Pretty good weekend

[grinninfoole]

This weekend, I got a decent amount of reading done for school. Happily, I begin to have a sense that I have a thread to pull on the research project I have avoided starting for nearly two years. I spent time with Millari. We got together with MAMEd and J, and gave them their birthday gifts. Millari and I made great strides in making our house a home.

Bad news: Stinky takes every opportunity to attack Feisty, and he's quite relentless about it. He's trying to drive her out of territory that he considers his, and so far has no willingness to share. I suspect that he might be more easygoing if she stood up to him more, but she is terrified of him and just cowers, hisses and tries to get away. Oddly, after their big fight, she seems unharmed, while he has a cut on his nose.

My allergies are really bad this season, even with good drugs. I can't wait for them to be over. Literally. I have too much work to do. My comps are about three weeks away.

I am beginning to understand why I have had such difficulty finishing my MA. I think it centers around a desire to avoid heavy emotions stirred up by the process of school work, and so I have been using all my avoidance techniques to check out. Kudos to Diviner and Saturnine for their assistance in grappling with this. And thanks, as always, to Millari for being here now with me. :)

EDIT: My crappy mood reflects my physical, allergen-induced status. If that was better, I'd actually be pretty happy right now.

Comments

Catfight...

[whoknowswhynot.livejournal.com]

How long have they been trying to acclimate? We had two cats that took almost three months to get to the point that they would tolerate each other's existence.

Re: Catfight...

[millari.livejournal.com]

That's encouraging. They've only been at for less than two weeks.

Re: Catfight...

[whoknowswhynot.livejournal.com]

Are they the same gender? Ours weren't; which I think was the problem. The male (Impulse) was constantly bullying the female (Vision-who would hiss and cower much like was described); but once Vision showed some spine and wacked him a couple times, Impulse got the message...

Re: Catfight...

[millari.livejournal.com]

Same pattern here - aggressive male vs. cowering female. I do wish Feisty was able to whack him more effectively than he her.(Stinky does have a minor scratch across his nose, while Feisty has no marks so far.)

Did you do anything that helped?

Re: Catfight...

[grinninfoole.livejournal.com]

What I'm wondering is: should we keep breaking up the fights, or should we just let them scuffle until they work it out themselves?

Re: Catfight...

[whoknowswhynot.livejournal.com]

We let ours fight it out. I know it sounds horrible, but we figured they were fighting when we weren't home too...

[millari.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. And I really enjoyed our talk today. I felt like it was a really productive discussion. And as for being able to resist those habitual coping mechanisms, well, I *know* we are both capable of untangling the web of associations that make these habits so appealing.

I love you.