I found this in a box of stuff from the 80s I had in my garage. I wrote in when I was studying law in London.

October, 1987
He looked utterly ridiculous in that outfit and I had to suppress my laughter when I saw him. I had been looking forward to his coming, it being two months since we had said good-bye at the airport in Washington, and it seemed so appropriate that he would show up in such a costume. Sydney wanted to be fashionable, but was never quite able to pull it off. The individual pieces weren’t so bad—the brown felt hat, the grey trench coat, the plaid flannel shirt –it was just that they didn’t go together. Nothing seemed to match.

I welcomed him with a warm hug and a kiss. Our reunion scene, which I had imagined would be emotional, with me quietly crying, turned out to be comical. I giggled as we embraced. This is often the way things turn out with Sydney. You could imagine all kinds of scenarios or romantic moments, and he could always be counted on to throw some kink into the plot.

“So how to you like London?” he asked. The restaurant was half empty as the dinner hour had long passed. “I like it a lot, but the weather is even worse than I expected. You lied when you told me that it didn’t rain very much.” “Oh, you’ll get used to it, it’s really not so bad.” [This is being said to me by a native Londoner who loves British weather so much that he has spent the last five years living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.!]

The waitress brought the menus and we sat there in silence for an awkward length of time. Syd finally thought of something to say: “So, what about your new apartment? Are you settled in now?”
“Oh, I love it. It’s really a beautiful flat” I replied, noting the irony of his saying “apartment” and I saying “flat.” I mentally filed it away to reflect on later and maybe discuss over lager in some pub one rainy night in the future. Syd, the ex-pat Brit living in America, and me, an American Werewolf living in London, made quite an interesting couple. What a comical mis-matched pair we made.

“And what about the neighbors? You wrote me that they weren’t very friendly. Have you still not made any friends?” he asked.
“The neighbors have turned out to be quite nice. I’ve made friends with the woman next door. She’s an animal lover like me.” “Is she a vegetarian too?” Syd asked. “Well, I guess she’s not as big an animal lover as me.” I chuckled, trying to head Syd off at the pass and steer our conversation away from animal rights issues. I didn’t want to have an argument with Syd his first night back in London. The first night I was seeing him in two months.

“I have a cat now” I continued, thinking of animals, “he was a stray and he lived in the alley behind the building. When I first saw him he was very shy and he wouldn’t come when I coaxed him. I started to bring him food each evening and he would only come to eat it once I went inside. I would watch him eating from my window.”

“You have a real rapport with animals” he interrupted. “I remember back in D.C.how every cat on the block knew you and came to visit.” We both laughed and I remembered how he used to protest at my feeding the neighborhood cats. Now, as he spoke of it here and now, in another country, he seemed to find it entertaining. Endearing perhaps (I hoped.)

“When you come to my place you’ll get to meet my new kitty,” I said, wanting to finish the story of how I had tamed the stray cat. “He lives with me now, but it took a month to get him to come into the house. After I started feeding him, well, eventually he got to the point that he’d let me pet him. As he ate, I would go over and very gently rub his head. You have to be careful with strays. You have to prove that you can be trusted. The first time I tried to pick him up to hold him he almost tore my hand off. He scratched me and ran away. It was another week before he’d just let me rub his head again.”
The waitress came over to take our order. Neither of us knew what we wanted so we asked for coffee to start off with. She turned away looking as if she’d never heard of having coffee before dinner. Syd puts on a sour face, sarcastic tone set on high, and he says to me “The British are that way, my dear. Everything in the right place and at the right time. That’s our national motto!” We both smiled.

“He’s a good house cat now” I said, winding up my cat story. “At night he sleeps at the foot of the bed and keeps my feet warm. He took a while to make friends, but now he’s very happy.”
“Do you think maybe he was wild at first because he had once had an owner who mistreated him?” he asked (Syd and I share a common interest in analyzing the psychology and behavior of animals. Especially male bipeds, on my part.)
“It could have been that” I said. “But it could just be that he was a stray all his life and never lived with anyone before. Living in the street like that can make a cat rough. It’s only normal that it would make him not trust anyone. It’s a rough life out there. And if he was feral from the beginning, does that mean he will forever be wild at heart? I don’t know.” Syd and I smiled at one another once again, as the waitress approached, carrying the coffees. When she left I reached across the table, and ever so hesitantly, touched his hand.