Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Floofpertoire (floofinition) – 1. A stock of moves, looks, sounds, or behavior that an animal knows or uses to control, coerce, or manipulate humans. Origins: Late Latin
In Use: “Many animals seem to develop a floofpertoire for how to get humans to cozy up to them, feed them treats, and keep them safe, and it seems like it might just be a gift shared through some great floofscious in the sky.”
Recent Use: “As with many human endeavors, more discussion has recently arisen about whether animals and their floofpertoire is a matter more of nurture or nature.”
2. Behavior, tricks, and sounds employed by humans to train, control, coerce, or manipulate animals.
In Use: “People in different countries learn how to talk to animals in their own language, but there does seem to be a universal floofpertoire for successfully domesticating animals.”
Recent Use: “Facebook, Reddit, and YouTube are all exploding with new tricks to add to your floofpertoire to gain animals’ trust, bring them back home, or to get them safe, happy, healthy, and entertained.”
Mood: prissy
December 20, 2023 is a Wednesday and carries the weight of spring. Confused by the signals the weather is giving, some flowers are blooming. We surfed a night of smooth rain, overnight lows in the mid 40s F. Our high today will bubble into the mid 50s. Casual clouds, thin and stretched, barely mask the blue sky. The cats are struggling to adjust, shedding fur after gaining their winter coats and now finding they don’t need them. Great clumps are left wherever they pause to sleep or wash.
Please, though, give us snow on the mountains. Please. It’s needed.
I surfed the news but left it after a short visit. Not depressing so much as it’s meh. We’re in a waiting stage for some many outcomes and perpetually checking and reviewing developments, breaking news, new revelations of old news and prognostications about what will happen has become tedious. I’m ravenous for some sense of an ending.
Musically, first I had “Too Marvelous for Words” whirling around the morning mental music stream (Trademark pummeled). It’s been performed by a long list of crooners but Mom often played Frank Sinatra’s cover while cleaning around the house. Released in 1956, the year of my birth, it’s drummed into my musical psyche. I have no idea why The Neurons voted it into my mind this morning.
But before it became too comfortable, a song inspired by the floofs was brought into the mmms. Released in 1972, “Children of the Revolution” by T. Rex had Elton John and Ringo Starr playing as part of the lineup. Although I enjoyed it, it went out of head until I heard the Violent Femmes version of it. A friend was colossal Femfan, and was playing the song in her car one day when we went to lunch together in Palo Alto. I asked if she knew the song’s origins, and then gleefully told the tale. I’d only heard it after my cousin, just returned from the UK where his father had been stationed with the USAF, played it.
How did the floofs play into this memory? I’d been teasing them, trying to trick them by pretending they weren’t being fed. They weren’t fooled, which triggered me singing, “You won’t fool the kitties of the revolution.”
Stay pos, be cool, remain strong, and leeeaaannn forward. Coffee has already touched my lips. Here’s the music. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 