Some Good Things

[sebenikela]

h/t to rydra_wong for pointing me to this t-shirt:

which came in the mail while I was looking after this guy, seen here looking very proud of himself for killing his toy REAL DEAD in several vicious tug-of-war matches:

Apollo the dog belongs to my sister and her husband, he's a shelter dog with puppy-PTSD and I adore him. See his Tumblr tag for additional dog-flailing.

He's recently started actually playing with his sister Artemis the cat, who was a stray and then adopted my brother-in-law, 6 months or so before they adopted Apollo. When Apollo first came, he was terrified-slash-aggressive with the cat, so he mostly stayed downstairs, and she mostly stayed upstairs, and they occasionally had staring contests when she came down. Artemis has been intent on getting Apollo to play with her, so they've gone from "can't be within sight of each other" to "will sit in same room ignoring each other" to "she flops down and play-hits him, he jumps up like ???????????" to now they'll chase each other around the house. The other night she was sitting on one side of the kitchen, he raced up to her, tail wagging, she looked at him for a minute, then smacked him, he ran away. Repeated 2 or 3 times, until my brother-in-law got out his phone to try to take video when OF COURSE they stopped. But everyone seemed to be mostly enjoying themselves, and it was super cute. The cat is still very definitely In Charge, as cats are wont to be.

It's very nice to be able to borrow my sister's pets sometimes but not have the responsibility of having other living creatures relying on me.

Although! I do now have one living thing I am full-time responsible for: an aloe plant I got from the Quaker Meeting a month or so ago, living happily so far on the kitchen counter near a window. It's planted in a tupperware with a missing lid that I stabbed holes in with a knife, with dirt I stole (with a spoon) from the landscaping outside my apartment. (I am very bad at indoor plants, which is sort of ironic given both my field and the fact that my mom has a whole ass jungle in the living room every winter. I'm fine with OUTDOOR gardening, I just kill all houseplants!) Basically, while plants are less commitment than pets, they're still a commitment and I am still acting like I'll probably be moving in 15 minutes even though I've only moved once and traveled very little since the end of 2016. So An Plant That Is Mine is actually kind of a step.

Maybe by the time I'm 40 I'll be able to convincingly impersonate an Actual Grown-Up. Or I'll go live in a shack in the woods. Either one seems fine.

Comments

[elusiveat]

Good job Artemis!

[wolffyluna]

What a cute pupper!

[siderea]

I had a patient walk in wearing that shirt this week! Is it from Real Social Skills?

[sebenikela]

Yep, it was!

[to_do_list]

Yay for all good things <3

Re: forgiveness, by a coincidence the social psych lab at my University has been doing some research into unforgiveness, and I think their data fully supports the idea that forgiveness is over-rated. Like, not only conceptually, which we all know is definitely true, but with data. But I haven’t read any actual papers; I only saw a presentation.

[indywind]

Aww, doggie. Looks like much fun was had. Good dog, Artemis.

It's always odd to me when I get to see an internet person after I've visually imprinted on their avatar (assuming that's you in the shirt). I couldn't help feeling you would look a lot more like a hedgehog.

Er, I hope that didn't come out wrong.