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So you want to join Craft Night at The Compound

I’ve heard this wish before, and not just from Marika. But shouldn’t you know what you’re getting into? Oh, sure, you’ve heard it’s paint and glitter and hot glue and Starbucks. There can be knitting, BeDazzling, and Barbie fashion. There’s laughter, conversation, and sometimes cake. But not always.

For example, tonight. Snacks?

Crickets? SIGN YOU UP!

I wasn’t quick enough to document Tom trying the Salt N’ Vinegar. But Lindsey was willing to offer up new versions of Lindsay Face ™ for Sour Cream & Onion:

Fear:

Resolution:

I can’t believe I ate the whole thing:

Chaser!

And Ricker was worried about blindfolds?

Magnetic Poetry 365:104

The Right Stuff–the book by Tom Wolfe and the movie–are favorites of mine. In the movie, I can never decide if I’m fonder of Chuck Yeager (as played by Sam Shepard) or John Glenn (as played by Ed Harris). But I do know that among my favorite scenes is the one where test pilot Yeager has to bail out of his jet before it crashes. When his best friend Jack and another man come upon the wreckage, they think they see a figure walking toward them. The other guy squints and asks, “Is that a man?” Jack recognizes Yeager and answers, “You damn right it is.”

I was thinking about all that when I wrote today’s poem.

When I promise an armadillo….

….I deliver.

This is my meager store of armadillo lore.

Armadillo is a Spanish word meaning “little armored one.” Its fancy name is “Dasypodidae” and it’s part of the “Cingulata” order. I added that last part for the benefit of Kathy S. The Brides will understand.

I read a novel one time in which a little boy called everything a “rattlesnake,” including an armadillo who peed down his daddy’s neck while in the little boy’s grip. Then the little boy stumbled over a real rattlesnake. The child lived. No memory of what happened to the armadillo.

I once dated a man who gave me the phrase, “There’s no such thing as a live armadillo in Alabama.” That’s because the only way we ever knew there were any in the state was when we saw them four-up next to our roads.

Lynne’s husband’s aunt once painted a pair of ceramic two-stepping armadillos. They were…interesting.

There’s the red velvet cake in the shape of an armadillo in the movie Steel Magnolias. Lindsey baked some cupcakes last week that had the same effect on the inside. On the outside, they looked like this. I wish I had one now.

When I got to Texas, I learned that it’s against state law to keep a live armadillo in captivity. I have never broken this law.

Then there’s the Giant Armadillo Who Watches Over Kirby Drive. My first experience with this guy was when I went to Goode’s Armadillo Palace back in 2007 to hear presidential candidate John Edwards speak. We all know how that turned out, though as far as I know, Giant Armadillo wasn’t involved in any baby-daddy scandals. It took me a while to find information about GA, but then I read this article. Apparently Jim Goode and his son Levi bought the concrete-and-mortar armadillo from its former owner, a Wyoming restaurateur, and after obtaining wide-load permits, had it transported to Texas.


The armadillo is fourteen feet tall and twenty-two feet wide.


It’s not a tall tale that everything’s bigger in Texas; it’s a long tail.


Not just any armadillo, of course, but a longhorn armadillo.


When they say the eyes of Texas are upon you, sometimes they mean red glowy eyes.

Oh, there’s also a Giant Seal!

Kidding.