Spud became an adjunct to my life and lifestyle.  He was growing like a weed, his eyes turned yellow from blue and his coat clued me into the fact that he was in fact a Domestic Longhair.  From his neck ruff to his tail he poofed out like a dandelion gone to seed.  Black masked with white chin, white bodied with black saddle and  black legs with white booties was the color scheme of his adult coat.  A good looking stray from the street all in all.

    I was fairly indulgent with him buying a small toy each time I went grocery shopping which actually turned out well because a new toy held his fancy for about three days before it just became part of the scenery.  His food and water dishes moved to the kitchen and his litter box moved to the bathroom.  He was a healthy young cat on his way to becoming a big boy.  We spent a lot of time together when I wasn’t at work, but I did spend a lot of time at work.

    I was Chef at a Hotel Restaurant and personnel problems were eating me up this tourist season, so I was working about twelve hours a day and working stretches of up to thirty five days in a row.  Spud was always waiting at the door with the “Feed Me” face on so it was feed and change water first and while he ate I would shower and change clothes.  I would then eat and settle to what ever I was going to do either TV or computer and play and scratch and/or pet him as required. 

    Spud had a strange fascination with the wiring that cascaded out of the back of my computer though, so in the middle of some evolution i was involved in the mouse or keyboard would cease to function, another victim of Spud’s back desk play station.  He never chewed on the wires, he just liked crawling through them which had the same effect as dragging a ten pound cotton ball through the back wiring harness.  When I watched TV he contented himself by laying on my lap tits-up and permitting me to rub his stomach lightly.

    I changed jobs, becoming a fishmonger at a gourmet grocery and I noticed Spud was starting to pay my work shoes a whole lot more attention.  I started sneaking out a couple of ounces of scrap bits and pieces of wild Salmon, Grouper, Snapper, Chilean Sea Bass, and Monk Fish for Spud and he was very appreciative.  The cat liked Sashimi almost as much as I did sans the soy and wasabi.  All in all we had a pretty normal cat/human relationship going.

    When Spud was six months old I took him to the vet to be neutered.  I hated to do it from a purely male standpoint, but I knew it would become a problem later with either him marking territory or escaping for a while to propagate the world with more unwanted kittens. An hour or two after I had left him at the vet I received a phone call from their office letting me know I needed to talk to them about the lab results.  The doctor informed me that Spud had feline leukemia which he had probably contracted from his mother at birth and wanted to know if I wanted him “put down”.  I was shocked, this was my buddy!  After discussing the matter with the Vet and finding out that Spud might be able to live a normal life possibly for a year or two more I made the decision to have him neutered and inoculated anyhow.  I wasn’t able to be that cold hearted at this point but what I didn’t know was that I would pay for it emotionally later