You know who I don’t hear about anymore? Tai Shan, my little Butterstick.
Now, those of you who don’t live in DC are probably saying “Who’s Tai Shan?” and those of you who do live in DC are probably saying, “Dude, he’s still on the news every single night.” (Not that people in DC regularly use the word “Dude”, and for that we can all hate them a little bit more.)
The National Zoo's giant panda, Mei Xiang, gave birth to her cub, Tai Shan, on July 9, 2005. Since then, he has been on the news, I swear, every single night. They had an entire voting system in place for choosing his name. There are tickets to see him and dinners in his honor.
But you know what? It was a cute news story every night and probably the only one that ever made me happy. I’ve never been a really big fan of pandas. That is, until that cute little guy. Man, that’s one adorable cub.
I will always remember his first exam when he was still nameless and they were describing his size as that of a stick of butter. So for many of us in DC at the time, he will always be our little Butterstick, even if we didn’t win the write-in campaign to name him.
Every time I would see him on the news an involuntary, “Awww!” would escape from my lips. It was uncontrollable. And I haven’t heard about him since I moved. The last time I heard anything, he’d just met his dad.
So, for an update, here’re things I didn’t know about Tai Shan:
He weighs over 40 pounds now. (That’s a lot of butter.)
He’s eating bamboo.
They gave him new trees and he loves to climb them, although it took him three whole days to notice. I can only imagine the “tree watch” that was going on among the zookeepers and the betting pool that must have occurred.
They are selling a Tai Shan DVD for $21.95.
I will never buy that DVD. It’s only 50 minutes. If you taped all the news stories since his birth, you’d have more footage than that.
Plus, who needs a DVD when you have panda cams?
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Hello world!
5 years ago
4 comments:
Dude. Panda's Rule! I'm so glad you found a way to keep in touch with your Butter! MISS YOU!
Open the comments and they will come. In droves. Because that's how lovely your blog is.
Droves. Is that like a fuckload of people? Because I know how many that is. In fact, I've been happy not to see that many people in a very, very long time. Unless it's on Pandacam. Poor Tai Shan.
Erin... it didn't escape (Es-caap-eehh!) my notice that you said Dude. Don't move to DC. They will steal your wonderful soul and hide it in the labyrinthine Metro system so that the mice can eat it. I got out just in time.
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