From the Archives: Namir’s Big Cookie Plan, in the Garden May 31, 2009

June 7, 2026 Bernadette

Namir strolls down that central path in the garden, looking cool and suave, but he has a mission.

Below, Cookie, napping at the end of the garden row I’ve just turned over—she loved fresh dirt—awakens by some sort of celestial message that Namir has a plan that involves sneaking up on her and pulling her tail.

Namir continues down the walk, but some particular feline communication has alerted him that he has been found out, so he slows down, and changes his direction.

Cookie goes back to her nap…

…while Namir comes to me and says he’s such a good boy because he didn’t go a pull Cookie’s tail.

Really, these two were such good friends, and while Cookie had been in the garden with me for years, Namir only spent his last two years out there, 2008 and 2009. She had always loved to be out there with me, and while she and Namir weren’t best buddies indoors but enjoyed each others’ company, they became fast friends for their times outdoors, and then indoors as well.

I had Cookie on a leash long before, but she was my guardian and protector indoors and out so she wasn’t going to head off to a neighbor’s yard, but Namir needed to be on a leash for a few months at first. Cookie talked some sense into him, and the two were inseparable in devoted to our little space after that.

We would lose Namir to congestive heart failure just about a month after this, not bad for being given six months to live with treatment and medication in August 2005. The two of them were carrying on as if nothing was the matter, yet we all knew it was. That’s one of the reasons our daily outings were such a joy in those two years, some normalcy in the midst of his decline. I really forgot about that big issue a lot of the time when we were out.

The photo below is from May 9 that same year, and it’s one of my all-time favorites of the two of them and my garden.

From the Archives in Previous Years

Salad Days, Morning in the Garden, May 9, 2009

The garden stewards, Namir and Cookie, and the controlled chaos of my garden in spring.

It’s hard to believe this was over 10 years ago, and then it also feels like decades ago, and maybe a year or two ago. I have so many photos of the two of them out there with me, and I keep finding more as I dig through digital and print photos. I treasure each one, but this one photo is absolutely one of my favorites. How I miss them…and seeing them so alive and connected with me and the place helps me know that I will heal from my losses, eventually, as I did with each Namir and Cookie and all the others, and some memories will be permanent places of love.

On May 9, 2009, Namir watches for critters while Cookie supervises my harvest, or perhaps she’s planning on a sip of my coffee, in the controlled chaos of my garden in springtime. Cookie’s determined expression as she walks toward me means she had been away for “a while” and it might have been too long, the human may have been distracted by the task at hand and Cookie needed to set things to right. I adore Namir’s alert expression as he watches likely a little rodent he’d like to kill, yet he stays loyal and by my side. If you look closely at the side of his neck you can see a square shaved patch. He’d been in the emergency hospital a few weeks before for congestive heart failure, and in truth he had a little less than two months with us. But we didn’t know that, and thoroughly enjoyed the moment. This time of year, when spring really bursts forth, I deeply remember these two, and this time, as you might guess with the number of photos of them I’ve shared.

First thing in the morning is the best time to harvest salad greens, especially if they are the first of the year, so I took my coffee with me and my garden cats supervised the entire operation. I managed to get a precious clear and candid shot of the two of them before they realized I was photographing them from my position of leaning over the greens and picking with one hand while I brought up the camera and took the shot with the other. Don’t worry about all the stuff in the background—once the garden was in and producing and the sun was high and hot, the three of us started on the hoses and buckets and carefully organized things in the shade under the deck.

As we have Shakespeare to thank for so many wise and perceptive phrases still used today, the phrase “salad days” has little to do with a mix of greens with dressing, yet it does have to do with themes of youth and “greenness” as well as an application to the photo above. The phrase first appeared in 1606 in Antony and Cleopatra as Cleopatra compared her current passion for Marc Antony to her former love for Julius Caesar, declaring her earlier dalliance to be the indiscretion of youthful naïeveté as in her “salad days” she was “green in judgement”. Through the years the salad shifted from the fleeting inexperience, innocence or foolishness of youth to a later time of life when a person, group, organization or concept is or was (usually the latter) at the peak of ability or popularity, as in “the good old days”.

So above we have a cavalcade of meanings, literally collecting the short-lived salad greens at the peak of their youth, and I also remember both the fleeting moments of joy with these two in the peace of my garden as well as “the good old days” when Namir and Cookie were both still with me. So much in one picture, and a place to start and let my mind wander, coming back to this moment.

Photos “From the Archives” and “Vintage Photos”

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 and Greeting Cards 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.

You can also find Namir in my Animal Sympathy Cards., and soon Cookie’s photo will be available as a sympathy card too.

"I'll always remember the way you looked at me." — “I’ll always remember the way you looked at me.”

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.