I know for a fact that she had a pet rat

Apparently Ursiline requires further explanation. She always did.

I saw photos of the rat, in his cage with the same drip water bottle that hamsters have (before you ask, rats don't like hamster wheels). I saw a photo of the rat being cuddled by Ursiline, and it was too close to her face for my comfort.

The photos were too real to fake.

I did not, however, see a photo of the dead rat for which I am grateful. However, this raises a doubt that I would submit to you as proof of Ursiline's genius.

Just the facts:
Here's what we know of Ursiline. Every Friday for a year, she met with me to go over my journal. For the first six weeks (I may be off a couple of weeks) she wore clothes in a rainbow of colors. One time she turned many a head when she managed to pack every known color into one shoulder-to-toe jumper. Then one Friday, when I wasn't expecting her, she showed up in black.

Because some of us worked in the same cubicle city, you could tell this story as well as I. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Of course the first thing you're going to ask is why she wore black. With that question, she broke down and sobbed about her pet rat dying. It took an hour to comfort her and for Ursiline to pull herself together.

She wore black every week after that until the unfortunate color-coordination incident* when she changed to white.

The white-clad Ursiline got the journal finished. Ursiline completed the project, dragging me over the finish line with it.

Hypothesis
Remember the day Ursiline first showed up in black, I wasn't expecting her because my VP had gotten mad at the HR VP and canceled the project.

When Ursiline did show up, I concluded that she hadn't gotten the memo. Distracted by her pet rat news, I waited to tell her about the cancellation. When I did, she got even more upset. The project was important to her, there was no longer a living being (yeah, rats are a living being) that truly cared for her, was it asking too much to share my thoughts with her, etc. etc. I said I'd do it considering it didn't take much effort for me to do the journal. Ursiline took truly raw material (my hand-written Bell Lab books) and made it happen.

My theory is that Ursiline knew the project was canceled and did the theatrical performance of the year to convince me to stay on the project. She stayed in black (or at least during our meetings, since her HR office was miles away) just in case I wanted to back out.

Just like I was and still am proud of my ability to get marketing materials created, completed and distributed, I believe Ursiline did what she had to do to get the journal started, edited and distributed. I doubt anything short of what she did could've saved the project.

Her true genius showed in her selection of what or who died. Had she said her husband we would've wondered why she was still at work. A cousin, I would have been suspicious of the long-term wearing of black clothes. But her pet rat that I had seen such loving photos of, well that was so odd but so fit Ursiline. That it made it perfect.

I did ask her if Ursiline was her first name or last. I wasn't being catty. AT&T's email names held to the formula of firstname.lastname@att.com. Ursiline's email was simply mailto:ursiliene@att.com. In answer to my question, she told me it was both first and last like Cher. That was Ursiline.

*Months into the project, I thought I could help Ursiline back on track at least clothing wise. She claimed she wasn't in mourning clothing any more. Ursiline felt that black just fit her mood. And yes her mood was black because of her missing pet rat. I suggested, in a very nice way I thought, that she should think about wearing white because her pet rat (I can't remember its name) was white. (Here's where we disagree) she didn't take offense at my suggestion but did take offense at the suppressed laughter heard in cubicle city when she said “who's ever heard of wearing clothes to match your rat?”