The Vine: June 8, 2004
Hi Sars,
I have a big ol’ 20-pound maine coon named Frank. He’s 6 and a half and
loves to rule the household. He has lived with a cat before, but it never
especially agreed with him.
I’m pretty dang sure there’s a little male pug puppy in my immediate future.
Now how do you think that’s going to go down? And any words of wisdom on
acclimating the two to each other? I’m not worried about the pug as much as
the cat, seeing as the cat will easily outweigh the dog by about 10-15
pounds at first. Is it possible for a cat to beat up a dog? Will this be a
hugely traumatic experience for Frank?
Thanks!
Calm before the storm
Dear Calm,
I’ve seen a kitten face down a full-grown golden retriever and win handily.It’s not Frank you need to worry about here; he can handle himself.
Some cats don’t mind dogs, and you can train the pug to give Frank his space and avoid fights — but at first, you should be around a lot to make sure things don’t degenerate, and to deter either of them from starting scraps (and for the first few months, when you leave them alone, take steps to separate them).
Eventually they’ll get used to each other, and they might actually get along, but keep a close eye on them.
Hey Sars —
I’m sure you’ve heard plenty of roommate troubles, and if so you can
direct me to a similar problem you’ve already answered, but here goes my
dilemma:
My roommate Andrea and I are really good friends, even thought we went in blind
and thus have only known each other since August. Everything was fine until the
end of first semester, where she started getting very moody, but I chalked it
up to missing her family and assumed that being at home for Christmas would be
good for her.
Once we came back in January, however, she was worse. The
moodiness I am talking about is a general bad attitude toward everything — she
never wanted to go out and do things, she was always very sullen, and this was
seemingly out of nowhere, very uncharacteristic of her. Whenever we asked her
what was wrong, she always said it was nothing. The littlest things would get
her pissed at me, and since I am the roommate, I usually get the full force of
her mood swings.
Finally it got to the point where I and our two other close
friends didn’t even like to hang out with her because she constantly brought
the mood down. It all boiled down to a pretty big fight between the two of us,
where it appeared we finally got over her issues (she claimed she was homesick,
et cetera, nothing in particular).
However, her attitude has returned. I recently
started dating a guy, Alex, and she seems to really resent something about this
fact. Whenever Alex and I hang out in mine and Andrea’s room, Andrea leaves,
even when I ask her to stay. It would be one thing if Alex and I were doing
something to make her uncomfortable, but we could be watching TV and Andrea
still would leave. Her leaving isn’t the problem exactly — she makes a big show
out of leaving, even when I ask her to stay, or if I offer to go elsewhere, she
acts like a martyr or something by leaving the room before I can say anything
else. She does it when our other close friends are in here too, with or without
their boyfriends.
I would like all of us to hang out together, not every time
I’m with my boyfriend does it mean we need privacy or we are doing couple
stuff. I’ve never asked her to leave the room, she will go on her own and then
guilt trip me about it later. I don’t understand her motive for the way she
acts — she’s starting to stay in more again, and slowly starts to withdraw from
any activity outside of our room. My friends and I thought earlier this year
she might be depressed, but then again, there are times when she is happy and
perfectly normal. At the moment I have no idea where she is, it was yet another
incident where Alex and I and two other people were in the room watching TV and
she felt she had to leave. We offered to go to someone else’s room, but she
refused and said she would leave.
All of us are friends, these aren’t
strangers — I just don’t understand what her deal is or what I can do. We used
to be able to joke around all the time, but lately she is hypersensitive to
everything, so I feel I can’t be myself around her anymore, and that’s a
disappointment to me. It is my room too, and I am as accommodating as I can be,
but so far I have given her no reason to ever feel like I wanted her out of the
room.
Not a Clue
Dear Clue,
Talk to her again, and tell her what you just told me, as pleasantly as you can — you want everyone to be friends, and you want her to hang out, but she’s apparently impossible to please and you don’t know what else you can do.Make it clear that you will leave the room if she doesn’t want company, but that you aren’t going to go for the after-the-fact guilt trips or the martyr routine anymore; she can ask for what she wants or not, but you’re done trying to guess.
When you do talk to her, front-load the discussion with the fact that you’re willing to make compromises about when and where you spend time with your boyfriend and other friends, so that she can’t act like you’re being unreasonable; then tell her, look, if you won’t admit that our being here bugs you, or if something else bugs you but you won’t say what it is, I really can’t read your mind and that’s it.
That’s all you can really do, and if that doesn’t work, well, it’s nice of you to feel concerned, but she’s acting like a child, and the best thing you can do is ignore it until the end of the year and then move out.
Dear Sars,
At some point in the archives, while answering a
different question about Latin plurals, you mentioned
that the plural of “octopus” was “octopode.”
This struck me as an interesting bit of trivia, and
when my girlfriend mentioned that her Oceans teacher
had insisted that the plural of octopus was
“octopuses” rather than “octopi,” I mentioned what you
had said.
She did not believe me, and upon searching the
internet for some thing to corroborate your story, I
came up short. A Google search of the word “octopode”
turned up nothing, and dictionary.com left me hanging
too.
Do you have some info to help me prove your point?
Octopoder
Dear Poder,
The plural of “octopus” is in fact “octopuses” — in English.(And I see that the 11C lists “octopi” as an acceptable plural.Hmm.)
Further “hmm” occurred when I couldn’t find octopus in my Latin-English dictionary.Or in any other Latin-English dictionary online.
Sensing that this was about to get embarrassing for me, as it sometimes does when I confidently bluster something, then have to take it back, I considered not looking in the Garner, but that wouldn’t be sporting, so here we go…ah.”Because this word is actually of Greek origin — not Latin — the classical plural is octopodes … not octopi.But the standard plural in AmE and BrE alike is octopuses.”
Well…okay, then.I’m right, but for the wrong reasons…?The thing is, I’m pretty sure certain third-declension nouns ending in “-us” pluralize to “-odes,” but I can’t think of another example, and my last formal classics schooling is more than ten years behind me.If anyone would like to chime in here, feel free.
I know I’m right about the Elvis/penis thing, though.
Dear Sars,
I am having a dilemma regarding one of my housemates.
The back story: I moved in with Brady over a year ago
and love living with her.Six months ago her sister,
Bambi, moved in with us, with promises from both of
them that if the sibling thing got too much for me,
all I had to do was say and Bambi would move out.So
they bicker, and I don’t particularly mind as long as
they don’t drag me into it.
Brady and I have been
here ages and have quite a variety of friends, whereas
Bambi has few friends of her own, mostly they’re her
sister’s friends.I encourage her to make friends at
work et cetera, but she can be quite off-putting sometimes so
I understand why it’s a slow process.She is not a
bad person at all, just not one with whom I get on
particularly well.She is very sensitive but says the
most caustic things and doesn’t understand why people
get upset with her.
Bambi spends a lot of time complaining about the
people here and how different they are from those at
home.I thought that was the point of moving to
another country.She also expects me to explain all
these differences to her, I didn’t grow up here either
and quite a lot of the time the answer really is
“just because.”
Anyway, this was all simmering under the surface until
last week.It was my friend’s birthday and he invited
Genieve, my best friend, and I out for a movie,
dinner, and drinks.The three of us hang out all the
time.Bambi found out it was his birthday (not like
it was a secret or anything) and wished him many happy
returns.She then emailed me and said, “I’ve just
wished C a happy birthday for tomorrow and he still
hasn’t invited me.I think that might be a hint.”I
didn’t reply, as I was busy at work and thought she
understood it was a “just us” thing.Right before I
left to meet them, Bambi mailed again to see where we
were meeting.I thought Christopher had invited her
for the drinks portion of the evening, and as we
weren’t sure where we were going for drinks I left it
with the idea to get in touch her later with directions.
After
the movie I check my voicemail and have two
exceedingly exasperated calls from her demanding to
know where we were meeting.In the loo I quizzed Gen
about these messages and apparently Bambi had told
Chris that I had invited her out for the evening.We
discussed it over dinner, by which point she had found
Chris’s number and called him, and decided to which pub
we were going.I called her to let her know and she
met us, with several comments as to why it took so
long for me to get in contact.It’s not like she
ruined the night or anything, but it was supposed to be
a private thing.
Now for my question.Am I being a total bitch about
her trying to hijack my friends?They like her about
the same as I do but it’s a case of a little goes a
long way.I have to live with her, so I’d rather not
hang out with her all the time.Whereas I could spend
ages with Brady and not get bored.I am trying to be
understanding about the situation, this is a difficult
city; it’s expensive and can be quite lonely.I’ve
tried to broach the subject with her but then she gets
upset and accuses me of hating her, which I honestly
don’t.Of course I have no spine and can empathise
about feeling lost and alone, so I end up inviting her
along to everything I do and then resent her even
more, which isn’t fair to either of us.
Yours sincerely,
Not Sure If I’m A Nice Person
Dear Nice,
You have a right to spend time with whomever you want to spend time with; you don’t want to spend that much time with Bambi, and you’ve tried talking to her about it, and it hasn’t worked, so I think it’s time to figure out where the boundaries are, and to enforce them.
I don’t mean that she can never tag along, but if it’s a “just us thing,” you’ll have to tell her that, and she’ll have to find a way to cope.You don’t have to do it meanly, of course, but it’s time for her to come to terms with the fact that, sometimes, people you know want to spend time just with each other and it has nothing to do with pointedly excluding you.
Consider asking Brady about it — not whether it’s okay for you to leave Bambi out now and then, because you don’t want to get into asking her permission.Just tell her, look, I like Bambi and all but there are times when she’s not invited and I don’t want you to wind up in the middle, so I’m letting you know.
You’ve done your best to include Bambi, but she’s not your responsibility, and she won’t make her own friends and get her own life if you keep letting her elbow into your plans, so…stop.
Dear Sars:
Help.Please.I’m so tired of dealing with this problem that I’m going to go crazy soon.
Starts in kindergarten.Girl, S, was very rude to me and my friends.She leaves for another school, comes back in fourth grade.Same group of friends and I ignore her.Fifth grade, all my friends are in the same class, without S.We mock her and generally make her life miserable because she was the same self-absorbed brat as she was six years ago.Sixth grade, group of friends and I are split up between teachers (still questioning that arrangement), I’m stuck with S.We become very close, she got more mature.We remain best friends for a long time, with the usual arguments, et cetera.
Problem(s): S just admitted a few months ago she used to cut herself in the fifth grade because we were so mean to her.S says she doesn’t do that anymore, but is still on a very destructive path, in my opinion.S dated a guy in seventh grade who was 16 (she was 13 then) who had gotten two girls pregnant and regularly got high and drunk.He introduced her to J, who also got drunk and high every day, who went to our school.They became good friends, she ditched me, et cetera.They break up, she realizes she didn’t want to do that stuff, yada yada.
Freshman year (now) she dated a guy who drank and chewed and smoked and got high and treated her like a pile of shit on the sidewalk, R.S ditched me and all the rest of us.She gets drunk with him, et cetera, then they break up.She then is “friends with benefits” (oh how I hate that word) with a guy, A, who drinks and gets high a lot.They mess around, almost have sex, he ignores her, she hates him now.Then she goes to winter formal with a senior, A2, who drinks and gets high and smokes and pays hookers.Yada yada, same destructive path, they don’t talk anymore.
Present day: S is on Vicodin for ankle injury from three years ago, just went to doctor two weeks ago.S pops pills for awhile, sells them to other people.Last week she skipped three periods to sit in the parking lot, smoke, drink, then drive off with the ex, R, and his best friend, came back to school falling off her ass drunk.Then two days later, she skips fourth period to go in the parking lot and smoke and drive a girl’s car (she only has her permit) with four-year crush, B.
My point?She’s driving me CRAZY.Nuts.Bananas.Coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs.She brags about taking Vicodin.Brags about drinking.Smoking.Skipping.Failing easy classes.Partying.Everything.Then she tells me, oh I feel so bad, [my name], I know I shouldn’t do this but when I’m around R/A/B/J, I just can’t say no because I want to have fun.
I’m not the type that parties.I’m invited to keggers, parties, et cetera, but I always say, can’t I have practice/family thing/whatever, or I go and have fun and laugh at the drunkards and leave early.My life.Anyway, she treats me like her shrink, and when I finally tell her to fuck off, it’s always the next day, or Monday, or Tuesday that she “really needs me” because her parents got in a fight and they’re going to divorce, her brother’s fighting with her mom, her cat died (that was last week’s) or some other tragedy.And I’m tired of it.
I’m scared that she’s REALLY going to do something stupid if I don’t talk to her, but if I say anything to her, I’m scared she’ll REALLY REALLY do something rash.Lose-lose situation.I don’t want to fight with her again, but I don’t want to see her like this, but I don’t want her to hate me later in life for not stopping her.I already told her that I didn’t want to listen to her when she’s on Vicodin (it really messes her up) or when she’s drunk.She swore to me that she isn’t drinking, BUT I heard the words out of her mouth saying that she was going to get drunk with her friend, O, at Acquire the Fire (a religious gathering).
Sars, I’m sick of listening, I’m sick of trying to help, I’m not trained in this sort of thing.Please help a sister out?
How many more names do I have to abbreviate?
Dear Let’s Start With Your Guidance Counselor,
Okay, not to invalidate your feelings here, but this is not a matter of “annoying.”She’s a substance abuser who’s putting herself in the way of some fairly major harm here — I mean, hello.She’s selling drugs.She’s getting fucked up, at school and in situations with older boys where she should have all her wits about her.
I think you feel responsible for her because y’all picked on her years ago and you think that’s why she has such low self-esteem, but whether or not that’s true is completely beside the point now.She’s endangering herself physically and legally, and you need to put a stop to it.I know it’s an ugly situation, and I know you lose no matter what you do, but you recognize that she’s got a number of problems, and I think you have to use every ounce of your guts and let someone in a position to help her know what’s going on — before she gets date-raped or pinched for possession.
Again, I feel for you; it sucks.But you have to do something.If you haven’t already made it clear to her that her behavior is self-destructive and that you really want her to stop it because you worry about her, you need to do that — but it’s not going to do any good, so then you have to report it to a guidance counselor, or to her parents, or to your own parents and let them handle it.
She’s going to hate you and it’s going to get gossiped about and so on, but this behavior is pretty textbook cry-for-help stuff and someone’s got to answer.And it’s hard luck that it’s you, but…see above.It’s worth doing.
Tags: cats friendships grammar roommates
