Five gone wild (the spring break edition)...

[magnetic_pole]

...and by "wild" I mean "enjoying decadent mid-afternoon naps." I'm in the middle of spring break this week and finally catching up on sleep and feeling more like myself again.

1) Who made you feel good this week, and how? 1) Two old friends--one from high school, one from grad school--who came to the area for work and stayed for a few days to visit. (One of the benefits of living in a popular conference locale.) Plus we still have one more visitor before the week's over! 2) Also, the better half, who's made me scones twice, just because.

2) What did you do this week that moved you closer to reaching your goals? Honestly, nothing. And that's okay. I'll get back to goals next week.

3) What did you most enjoy doing this week? Eating out. Visitors were our excuse to go to the slightly fancy Laotian place nearby, which was amazing (Nam Khao/crispy rice salad, a curry, and a dish with tofu and dill). We also had Cuban food (ropa vieja, pork, plantains), fresh croissants, and white people food for brunch (less remarkable but including a surprisingly yummy quinoa and kale salad with grapefruit and beets). Have I mentioned that I love eating?

4) What did you learn this week? Claritin-D over regular Claritin! We're cat sitting for a downstairs neighbor this week, and the regular Claritin was not doing it for highly cat-allergic me. (Super cute kitties, by the way--one young, curious boy cat with and an elderly, cranky old cat-man who tried to bite me yesterday after ten minutes of apparently enjoyable petting and attention. Not sure what I was doing wrong there.)

5) What’s the funniest thing that happened to you this week? Watching this little guy trying to extradite himself from his predicament.

Comments

[splix]

The reason the cat did that was that he got overstimulated by the petting. It’s super common and nothing bad that you did. :)

I’m so glad you’re enjoying spring break!!! Napping is such a sublime thing, a true marker of civilization.

[magnetic_pole]

Aha! I can understand overstimulated. (In fact, that's why I'm napping so much right now. :) *sigh* Still a lot to learn about cats, clearly.

I'm not a napper by nature--I fall deeply asleep and then wake up disoriented and even more tired. But this week it doesn't really matter. I think the body just needs to catch up.

Hope you're also having a quiet week! I love having a break to catch up on things (grading, that new lecture that seemed like such a good idea in January) and get out of the routine before the final push. It's the lull before the storm, isn't it? M.

[ancientreader]

That's what I would have said too, overstimulation. I've had several cats who enjoyed a small amount of petting/stroking but would lash out after a certain point. I've also had cats who bit, sometimes quite hard, in what seemed to be a grooming thing: lick lick lick bite, just the way they do when they're grooming themselves. Cat behavior is much less well studied than dog behavior, and there's a fuckton of nonsense out there even about dog behavior, so who the heck knows.

[magnetic_pole]

The odd thing about this cat is that he'll occasionally reach out with his paw and draw me back to keep petting if I've stopped, but the last time he did that, he tried to bite. Who knows?

I'm such a talky/verbal/cerebral person that all this body language communication really puzzles me.

Did you see that article in the NYT recently about dogs vs cat in medical studies? (Hope you can see that--it may be behind a paywall.) M.

[ancientreader]

I did see that article, thanks!

We have a "Pet me"/"I'm gonna bite you" cat as well. As you say, Who knows? And she's one of those grooming/biting cats. *shakes head in bafflement*

[magnetic_pole]

...and today he's been in the mood for petting, following me around and putting his head under my hand and sensibly moving away when he's had enough. If nothing else, those two are keeping me guessing! M.