Happy 12th Birthday, Little Buddy!

This weekend marks 12 years since I took home an energetic, bold, curious, talkative gray tabby kitten.

In some ways it feels like it can’t possibly be 12 years since I adopted the Budster, but it also feels like the little dude has been around forever. He’s such an outsize presence with a huge personality, and he never lets you forget he’s around.

As we celebrate the loudmouthed, opinionated, turkey-loving little guy, here are some of his adventures as chronicled here on PITB:

• The time he was named Sexiest Cat Alive by CatPeople magazine.
• The time he broke into the tiger enclosure at the Bronx Zoo to hang with his “homies” and was claimed as a cub by a tigress who gave him big, sloppy tongue baths.
• The time he traveled to the Amazon to hang out with jaguars and was oddly accepted by them after he shared turkey and showed them how to make more comfortable beds.
• The time Sir David Attenborough made a documentary about “the silver-furred Buddy” in “his native habitat, the living room.”
• The time he was tricked by a Nigerian scammer, then got revenge by sending a lion to recover his money.
• The time he issued his little red book filled with his wisdom, like this nugget: “Observe the human, and its wretched species, always in thrall to an invented concept called time. The time is what you say it is. I say it’s time for a snack.”

Bud must have been born some time in February of 2014, but since I don’t know the day, his adoptiversary is his de facto birthday.

We’ve got a long weekend ahead of us, including a party, a dance contest, a cocktail hour with Bud’s jaguar friends, and of course the grand fireworks display on Sunday night. There will be catnip and turkey for all.

Happy birthday, Bud!