before bed.

“When midnight starts,” Ritter says, “we’re probably finishing up the jobs, as we call them — you know, the dishes and the chores and cleaning everything up, which is a lovely habit that I’ve gotten into from [my wife]. I always used to just wake up to the nightmare from the night before and I’ve learned to really appreciate waking up to a clean area.”

After lights out and some sleep, his ideal Sunday picks up hours later and is filled with plenty of coffee, some miniature golf or a nature walk and more.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

7 a.m.: A different kind of call time
I will wake up usually at 7. If our daughter is going to school, then I have to wake up at 7 so I can start making her lunch and getting stuff ready. But if she’s having a bit of a sleep-in [on the weekend], then I still have to wake up at 7 to make sure everything times out. And then I’ll make her little lunch and her breakfast. While she’s eating breakfast, she usually gets to watch an episode of something. That’s my prime scrolling through social media time.

9:30 a.m.: Time for more coffee
We would all pile in the car, and our first stop would probably be a coffee stop. We are a big coffee family — not our daughter. We always make a pot of coffee in the morning. And even though we’ve had several cups already, we’ll stop at Go Get Em Tiger, one of our favorite coffee places in L.A. We’ve come to know a lot of the baristas there, so we get to chat about life and everything. And then we’ll be back on the road.

10 a.m.: Miniature golf or a ‘beauty’ walk
Our daughter and I will go to Castle Park, which is the miniature golf place in Sherman Oaks. My daughter and I have really bonded over miniature golf, and that’s sort of our little thing. Any miniature golf course has a real special place in my heart, but Castle Park is the place that I went to as a kid. The course is basically the same. It’s just so fun to watch [our daughter] get better and better at golf; even though, recently she’s become obsessed with par.

If mini golf didn’t take up so much time, my daughter and I like to go on these little beauty walks where she gets on her scooter and puts her helmet on. We just walk around the neighborhood, and she can’t pick any flowers. But we can pick up little flowers or leaves off the ground. So anything that she sees that’s beautiful, she picks up, and we make a little bouquet. And what’s so amazing about it for me is to see what she finds beautiful on those walks.

1 p.m.: A chopped salad and fries for lunch
There’s a place called Angelini Osteria that has a salad that I really enjoy. It’s called the Alimentari Chopped Salad. It’s got avocado and chicken and bacon and currants and almonds. It comes with two dressings, but I usually just do the sort of lemony kind of oily dressing. And it is just so delicious. I am the only meat eater in my family. At some point, maybe my conscience will get the better of me, and I’ll switch over to their diet. Angelini also has very good french fries. When we’re on the road and the lunch that I’ve packed hasn’t been enough for [my daughter], french fries is one of those safe things that if we’re in a bind, we can pick them up from almost anywhere.

2 p.m.: Time for the Museum of Jurassic Technology
Another favorite thing that I would do is go to the Museum of Jurassic Technology. I just love that place. It’s so fascinating. It’s one of those places that if someone’s coming in from out of town, I love showing them. I love taking them there without telling them anything about it and just watch them kind of explore. And it’s just such a mysterious, magical place.

5 p.m.: Fresh escape room fun
Then I would see if I could get a bunch of my friends together, and we would go do an escape room somewhere in town. It’s just one of my favorite things to do, and they’re all over the place in Los Angeles. I would go to maybe 60out or Maze Rooms or one that I had never heard of. There’s an app called Morty that helps find escape rooms and keep track of the ones you did if your memory is poor like mine. If I can’t convince my friends to do another one right after in the same location, then we would be done by 6. It would be time to go back home and make our daughter’s dinner and get her through the entire dinner-bath time-bedtime phase.

9 p.m.: Dinner and “The Bachelor” before bed
My favorite thing is when Melanie and I order in from a place called Bulan Thai Vegetarian Kitchen. It has these incredibly delicious hot wings. Our daughter will be asleep in the other room. And we get to eat some delicious Thai food and watch some silly show or some serious show.

If our daughter has gone to sleep around 8, this will usually be maybe 9, 9:30 depending on if I’ve fallen asleep in the bed next door. This is also why sometimes it gets so late and bleeds into the next day. Because by the time we get to have our alone fun, dinner and watching time, it’s 9:30, 10, and some of those “Bachelor” episodes are two hours long.

And yes, I promise that somewhere in this day, I have showered. [Laughs] That is another very important element of our day. It’s the one that can go by the wayside. But we always try to check in with each other. Like, “Have you showered today? Have you showered? OK, you go and then I’ll go.”