I have a cat psychology problem. The problem is a
little boring, but I really want this cat to get
better so I hope you’ll have some suggestions.

I volunteer with an animal shelter and recently agreed
to foster a cat. Foster Kitty (FK) is about two years
old and is not considered adoptable because she is
scared of people. The cat lady at the shelter told me
to keep FK confined to a small room where she couldn’t
hide, and to hold and pet FK a lot so she’ll start
trusting me and not be scared. The cat lady said it
was very important that FK be held and petted a
LOT.

I have now had FK for five weeks. The first two weeks
I kept her confined to my bathroom. I’d go into the
bathroom and hold her and pet her. Sometimes she’d
purr when I’d pet her. After two weeks, she started
meowing and crying because she didn’t want to be in
the bathroom anymore, so now I let her out during the
day when I’m at work. I have a dog and another cat who
get along with her fine. In fact, FK loves my dog and
rubs up against him and butts him with her head. But
the problem is that when she’s not in the bathroom, FK
hates it when I pet her. She usually runs away from me
when I enter a room she’s sitting in; if I catch her,
she’s shivering and shaking, and her pupils are
totally huge. I am sure chasing after her only makes
things worse, but how else am I going to give her
hold-and-pet therapy? One more thing — when she’s out of
the bathroom, on rare occasions she hisses and tries
to bite me when I try to pet her.

I know it seems obvious to go back into the bathroom
since it’s the only place where she’ll purr, but
she’ll only purr sometimes in there…the other
times she is quaking in fear and trying to get down
from my lap. She’s much more likely to purr when she’s
on the bathroom floor walking around and I’m bending
over to pet her. She also purrs when I give her wet
food, and so I’ve “trained” her at night to go into
the bathroom to eat (I don’t want her roaming around
at night when I’m asleep, so I entice her into the
bathroom with wet food).

The cat lady at the shelter said that FK will be
adoptable once she comes to me when I call. I don’t
have hopes of this ever happening.

Do you think this hold-and-pet therapy is really
working? I know I can’t expect much progress in five
weeks, but I want to be doing the right thing in the
meantime to get her to trust me. Do you have any other
ideas to make FK trust me more? I find myself being
annoyed with her because she’s always so scared of me,
but I force myself to hold and pet her anyway. I feel
bad, because I wonder if she can tell that I don’t
like her that much. I can return her to the shelter,
but she’ll just sit in a small cage there, and the
shelter has a terrible shortage of foster homes.

Thanks for any advice.

Foster Mom

This seems like a prosaic problem, but I’ve tried Google and Yahoo, and gotten no help. I turn to you, Mistress of All Things Tomato, for help.

I’m trying to find the origin of the quote “Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.”

I first saw it used as an internet signature about three years ago, and have since found it on bumper stickers, t-shirts, et cetera. But WHERE does it come from? In what great (or not so great) piece of literature does this lovely phrase originate? Or am I showing my age by even having to ask?

Signed,
If it’s purple, it ain’t ketchup

I am 23 years old and I am in a long-term relationship for the first time in my life. We’ve been together for about five months. We’ve been on vacations together. He is the only man I have ever had sex with and I am unutterably happy with him. Except for when I am not.

Yesterday was his birthday and I took him out to dinner and we were going to meet with some friends afterwards to go karaoke singing, a favorite pastime of ours. Then we talked about last Friday night when he didn’t want to go out and I ended up going out with a bunch of our friends without him. I got pretty drunk and ended up going to one of my girlfriend’s apartments with a bunch of these guys, who I don’t know very well, but my boyfriend does. Instead of going back to my apartment or going up to his, I ended up spending the night at this girl’s place, sleeping in the same bed as another guy.

I thought this was an amusing anecdote, but when I told Boyfriend, he totally blew up. I didn’t really understand why, then he told me that mostly, it’s because this guy that I slept in the same bed with is kind of an alcoholic who would try to fuck anybody. Also, because he thinks that this guy will go around and exaggerate what happened. I can understand where he’s coming from now, but I mean, still we had the door open to the bedroom the whole time, and we really only slept in the same bed for like an hour, and there were like seven other people in the apartment who just all kind of crashed wherever it was most comfortable.

Before I met Boyfriend, while I had no other boyfriends, and no sex, I was quite the make-out slut. I have kissed a lot of boys and slept in the same bed with other boys without it meaning anything. I come from a very large and open family where we hug and kiss each other a lot. Boyfriend does not really come from such an open family. I feel really bad that he got so upset over this, but there’s not much I can do about this now, it’s already been done and I have told him, so I can’t take it back.

We went back to my apartment and he opened his birthday presents and ate the birthday pie I made for him and we made love, but I still feel like he’s angry, and not over this. Should I try to bring it up again to make sure he’s okay and won’t try to beat up this guy I slept in the same bed with, or should I just let it rest unless brings it up again?

Confused about proper relationship behavior

I’m breaking out in sweat all over from something very bad that just happened.

I am working with one other writer on a book. Whenever we send off material or questions to our editor, we generally cc it to the other writer, so everyone’s all on the same page. Sometimes I even cc the our intra-author correspondance to the editor, for the same reason.

I’m sure you can see where this is going.

Writers sometimes bitch about editors.

I just sent off a missive to my fellow author. For the most part, it was perfectly businesslike, dealing with some outlining issues, clearing up some potential overlaps in our respective chapters — all well and good.

And then I addressed a problem we’ve both been having with the editor. It’s pretty simple, really: he doesn’t respond to our questions, or waits weeks to get back to us with general answers like, “Your ideas look good.” So we feel like we don’t know how to proceed in some cases — especially because, on some issues, he has strong personal opinions about how things need to be done, what absolutely must be included or excluded, et cetera. So when we don’t hear back from him, we don’t want to continue working on the parts of the book we have questions about, as there’s a distinct possiblity he may give a “no” to an idea we’ve proposed, or have a totally different view of how something should be written — and we don’t want to do all the work for nothing.

Which of course means that we’re behind schedule.

He’d recently written me a terse email about this, and I wrote back saying I’d be happy to get right on it, if I could just have some definite yeses or nos to my questions, which I then re-sent.

And didn’t hear anything back.

So feelings are running high, and after sending my co-author the nice professional summary of what I’m doing, I did some venting about this issue. Actually, the venting was in response to a frustrated question she’d sent me, regarding the editor, which I pasted in the email before responding. So both our feelings about this issue were very candidly expressed here. Some profanity was used, on both ends. I concluded my thoughts with a line to the effect of “whatever, let’s just plow through and get it over with.”

And, of course, per habit, who did I accidentally cc it to? (His name was already in the send box — I forgot to delete it.)

So, Sars, what would you do? Write an apologetic note to the editor? Ignore it, pretending I didn’t know it was sent, and wait and see what happens (hoping maybe he’ll ignore it too?).

The thing is, it’s not that he’d be surprised that we’re pissed about this issue — as I said, just the day before I’d written to him about it. But the strong language, when everyone’s already feeling very tense about this, could open up a new, and so, so ugly, can of worms.

I also don’t want him thinking that I’m just feeling like I’ll “plow through” the rest of this project (even if I do feel that way sometimes).

Argh. It would really suck if this led to bad blood through the rest of this project. Can you think of anything that could prevent that? That I could do, like, right now, before he gets to work (in three hours!)?

Slippery Fingers

So many complications, so little space. Hopefully you can give me a little clarity.

I am a freshman in college. All senior year of high school, I was with one of two guys, P or J. P came first, we dated from November until April. J was with me from April until just a couple weeks ago. See how one ended and the other began immediately? Yeah, that happened on the same night. Bad decision involving spontaneous breakups, very hurtful to P, but eventually I apologized profusely, he accepted it, and we were back to being friends although he disliked J.

Cut to September. P and I are going to the same school, J is a few hours away and he and I decided to take a break and have our freedom while we’re not within the same time zone. P and I are friends, and there are a few drunken hookups with him. Our mutual friends think I’m a big slut who’s using him, but I truly do care about him and once I stopped and considered what I was doing to him emotionally I stopped. Right away.

And now second semester. J comes to the same school as P and I, for reasons (no, really) other than just my presence here. Immediately, friends become angry and pretty much disown me. I am left feeling at a loss of what to do. When I drag J with me to social functions, they are cold to him and make it very clear neither of us is welcome. When I go out with just him, everyone thinks we’re excluding them. But I feel an obligation to support my boyfriend and best friend as he transitions into the new school where he knows very few people other than just me and P and a few others. I continue to spend time with just my previous friends (no J), but still something is off with all of us.

Of course, inevitably, J and I break up, remaining great friends. But once he is no longer to blame for the alienation, I’m left wondering why my “old” friends aren’t really my friends anymore. I’ve received explanations such as I’m slutty and the way I hurt P and then “brought” J here is unforgivable, and that I made it clear I didn’t want to be their friend when I helped my boyfriend through a difficult transition.

I feel like I have few options here. Things aren’t changing. I’m not getting invited out like I did last semester, and when I do go out, sans J, it’s all wacky. I am left feeling like I made a tradeoff I wasn’t aware of and have been left with just one friend, J. It’s really stressing me out and every time I see the away messages that they’re all at parties, it just plain hurts. Do I just need entirely new friends? Are there fences I need to mend? If so, when exactly did I break them and how are they to be fixed?

Thanks so much!

Suddenly Lonely