Hey there, Connectors! I hope you’ve had a fantastic weekend so far.

The day before the deadline to settle income tax balances in Canada, I checked the federal and provincial tax filing services to see if they’d finished processing my returns. I expected to pay a small sum to the federal side (which I’d already taken care of) and to get a sizeable refund from the provincial government.

However, when I checked my Revenu Quebec account, I was informed that I actually had to pay them roughly what I was expecting in my refund. Uh oh. I got in touch with my tax prep place and they told me everything looked correct on their end based on what I told them, and that I should contact the provincial tax people.

I thought I should double check everything before calling. It was then that I realized I’d gotten mixed up and swapped the figures of what I’d already paid each tax authority. So I had no choice other than to pay what Revenu Quebec was asking for.

I’ll get a bigger refund from the Canada Revenue Agency and things will balance out as I expected. But a chunk of my money is tied up with them for now. Darn it.

Before we begin, we have a great little community on Discord, where we chat about NYT Connections, the rest of the NYT games and all kinds of other stuff. Everyone who has joined has been lovely. It’s a fun hangout spot, and you’re more than welcome to join us.

Discord is also the best way to give me any feedback about the column, especially on the rare (or not-so-rare) occasions that I mess something up. I don’t look at Twitter much.

Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Sunday, May 10 are coming right up.

Scroll slowly! Just after the hints for each of today’s Connections groups, I’ll reveal what the groups are without immediately telling you which words go into them.

Today’s 16 words are...

And the level one hints for today’s Connections groups are:

Need some extra help? 

Be warned: we’re starting to get into spoiler territory.

Let’s take a look at one word for each group.

Today’s Connections word hints are…

Today’s Connections groups are...

Spoiler alert! Don’t scroll any further down the page until you’re ready to find out today’s Connections answers.

This is your final warning!

Today’s Connections answers are...

I first suspected that SKIP would go with LEAP and BOUND, but no, it had to go with the rest of the playback words for the yellows. Then BOUND was evidently one of the greens.

STIR, POUR and GARNISH all seemed like cocktail words, but it took me a minute to remember that MUDDLE (i.e. mashing the ingredients together) is part of that process too. That left the purples, for which the category was clear at that point, for a relatively straightforward 434th win in a row with a regular rainbow.

How did you get on today? Here's my grid:

🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪

That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. I’ll be back over at Forbes for the Monday-Friday editions for the column. And if you haven’t subscribed to Pastimes already, definitely do that! It would be super sweet of you.

P.S. I was reminded recently of when I went to see Play Time, a work performed by the New York City Ballet that Solange Knowles scored. It was incredibly captivating and highlighted just how talented Knowles really is (not to mention the ballet company, because wow).

I can’t find a recording of the performance, unfortunately, but I can offer you one of Solange’s own terrific songs. “Cranes In The Sky” is a sublime soul ballad:

Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Be kind to yourself and each other! Call someone you love!

On weekdays, you can find this column over at Forbes. Please follow my blog there for more coverage of NYT Connections and other word games, and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot!

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