A sad #spoiledratupdate.

By Circe -

I am saddened to report that Old Man Barak left us very suddenly late last week. Less than five minutes elapsed between "wait, that's not a normal rat noise" and lights out. Ten minutes before that, he was bothering his brother and agitating for Cheerios. He spent his last moments cuddled in a blanket on my lap. You will all be glad to know that he did get dinner before he departed (beans and banana). Also a snack of pasta, and several yogies, plus some of my popcorn.

Barak was a good rat. He received many pets, and ate many foods. He was a loving but solitary boy, who smashed his face into the front of my shirt to demand scritches, and then shamelessly turned his little ratty backside and trundled away when he decided he was done. His goal in life was to be as large as possible, and he succeeded by every possible measure, particularly body mass, holding the record for Largest Rat Yet Seen by our vet, at a whopping 840g.

He has been lovingly laid to rest in one of their cardboard boxes, nested in fleece and silk scraps, surrounded by some of his favorite things: Dried pasta, Cheerios, yogies, a tiny snack cookie, popcorn, gnawing chopsticks, and a wine cork dipped in amaretto.

Durnik is doing all right. He's been snuffling around making tweet-tweet noises at night, confused by the lack of harassment; I've been going over to keep him company, or just bringing the cage over to the bed so he can womble back and forth as he pleases. After a good clean and a few days of airing, I removed the cage divider and let him investigate the bottom. It probably still has traces of Angry Neighbor in the corners, but overall he seems comfortable occupying the whole space now, although he still thinks the best napping spot is the roof.

I'm sorry I've not been around on Patreon or Blogger. I've lost all ability to do creative work for the moment. I was overworked and burnt out to begin with, and it's taken two and a half months for the queue to clear enough that I can get up and just do my laundry without a fight, and casually tidy up the kitchen while I'm waiting for the washer to finish. The craft projects I've bludgeoned my way through are all things for which the design phase was already done. I'm trying to get back into things, but it's hard, and the world is still such a wreck.

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