I'm appealing to the wisdom of the group in hopes of finding some
interesting thoughts/suggestions/solutions to
a problem which has been ongoing for about 2 years now.
I had raised my cat from tiny kitten stage on a sailboat I formerly
lived on for approximately 10 years. She grew
up to be a fine mate/friend/etc through the years and is definitely
considered a family member. I've always
considered her to be well adjusted, happy and playful.

Here's the rub:
A couple years ago, after multiple carpal tunnel surgeries and three
successive serious hurricanes, health and
other issues forced us to abandon our original plans of cruising the
world and returning to a life firmly planted
on terra firma.
An old friend offered us (the cat and myself) a place to live and a
family to be a part of, a SERIOUSLY nice
(and much appreciated) gesture for sure and shortly thereafter, we
combined ranks (my friend and his siamese,
myself and my cat) to form the extended family we have now become.
It should be noted that, having been raised on a boat, my cat's
exposure to certain things was less than a
"normal" cat's would have been (little knowledge of things like cars,
trees, houses, etc), but she'd occasionally
been exposed to dogs, other people, etc and never seemed to have any
problems interacting with those
things.
As I said, my friend's cat is a female siamese, approximately 2 years
younger than mine, who'd been given to
him after being found abanded in a drainage ditch, by some friends.
IOW, the house was HER domaine
when my cat and I arrived here.
Some pertinent issues are that both cats are neutered females, with my
cat weighing in about half again larger
than his siamese and the biggest thing being that my cat had been de-
clawed while as kitten (I know, I know ..).
At the time of our arrival at my friend's house (approx two years
ago), there was never an issue of dominance
as to who's "territory" it was. For the most part, my cat's exposure
to having to fight (for anything) has been
limited, at best and the skirmishes began almost immediately with the
siamese always "corraling" my cat
back into "her" bedroom (out of the general living areas).
My cat spends the majority of her time in "our" bedroom, generally
lounging, chilling, doing the things cat do.
She occasionally slithers out into the main parts of the house doing
the "exploring, etc" things cats do with the
the outcomes of the forrays sometimes ending non-eventfully, sometimes
being "ambushed", with the outcome
usually ending back in "her room".

The question:
It's 2 years down the road and we were sure that by now the cats would
have "worked things out" and the two
would be playing together etc in mutual parts of the house and
generally co-existing (at least to the point that
the skirmishes would have been past them). Although the siamese is
barely half of my cat's size, it completely
intimidates my cat from being able to share the socializing stuff we
want them to be able to have.
Is there a shared "general consensus" technique we could use to
"force" (or at least speed up) the process of
the kitties accepting each other?

Any help (especially techniques which have proven successful in
similar situations) would be HUGELY
appreciated and help us create an environment which we've been trying
to provide for what's seemed like an
eternity now.

TIA,
Phil, David, Kali and Elizabeth
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