I don’t feel much like posting tonight.  I hope Antonio understands.  I will post tomorrow, even though I’m not required to, with an actual D/s topic.  I swear. 

But, for now…

I took one of my pet rats to the vet yesterday.  She couldn’t move properly… She was dragging her limbs and just looked pitiful.  She’d been extra-sleepy the day before, and perfectly fine the day before that.  This morning I called to check on her at the animal hospital and they informed me she had passed away overnight. 

I’m just so stupidly upset about it, and every time I try to talk about it, I start crying.

She was a year-old curly-haired dumbo rat, and her name was Touille.  (Yanno, like ratatouille?  I’m very, very clever.)

The vet said it was either a stroke or some kind of rapid neurological degeneration, and assured me it was nothing I did or didn’t do.  Touille’s sister, Twitch, is really lonely.  And I’m really sad. 

Upon hearing Antonio tell me she was some happy place now, with a lot of garbage cans, I thought two things.  One, my rats are spoiled and would never eat garbage!  Tsk!  And two, my grief over lost pets is never about the pets.  I mean, it is a little.  But I only get really upset for them when they are sick.  Then I feel strictly for them.  I want to make them better or take away their pain.  But once they’ve passed on, I’m just upset for me. I miss her.  I want her back.  I hurt.  I am sad.  Me me me me me.

Anyway… Here she is a month and a half ago, right after a bath (so, yes, she looks like – and IS – a bit of a drowned rat), hiding in a potted Norfolk pine and making absolutely sure the Christmas lights aren’t food.  That was about when I took her out of the plant, lest the little princess try to chew anything bad and hurt herself.

Dammit, I’m crying all over the place again.