Yesterday went from fun, adventurous and productive to very sad. My beloved Sugar Ratty apparently had a stroke. Whatever it is for sure caused him to lose control of his motor skills and is affecting him neurologically. He sure acts like he had a stroke, and this is common in older rats. I just never would’ve thought I’d end up losing him first since Romeo’s a few months older. I haven’t lost him yet, but I’ve had enough rats and experience with rodents, in general, to know he’s not going to recover and will probably be gone by next weekend. I know a vet would tell me the same thing. It’s tough, though, cuz I want to make him as comfortable as I can for whatever time he’s got left, but I also don’t want to prolong the inevitable. He doesn’t appear to be suffering now, and hopefully he will pass quickly in his sleep (wipes tear). He probably knows the end has come, along with Romeo, who’s been by his side all the time. 

He was out playing yesterday morning and all was fine. Then we went to Home Depot. We seemed to be there forever, but we needed to be because we needed to not only do research, but I wanted to be very selective about what we were buying. Everything ended up costing $400 but should be well worth it. 

We checked out carpet and floor samples. For carpet, I’m probably going to end up with some kind of crème or off-white color, but I may also end up with Lilac or Periwinkle. I think it’ll be Angora if we go with the particular brand that has that color. It’s a very pleasant shade for a neutral color. The only potential problem with it is spills. You don’t want to spill red wine or anything like that on Angora carpet! 

We saw these really cool color-changing LED tape lights, and checked out panels for our kitchen’s drop ceiling. We’ll eventually replace them, which will cost around $100. 

Anyway, we ended up getting white mini blinds for the second bedroom and all 6 windows in the front living room wall, which is technically the side. I just call it the front cuz it faces the street. We’ll probably get shades some other time for the window by the front door and the dining room window. 

We both love the blinds much better. It really modernizes the room and makes it look even bigger if you can believe that’s even possible as huge as it already is. It will look even more modern once that wall is whited out. They never painted that particular wall because the old curtains, which were unbelievably filthy as hell, took up almost that entire wall. 

Then we got 8 gallons of Glidden semi-gloss paint with primer included. The living room will be the only room with white walls, but there isn’t much open wall space in there anyway cuz of all the windows. We got two gallons of White on White for that room, a gallon of Fresh Pineapple for the kitchen, a gallon of Sexy Pink for the hallway, a gallon of True Turquoise for the laundry room, and two gallons of Minty Green for the bedroom. 

So as we’re excitedly talking about colors, furniture, decorations and stuff like that while we’re both pulling down old curtains and rods and installing blinds, I look over at Tom who’s looking at the rats in a strange way. I asked what was wrong and he said he was trying to figure out why Sugar was spazzing out. When I walked over the cage he appeared to be twitching and making jerky motions like he was stunned or something and was turning in circles as if he couldn’t see or make up his mind where he wanted to go. Clearly, he could still hear cuz when I called his name he jerkily staggered up to the door. 

Today, not only did I awake with the earache from hell, but he’s not coming to me when I call his name, he’s not eating or drinking, and well, it’s a very sad thought to know he’ll never again chase me around the house, “tackle” me or cuddle up with me ever again (begins sobbing). 

Later… 

Sugar is now spending most of his time sleeping. He did stagger out of the burrow like he wanted attention for a few minutes. He seems to hear just fine, but I’m not sure he can see. What sucks is that I can’t get him to eat or drink. I’ve held water to his face, cheese, bread, crackers – but he won’t take a thing. It’s truly heartbreaking. 

Truly frustrating is that I still have earaches and doubt any expert can help me figure out what it is and what to do about it if there’s anything that even can be done about it. I’m sure the guy would at least love to try and run all kinds of tests on me… at OUR expense. I guess I will just have to suffer on and off, knowing that I wouldn’t be doing so in the first place if it wasn’t meant to be for whatever sick, twisted reason the bastard above has for picking on me in so many ways for so many years. And now He wants to take my beloved rat a good 8 or 9 months before he should be taken. *flips finger skyward* 

I’d say a long, long walk is in order this morning, not just to walk off some of the shit I ate over the weekend and keep my muscle tone up, but to help clear my head. Camp Nano doesn’t start till tomorrow and I have no other major obligations today. So why not walk and walk and walk…