Am I the only one here who plays Strands?
It's a fairly new word game from the New York Times. If you're at all interested in playing, you can get an explanation of how to play it by clicking on the question mark on the right side of the home page. It's become a part of my morning mental workout, along with Wordle and Connections.
https://www.nytimes.com/games/strands
= new reply since forum marked as read
I play in the evening, with several other games such as Wordle, to wind down and get my mind off the happenings of the day.
I always strive to get all the words without using hints, and the next objective is to get the "spangram" as early as possible. Some days I give in and use hints. I think the most hints I've ever used is 2. I've never "lost" yet, unless using hints counts as losing. 
Some days it's really hard to get that first blue word. Only once or twice it's been disappointingly easy.
I find Connections much more difficult and frequently fail at that one unless I cheat. Sometimes the categories have zero relevance to my life. I still remember "Genres of Horror movies" as one that I didn't figure out. I don't even like horror movies, how would I know there were different genres?? 
It is "span" gram like pangram, but "span" because it spans from side to side or top to bottom of the board.
The spangram is often a phrase rather than one word. It seems to be a collective term that expresses the "theme". I was calling the "theme" the phrase that they have at the top of the puzzle. (Today the phrase they give as the theme is "Join the club!" I haven't played yet so don't know what the spangram is yet )
Strands #42
“Join the club!”
🔵🟡🔵🔵
🔵🔵🔵
So, "Join the club!" is the theme, the ones that come blue are the theme words, and the one that comes up yellow is the spangram.
I saw a word right off and didn't think of it fitting, but it came up blue, and it all became clear.
