Saturday, May 12, 2007

Nameless in (or near) Seattle


It happens every year and this year it is the sad case of Betsy's big orange daughter. I don't particularly care for a big orange goat but everyone else says how pretty she is.

Betsy is half Nubian and half LaMancha, and she was bred to a beautiful LaMancha buck up the road. She had two very pretty daughters, a little black one and a big orange one, as I already mentioned. So the two daughters are three quarters LaMancha.

The big orange one (B.O.) has a LaMancha body, for the most part, but a Nubian brain, which I think is sad. She will likely be taken advantage of by telemarketers in the future; I foresee her wiring her life savings to Nigeria in response to a spam email about a large estate and the need for a much esteemed American goat partner. But oh well, we can't all be Mensa caprines.

Anyway, B.O. has had a string of names but none of them stuck. First she was called Clementine (for that cute little orange that comes from California). This is an okay name, but it did not take. Then she was called Cointreau (for the orange liqueur), but a goat like B.O. with a fancy French name was just not the ticket. Then she was called Mandarin Orange, which is an awful name and besides that it doesn't fit on the papers.

However, while she was called Mandarin Orange, her little black sister who was also not sticking to any of her names acquired the name Xie Xie, which is Mandarin for "thank you," (pronounced Shea Shea, like the Stadium). And that name has stuck, unlike Mandarin Orange. So Shea is now called Shea, instead of "the little black one," which seems like an improvement, albeit probably a modest one.

Anyway, back to B.O. Next she was called Red Ryder, after some kind of comic strip no living creature recalls. Then, in an acknowledgement of defeat, she was simply called Red, or Big Red, which isn't any more dignified than B.O.

So please help, before it is too late. She cannot go to the fair without a name. It's too disgraceful. And considering the size of her brain, it is going to take a long time for her to learn her name, whatever it is, so the sooner the better.

To review: she is big, she is orange, she is pretty, she is the daughter of Betsy (aka Stacy's Starlight). She needs a dignified name. If there is an X in it somewhere (this is an X year) so much the better, but to tell the truth we really don't care about that any more.

12 comments :

3perks said...

How about Xanadu and you could call her du-du for short or if you don't like that than you could just call her Olivia - Or possibly Newton since she is a nubian and all. How many degrees of seperation is that????

Anonymous said...

Apricot Choux

Teresa Saum said...

There's an orange star lichen in biology called Xanthoria elegans. Maybe Xanthoria would be a nice name for her.

Anonymous said...

Marigold and I had a brainstorming session while we were out practicing herding (Marigold calls it "harassment") and retaliatory butting (Marigold calls it "self-defense") in the tall grass, and we like "SunXist," which doesn't appear to make any sense until you invoke caproetic licence to sound the X as K rather than Z.

Anonymous said...

Have you considered Minute Maid, Orange Ford Mustang, or just plain coke? There are real opportunities here. Perhaps Homeland Security would be willing to sponsor a goat named "Code Orange"? Give Leica Microsystems a call. They are touting the efficiency of an orange laser line at 594 nanometers for customers needing to excite common dyes. A mascot may be just the ticket....

Anonymous said...

We're chicken farmers up north, not much to do with goats really..
but Orange Crush was one of my favorites in the summer, O'crush could sound too Irish for a nubian..although many a crush as been had on a sexy beauty

Mme Cyn said...

How about "Bo"?

Anonymous said...

BLOG (Betsy's Large Orange Goat)

Grumpy Goat said...

One of my friends had a huge feline furball that he called Agent Orange.

Anonymous said...

How about Tiger Lily - and you could just call her Lil.

I love big orange goats, even if they are a little Nubian!

Stace

3perks said...

Max just took a quick look and named her "Pretty Mogaryround". I have no idea what that means or how you spell it but that is what it sounded like after repeated requests to say it again.....

Anonymous said...

Lori suggested Orange Blossom Special for the old-time fiddle tune or what about Clockwork Orange.