Wednesday, August 22, 2007

General It Is!

Charles and I had a tough time deciding on a name for our new puppy. We have Gizzy the Chihuaha, Belay the Calico and Zambezi the Himilayan.

My cats were named after events that occurred in my life. Belay joined me right before I went on a rock climbing trip and Zambezi joined our family just before I went bunji jumping over the Zambezi River between Zimbabwe and Zambia.

Gizzy took up residence with Charles last year.

I thought an Ewok name would have been cute and Charles was pulling for Chewbaca, but I have had my fill of Star Wars from my Ex and just couldn’t bring myself to anything from those films.

As I’ve learned a bit about Shih Tzu’s history from way back in 624 A.D. I found it steeped in China and Tibet, which led me towards wanting to name the puppy after one of the places I’d been in China, like Xian or Wuhan or perhaps the Yangtze River. I taught English in Changchun, north of Beijing during the summer of ’87, but the thought of hollering any of those names was a bit bizarre.

We finally stumbled across General Tso. Yes, from the Chinese dish General Tso chicken, but the real General Tso was from the Hunan province in China, which was one of my favorite places. And you know it fits well. We’ve taken to calling him General.

I’ve attached his latest videos where he’s quickly learned how to grab hold of Gizzy’s collar and pull her around. It’s hilarious and the reality is that he will always be a bulldog!

Oops - I guess that last comment should have some explanation around it for those of you who don't know. One of my fellow co-workers at Bulldog Solutions was actually the first "mommy" to General, but unfortunately she couldn't keep him, so she brought him to the office and I took him home and adopted him into our family. Thank you, Linda!



Who's in charge? from Kim and Vimeo.