Ten years ago—April 6, 2006—I bought little green Nyokki for my daughter during a trip to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Molly and I had seen it on a Japanese website weeks earlier; we were delighted to buy one locally, for less. Nyokki means grow in Japanese. Three months earlier, she started studying the language as part of her homeschool routine.
Last month, in the rediscovered cache of photos that includes bunnies snapped on the 6th and 25th of June 2006, I also discovered the Nyokki originals—RAWs from Nikon D200. I shot all of them on Molly’s crowded computer desk. Eeek! Look closely enough and see the Windows Mobile phone to the right. Gasp, where did that thing come from? Vitals: f/4.5, ISO 320, 1/20 sec, 70mm.
We still have Nyokki, strangely, sitting on a shelf in the living room. But he hasn’t grown grass for hair in a decade. Even bald, he’s still cute.