I got flowers in the spring

[austin_dern]

Sure, yesterday was Groundhog Day more or less, but the day before that Coatimundi Day at the Cohanzick Zoo in Bridgeton, which is way down in the southern part of the state. The nj.com report on this was more lavish than I remember previous reports being, suggesting that the event is starting to take off, or that Wednesday was a slow news day. For the quickest report on it: the three coatis unanimously agreed it would be a short winter, which considering it was 92 degrees and muggy is maybe not the risky bet.

The coatis are named Carmella, Margarita, and Floriemel, which I think I knew before, although I'm not quite working up enough energy to check on last year's report. What I don't remember hearing before is that they were rescued from Texas. Well, they come from Texas and I don't know that they were in any specific peril there. I just suppose that anyone taken out of Texas can be characterized as rescued.

It went off successfully, obviously, although the coatis' normal keeper was for some reason unavailable. As substitute, or maybe just rooter for winter, they brought in Allison Bohn, the tiger keeper, whose hopes for ``Team Snow'' were foiled too. I suppose it has to feel good needing the tiger keeper to fill in for your attendant.

In explaining how the zoo coaxed the coatis outdoors, which again was not hard to do Wednesday given the temperature, the article reported the coatis got treats of eggs, bugs, and tubes of ``monkey biscuits''. I can hypothesize what's meant by a ``monkey biscuit'', and yet I feel like actually knowing what is meant by it would just diminish the phrase.

To attract humans out to this, apart again from arranging the nicest day in twenty years, the zoo was decorated with pictures by children from a local learning center, and guests were given soft pretzels and juice. I'm not so crazy about hard pretzels, but soft pretzels are attractive. I'm not sure if I'd rather have them or the eggs. Monkey biscuits remain a wild card.

Trivia: During the 1920's General Electric increased its annual promotional expenditures from $2 million to $12 million. Source: The Big Switch: Rewiring The World, From Edison To Google, Nicholas Carr.

Currently Reading: Starmind, Dave Van Arnam. So, a guy whose left brain is accidentally wiped out by a technobabble ray, a woman whose right brain is accidentally destroyed by accident, and a clod who's suffered brain-destroying physical injury get their remaining brain pieces all put together in the same body, and since the guy was right-handed and the woman left-handed and the clod stupid they have enough of their minds left to start communicating together. It's pretty interesting, actually, until the escape from the tormenting oppressors etc etc stuff.

Comments

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

I suppose groundhogs in rural Pennsylvania aren't as homegrownly interesting as coatimundis; that or local papers just don't want to make the journey that far and, well, here's this zoo a few exits down.

Agreed on the tiger keeper. Obviously if you need to keep an eye on something as vicious as a coatimundi, you need a big cat trainer. Also, 'tiger keeper' is rather a fun phrase to say.

--Chi

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Well, more, rural Pennsylvania is pretty far from southern Jersey. The sense I get with this is that if you're a zoo, you do something like this with whatever animals you do have.

The Popcorn Park Zoo, the actual animal rescue zoo near me, used a camel to predict the outcome of the Splendid Bowl. It picked the Giants, according to its choice in Graham crackers.

[moxie_man]

I just suppose that anyone taken out of Texas can be characterized as rescued.

From personal experience after spending 30 LONG months in exile in West Texas, YES, leaving that forsaken place feels like being rescued. I have to agree with one line of a country song that came out in 1980, Texas in my Rearview Mirror by Mac Davis:

"...happiness was Lubbock in my rearview mirror..."

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I'm really rather glad they didn't offer me that job in Nacogdoches because I might have felt I had to take it.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

To be fair, in an alternate timeline, Nacogdoches would have going for it the Superconducting Super Collider, instead of just having to depend on its role in the Marx Brothers' career for its significance.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Oh, now, West Texas, from what I hear of it, is just a Texas Beyond Texas. I can't imagine that. Of course, I'm a city boy, so places like Cleveland seem charmingly under-populated to me. The smallness of the Lansing district is going to be one of those things I have to adjust to.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Don't start pulling that "oh, your cities are so charmingly tiny" bit on me, please. Lansing seems like much more of a city than where you live now!

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Lansing certainly is a city and quite a nice one, one I'm looking forward to living in.

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

How can Coatimonday fall on a thursday??

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Well, we wouldn't if they'd mark the tripping hazards properly.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

I know very well what monkey biscuits are because I used to feed them to my mice.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I hope that didn't give them grandiose dreams of swinging with Tarzan.

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

I remain disappointed that the lapines are not asked their opinion on the matter, having great experience with matters of the ground. You'd think someone would enquire as to the burrowing outlook.

We might then also have bunny biscuits, and that could surely only be a positive addition to the world.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Someone probably does, although the zoos doing this probably would want to do things a little exotic if possible. Plus rabbits get the whole Easter season, so there might be worry about overloading the human-interest puff pieces.