Nugget

1983 - 1998

Nugget died peacefully in his sleep on sunday morning: August 9, 1998.  He fought failing kidneys for more than a year, long enough to fly from Cambridge to Texas where he toured the Hill Country with Kathy and Shane in their new truck.

Other states that Nugget toured in his lifetime include New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington DC, Maryland, Delaware, and of course, Massachusetts. He had 1500 frequent flyer miles on American Airlines.

Nugget's original name was Norman when he was rescued from Salem Animal Shelter for fifty bucks.   His sister's name was Norma.   Since Norman is a silly name for a cat, he was renamed Nugget after one of Shane's favorite hacking foods, Chicken McNuggets.

After arriving in Cambridge, Nugget immediately lost half of his tail to a chair while Shane was working on a 6.002 circuit board at MIT. You can see the circuit board at left, bottom.

Nugget lived at a startup company called Palladian in Kendall Square for a year (as did Shane) on the 11th floor of 4 Cambridge Center.  He was fond of getting into the ceiling to stalk a Macaw which also lived there. Nugget (and the other animals) was evicted from Palladian after he used an ornamental tree in the board room for kitty litter (the day before IBM visited).   Palladian went bankrupt shortly thereafter!

Nugget survived several years of Shane's bachelor days, during which he displayed numerous survival skills: drinking from the toilet when the water bowl was empty, opening cabinets to get Tender Vittles when the food bowl was empty and pissing Shane's clothes when the litter box was empty.

Nugget now lies buried beneath a Texas Pecan Tree from which he can watch the sun rise to warm his spot.  He will miss all of his friends and we will miss him.  Think about him from time to time and remember that he always had the loudest purr.

Good night sweet prince.