Back from New York City - where I looked with wonder upon a painting of a bygone cat and the bygone little girls who loved it

I had spent the afternoon slowly ambling through the Egyptian section of New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art, but as time ran out on me I finally stepped into the American section. There, I happened upon this painting.

It did fill me with wonder, for anyone who has followed this blog at all knows that it is my children, particularly my daughters, Tryskuit and Nabysko, who influenced me to allow cats into my life.

Now, I found myself looking upon a painting of someone else's daughters, and their cat, all of them long gone from the mortal population of this earth. Thinking about my relationship to my own children and our cats, I used the reflection to put myself into the picture.

I wondered about these girls and this cat, and what their stories were. There was absolutely no information in or near the display, but there were numbers and letters that identified the location of the painting among hundreds, perhaps thousands, of others, in the same room and computers to search for the information on.

So I sat down at one of the computers to find out, but guess what? Just as I did, the museum closed, and a stern fellow came along and told me that I had to vacate the building, "right now!"

So the story behind these girls and their kitty friend remain a complete mystery to me. That's okay, though. 

I did photograph some live, fresh and blood cats and kittens in New York, and will soon tell their stories, or as much of their stories as I happened to learn and can recall.