Well, yesterday just sucked

Majel Barrett Roddenberry passed away yesterday, and so did my rabbit, Lily.

I met Majel several years ago at a convention in Charlotte. She was funny, gracious and very nice. I am a total Trek geek. Seriously, one of my first memories is of an episode of Star Trek in which Kirk told Scotty - whom I also met later in life - to be careful not to let him materialize inside a bulkhead. (This was back when intra-ship transporter use was iffy.) Anyway, I remember asking my dad what a bulkhead was. I think I was around three or four years old. But I digress.

When I went to the convention, I took my copy of the Trek novel, "Q-in-Law," which is one of the funniest Trek novels ever. Majel happily signed it for me. I will never part with that book! Nor will I part with books I have signed by Gene Roddenberry, Leonard Nimoy and James "Scotty" Doohan.

Majel was a huge animal lover, and in her obit, the family asked that memorial donations be made to a couple of animal charities. Very cool.

As for my dear Lily bunny, I frankly don't know what was wrong with her. She was a rescue, adopted a couple years ago from the Guilford County Animal Shelter. Thus, I don't really know how old she was. She had been doing well, being her usual goofy self, until she recently started shedding. She was always a bit crabby during shedding - wanting to be brushed, but not be brushed too much, and certainly not on her belly. Her appetite had dwindled (also common during her shedding), but her eyes were clear, her temperature seemed normal, and she didn't seem to be in any distress. Nonetheless, being the neurotic pet mom, I had talked yesterday with a local vet and described her symptoms. We agreed that if she wasn't showing improvement by today, I would bring her in for a check. Last night, quite suddenly, she seemed to have some type of seizure, cried out, and within a few moments was dead. DBF and I are very sad about this. He dutifully fed her fresh veggies every morning, and loved how she'd get happy feet when Lettuce/Carrot Man (this is how she viewed him) would walk into the room. It's going to be very weird here in my home office without Lily doing her water-bottle-Morse-code routine (clicking the water bottle to let me know she wants out to play).

Here's Lily shortly before I adopted her from the shelter. I was at the shelter doing an article on "pocket pets" (everything from hamsters to rabbits and ferrets). The rabbits were in the lobby, which is noisy and busy. Lily was the only one who didn't seem terrified. In fact, she tried to taste-test my camera shortly after these photos were taken.