back again - also, coatimundis

[incandescens]

The Presentation Skills course was actually rather good. I have a (possibly temporary) new confidence in my ability to deliver a presentation.

I'm also exhausted.

Today's bit of surreality was on the train while coming back from Birmingham. We'd just left the station, and there were faint squeaking noises coming from the end of the carriage. After the ritual "have you any idea what that noise is?" "No, do you know what that noise is?" exchange with the person in the seat next to me (it was a busy time of day, most seats were occupied) I wandered down to the end of the carriage to see if I could work out exactly what was producing the noise.

It turned out to be from a small covered cage in the luggage area for that carriage.

The woman sitting next to the luggage area explained to me and to the other person who'd come to investigate the noise that it was her coatimundi.

I think the squeaks continued for pretty much the entire trip. They were somewhere between the noise of a piece of metal being dragged off-centre, and a bird's chirp. I managed to sleep for a large portion of the journey, but I was rather tired, and I have experience at sleeping in noisy railway carriages. When I woke up again, there were still occasional squeaks coming from that direction, and one man sitting nearby mentioned that he was using his phone to google "natural predators of coatimundis".

... and if I can't use this somewhere, then shame on me.

Comments

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Highlight, click, 'Search google for coatimundi'

Oh. Nevver'erdoffit before. Interesting. Would fit in to your universe very well.

[incandescens]

I only knew about it due to childhood reading of Gerald Durrell (and possibly Willard Price). Perhaps I can fit it into the Belgravia Underground Market. "From the corner came the irregular alarm-squeaking of coatimundis..."

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Lovely line. Half your readers will think you made the word up.

Like mmestrange I too was trying to parse that as Latin. Coat however seems to be firmly Germanic in origin, even though one must go by cognates.

[incandescens]

I think the term may come from the Portuguese: according to Wikipedia,

The South American coati, or ring-tailed coati (Nasua nasua), is a species of coati from tropical and subtropical South America. In Brazilian Portuguese it is known as quati.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

At which point I'd be guessing it's the original native name subsequently adopted by the Portugese.

[incandescens]

That sounds very possible.

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

My family had a coati! Well, two, though on separate occasions. I would not think to recommend the UK as a great location for owning one, though, given their environmental preferences.

[incandescens]

It did look cute, in the moment that I saw it in the cage. At least the current UK weather shouldn't be too bad for it.

[mmestrange]

I had to google coatimundi too. My first thought was "something of this world" or does that mean something out of this world? lol. I look forward to see if this would make it into your writing.

[incandescens]

I mostly know about them due to a Gerald Durrell reading habit when I was a lot younger. To be fair, I don't really know much about them, but I did recognise the word.

[archangelbeth]

You will be wonderful on panels at SF cons! O:D

Go, go, Coatimundi!

[incandescens]

Everything comes in useful!