From the Archives: Cookie and Namir and Me, 2009

April 27, 2020 Bernadette

Cookie and Namir and I share some time at the picnic table on April 24, 2009. I was having lunch so I know it was a weekday, they were enjoying the outdoors. I took this photo with my little digital point and shoot in three parts and stitched them together—an early selfie. It’s one of the photos I recall each time Mimi and I are at the picnic table. Below are a few photos of each of them from that afternoon, and at the end is a photo of both of them completely sacked out on lap when I went back in to work on the computer.

Cookie has it made in the shade.

Namir is on the other bench.

He found he had to inspect the lettuce seedlings. Really, he loved to balance along the bricks. Notice his right leg has a shaved patch. He’d been in the emergency/specialty clinic for a little tune-up a few days before, and for the first time in all the years had been diagnosed with HCM the medications and treatments didn’t remove the fluids from around his heart overnight and he had to stay for an extra day. That didn’t stop him from enjoying out time outdoors.

Does that mean we have to go in?

Later, both of them were totally sacked out back to back on my lap as I tried my best to work on my computer. I didn’t mind them, I loved the moment.

Namir and Cookie on my lap after being outside.

From the Archives in Previous years

Mark and Cookie, April 2010

I treasure these photos of my brother with Cookie from 2010. Ostensibly, they are both helping me in the garden on an April afternoon, but this is usually how it worked out. Cookie’s conquest actually happened in several steps and I have four of them here.

My brother loved landscaping and often picked up jobs with landscapers. After his accident, when he went to the community college for job training, he trained in landscaping and janitorial services. He couldn’t do anything heavy but he could get some work done. He would stop over a few times a week to help in my garden, but he always needed supervision, and frequent breaks. In truth, he never got much done, but he felt good about it, and I liked to see him get out of his apartment and visit. We always had a meal too. But by 2010, a decade after his accident, he was seriously slowing down.

Cookie was always aware of how people felt. She left supervising me and went to sit with her back to Mark because she knew it would get his attention. It did; he started petting her immediately.

Cookie playing hard to get. My brother was not hard to get.

She turned around to enjoy the petting.

And this is my favorite photo, and this is where it falls in the series. It just said so much about each of them, Cookie always friendly and confident, my brother gentle and affectionate. I love the moment when Cookie lifts a paw to step on his lap and he is just about to gently pet her with that big beefy hand.

And of course, Cookie gets his lap.

Photos pulled “From the Archives” were taken by one or another digital camera of mine between 2002 and, well, yesterday, but usually they are older than that, and I had never had the chance to feature them. Vintage Photos are from my film archives back to 1983 when I purchased my Pentax K-1000 camera. They’re a fun way to “introduce” other members of my feline family who came and went before I began blogging, and to illustrate my feline family in general from days gone by.

Art and Gifts featuring cats you know! Visit Portraits of Animals

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Feline Photography from Portraits of Animals!

Namir's "bedroom eyes". — Namir’s “bedroom eyes”.

Tortoiseshell cats can be camouflaged against many backgrounds with all their irregular speckles and dots. This photo of Cookie taken in the spring of 2010 truly shows her ability to blend into her background as her orange and tan blend with last year’s leaves and her green eyes blend with the spring’s new growth. I could not love her more. This photo is available framed or unframed, on canvas or on paper on Portraits of Animals. You can find this photo in my gallery of Feline Photos.

Namir turns his gaze up to me, enchanting me with his “bedroom eyes” as we spend a morning in the garden. To visitors and to me, once he is sure he has you under his spell he turns on those famous bedroom eyes, narrowing them just enough so they looked mysteriously slanted and angling up a tourmaline glance, as if sharing a secret, looking totally exotic (he thinks), purring joyfully, certain you belong to him completely. This photo is available framed or unframed, on canvas or on paper on Portraits of Animals. You can find this photo in my gallery of Feline Photos.

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.