Luke is the senior cat with regards to age. He and his litter mate Beau are 6 ¹/₂, with Luke being older by two hours. Their Momma Sunshine delivered a litter of five, each kitten appearing an hour apart. Luke came out as #2, while Beau came out as #4. Momma Sunshine has long since left us, but Luke is a spittin’ image of Sunshine.

We pet owners are always chided not to anthropomorphize our charges. But I can’t because a cat’s face is so close to looking like a little human. And cat faces can be quite expressive. I know this from living with cats in this household since 2007. Fifteen years isn’t quite a lifetime, but a decade-and-a-half is still a good chunk of a person’s life, especially if you’re paying attention.

Luke’s expression is a stitch. He’s in his nearly-perpetual resting state, in a chair in our kitchen. I can almost read his mind questioning why I’m bothering his rest with my camera. He’s paying close attention in case he needs to bolt because I might reach out to pick him up, which he doesn’t mind most of the time, but there are times where he just wants to be alone.

Photo taken with my eight-year-old Panasonic GH4 with its mere 16MP sensor and a slow 2.8/30mm macro lens. No post processing except to crop the image 16:9.