Friday Four and More: Finding Black Cats in the Dark, Hot Weather Edition, 2008

July 19, 2026 Bernadette

I’ve only had portable air conditioners for the past few years so back when the siblings were kittens we all had to tough it out in hot weather. The hardest thing for them was wanting to nap in the sun, but it was too hot so they had to find shade. Here Mewsette and Giuseppe found an interesting solution—sleeping in the shade, next to their favorite sunny nap spot. Giuseppe’s eyes are visible through the arboricola branches, and you might see Mewsette’s ear near the center of the photo.

I lightened up these photos significantly—when I opened the folder for July 16, 2008 that I had tagged “cats downstairs” most of the photos looked black with maybe some lighter spots in them. I had an exciting game lightening then up enough to see who was there!

This was just 10 days before their first birthday! Below, Mr. Sunshine supurrvises me from atop a box of envelopes on my desk, near the wide open casement window. It’s a good thing he has ears and his eyes are open because I might have never seen him.

Mr. Sunshine on my desk by the open window.

And Jelly Bean was there too, moving slowly across the edge of the cabinet in the kitchen, trying not to work up a sweat. Cats don’t sweat, in this case the sweat if metaphorical, he said.

Jelly Bean moving slowly so he doesn't get too hot. — Jelly Bean moving slowly so he doesn’t get too hot.

At just about one year JB was around 9 pounds, the other three 11 to 12 pounds. If you’ve followed me you might remember that the previous summer when I took in Mimi and the kittens were three days old, knowing Mimi’s earlier daughter Lucy had died of FIP, and the one early thing that might have been a symptom with her was that she was never more than six pounds. The siblings had been slightly smaller than normal in their first months, and my veterinarian thought that was because Mimi was small, not any sign of potential FIP. Of course, she was right.

I was to keep the siblings as fosters and hold off adoptions for their first year because FIP, if it’s likely, might show up in that first year. Lucy was one year old when her symptoms showed. But of course we know they weren’t going up for any sort of adoption, they were staying, along with Mimi. It’s always a wonder when I go back to this first year before we all became so accustomed to each other, still discovering new things about their habits and purrsonalities, and marveling at how close they were with each other, and how much fun it was to watch them interact with each other.

Below is one more photo of Jelly Bean because he’s so cute, and because I included last year’s post around this date in remembrance of his absolute cuteness. He has stuff all over his whiskers and that just makes him cuter.

Jelly Bean just looking sweet with stuff on his face.

Posts From Previous Years

The Unbearable Cuteness of Jelly Bean, 2025

Jelly Bean has a sudden inspiration and reaches for the brushes.

He was too cute for words, a cuteness I had to share practically every time he breathed. He was petite and rounded, his white spots made him a mutant to his brothers, he tilted his head and batted his eyelashes at you, he had lots of whiskers and knew how to use them in a sunbeam, his eyes twinkled in what you knew was joy and love, and he did indeed love every cat or human he ever met from total strangers to brand new fosters. Remembering Jelly Bean today on the second anniversary he went to his 10th life.

On Saturday, July 26, I shared a post about the 18th birthday of The Four Housecats of the Apocalypse. Jelly Bean went on to his next life on July 26, 2023, on the day of their 16th birthday; if you visit the post you’ll see I noted that’s the only year we did not celebrate their birthday because we simply focused on JB. I’ve remembered each of my cats in memory on the date we lost them, and I want to remember him a day all his own. I had intended to post this on Sunday, my usual day for pet loss posts but the farmers market and preparations for that and the heat last week were time-consuming and I wanted to take my time and focus.

Last year, 2024, Mimi had me both working hard out in my renewed garden and also keeping her comfortable as we walked slowly toward the inevitable just two weeks later. In spring 2023 I knew there was likely something up with each of them and vigilantly watched Bean eat, sleep, play, use the litterbox, as I did the others with known conditions. Also in 2023 we had just lost Mewsette in May six weeks prior to Jelly Bean, his decline was so quick and while I prepared for and managed all the cats during the renovations that had me confining them upstairs, in the basement, out of the kitchen. It was more difficult to follow his health because even as he steadily lost weight and appetite he was still so curious and active, adapting to every change as I moved them around, interacting with everyone and acting as he normally would that I thought he had enough to hang on and we could forestall his loss. His end came so quickly, unexpectedly, I will always mix my memories, feeling as if I had neglected his condition and that he was working so hard on loving life as he always did that he even fooled himself, and I didn’t give him his due remembrance. I will be working on that for a while.

~~~

His name was Jelly Bean, but his first name was Rodolfo, from the cast of La Boheme for which each one of them was originally named. That was too serious and I had always called him “my little guy” because he was smaller than his siblings all through his life, taking after his petite mom, and I actually called him Guy for a while. Then he kind of caught up and I started calling him Bean for his shiny nose and then came Jelly Bean for extra cuteness, and stayed. His nicknames were Bean, Beanie Boy, Beanaroo, all preceded by “my little.” The final nickname to add to the list was his profile name “jellybeanbean,” adapted from one of my grand nephews who called green beans, my favorite vegetable, “bean beans” because that’s what it sounded like to him.

Humor me with images. Jelly Bean was most often seen with his siblings and mom and any fosters who needed fostering, but I want to give him his time in the sun, as it were, since most of these photos and sketches and paintings are also of him soaking in the sun, but I also want the focus on Jelly Bean without his siblings for once.

From his first official photo as a kitten at about two weeks, the first of all of them to focus and talk to me when I walked in the the foster room:

Little Bean says "Me!" — Little Bean says “Me!”

…to just a little later as he grew more charming every moment:

Mimi finishes Bean’s bath while Giuseppe, in the tub, plays with her tail.

Mimi caught in the act: a young Jelly Bean enjoys a bath from his mom.

Jelly Bean!

He’s coming for me!

…to some silly ones as he grew:

Fearsome Bean.

Jelly Bean is in my shoe!

Don’t look!

Jelly Bean’s underpants

…and one of his most stunning purrformances in the sun, on the sink in the bathroom, trying to convince me to turn on the faucet, which I couldn’t stop photographing and he could therefore not stop posing:

Bean makes a little speech.

Oh, yeah?

Going…

You want whiskers, I got em.

I’m a cool cat.

Gone.

I’m an abstract cat.

…and then the whole contact sheet:

But there was also a serious and artsy side to his purrformances on and in the sink. For all his silly cuteness, Jelly Bean was also quite the serious meowdel for both photos and especially artwork. I was immediately hooked on the black cats in the green and white bathroom when I had it remodeled after water damage in January 2009, and the totally lucky candid photo of him admiring himself in the mirror got me started on photo-based greeting cards and selling prints of my cat photos. Jelly Bean really rocked it as he spent more time in there besides drinking from the faucet. “Compositions in Black and Green, the inspiration,” below, was literally the inspiration to the series of greeting cards and calendars, and then to gift items.

Gosh, I’m Cute

Composition in Black and Green, the inspiration.

Toe Cleaning in Black and Green

Anticipation

This whole composition brought to mind photos of quiet moments, light and shadow, contemplation that I’d admired for years, and here Jelly Bean is the purrfect subject for a photo in that realm. And then this candid photo at the top of this post, curiously reaching for my paintbrushes soaking in water on the windowsill, looking eagerly creative. I always called it “A Sudden Inspiration,” something that happens to me too, and I know he had an idea about something he could do with those brushes. It’s the one I use as the image for my handmade gallery.

And several of my favorite paintings, ones that I feel I achieved a technique or a higher ability in pastel and watercolor and oil pastel that I’d not achieved before:

“Beans”, pastel on pastello paper, 10″ x 6″ © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

“Leaves and Shadows”, watercolor, 5″ x 7″ © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

“Grape Jelly Bean”, oil pastel, 5″ x 7″ © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

I’ll continue to share what an inspiration he was every day. This is just the visual outcomes for me, that’s not his sweetness and purrsonality, what an incredible foster brother he was to both kittens and adult cats, how he loved all people, and the special bond he and I had.

I’m using this image in the sidebar for an easy click to find all the articles.

memorial graphic for a black cat looking in a mirror named Jelly Bean — You will forever be an inspiration.

Thank you for following our grief journey after losing aix members of our feline family.

I hope sharing our experiences have helped you in some way, as sharing my experiences with you helps me.

You can read all the articles related to their loss by tapping one of these images in the side bar and in articles.

Gifts featuring cats you know! Visit Portraits of Animals

Fine Art • Photography • Gifts • Greeting Cards • Books • Commissioned Portraits & Artwork

Compositions in Black and Green Greeting Cards

Jelly Bean inspired a lot of original ideas, photos and art. I will always be grateful for his gentle and good-natured guidance. Read more and purchase.

Copyright

All images and text used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission, although links to your site are more than welcome and are shared. Please ask if you are interested in using and image or story in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of an image or a product including it, check my animal and nature website Portraits of Animals to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit Ordering Custom Artwork for more information on a custom greeting card, print or other item.