Armadillo Day

I'm sure you caught the flurry of news coverage earlier this week about Alberto the Armadillo, the National Armored Mammal of Texas. For those of you who may be new to Texas or were tuned into the wrong channel, on Armadillo Day every year, a passel of sweaty photographers waits for Alberto to clamber from his caliche hole and render his meteorological prediction on the length of the remainder of the summer. The folkloric rule is if he sees his shadow, we get six more weeks of summer. And despite the fact that the only animal more nearsighted than a javelina is an armadillo, Alberto always sees his shadow, and we always get six more weeks. Truth is, the last overcast day we've had on an Armadillo day was in 1952, but that was solely due to a volcanic eruption in Norway and was in no way related to the ebbing of the brutality of our summer.

As a soupmaker inured to the summertime blues, I have gotten used to making the most of the off-season... intergalactic soup research trips and the like. Happy to be back on our mostly harmless orb with the Soupies of Austin, Texas.