Vintage Photos: Baby Bean, and Mama Mimi

Little Bitty Bean welcomes me as I come in the room! He’s about two weeks old here and his eyes are just open, but he began even before his eyes were open waddling to the front of the cage to purr loudly when I came in the room and asked, “How are my babies?” You can see his white spots on chest and belly. Who could resist? He was the first one to respond to me with recognition.

I spent a good bit of this weekend cleaning out and reorganizing my “office” on the first floor, the room that was intended to be the living room. As the paperwork for my mother’s guardianship and my brother’s affairs piled atop my own things, and I had less and less time to sort through things on a regular basis, I ended up with less and less space and boxes tucked everywhere. Last year when I started making merchandise in earnest, I had nowhere to put it! The kids have enjoyed their cardboard jungle, but we all got a little tired of it and it was past time to dig through and at least reorganize.

Most exciting, I opened a box of photos taken in 2006 and 2007 that I had thought were from an environmental project, but turned out to be a box of photos I knew were here somewhere! I’ve shared photos of Mimi and the Four when they were babies and young cats, but I knew I’d taken more than I actually found, and here I found a dozen packs of photos of them. Mimi and I went for a little walk down memory lane as we remembered that time; below, you can see the photo she’s looking at and clearly see the expression on her face as she’s nursing her kittens, “Make it stop.” She was so tired, too many kittens, the room was a mess, she was done with nursing and raising babies. She is very happy to be spayed!

Below the Four share a dinner of canned food as they learn to eat on their own and take the burden off of Mimi.

I realize I’ve been more sedentary lately, partly taking care of Emeraude, partly winter, and partly a lot of things to do. The kids have been pretty sedentary too, but this weekend, as I carried things here and there, filled boxes and stacked them for recycling and reorganized what was left everyone was on their toes, helping me and racing up and down the stairs, hopping to the top of the entertainment center, and checking to see how well they liked the newly emptied cabinets they’ve never been permitted into! Now all my greeting cards and handmade things are in one spot and easily accessible, and we’ve all had a good bit of exercise—and we have our floor back with room to play!

I found other photos too—Cookie and Namir and Peaches and Kelly, even a last few of Stanley. And a few haunting photos of Lucy in her last month that are more artful than I remembered. I photographed her constantly, and did my best to capture her in interesting, sometimes nearly abstract compositions because I knew our time was short. I will share these some day.

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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check my Etsy shop or Fine Art America profile 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.

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