Glissette gets a sister

After I got Glissette, I quickly realized that one sugar glider was not enough.  I should probably get two for the sake of Glissette so that she has someone to play with all night while I'm sleeping.  So I started my search on how I could obtain another one, and lo and behold, there is a breeder right here in my new hometown.  Upon contacting Erika, the owner of the Sugar Glider Adventure, she let me know that she had a little white-face blonde cutie that would be able to go home around the second weekend in November.

I visited the little girl, born Adelaide whom I renamed Lavender, a few times before she came home, and Glissette got to talk to her from behind bars while she stayed at Erika's place while I was traveling.

It was a little bit rough the first couple of weeks that Lavender was home.  I thought it would be more of a walk-in-the-park compared to Glissette since Lavender was hand-raised as opposed to Glissette's upbringing without human contact, but no... While Glissette never bit me so hard that I bled, Lavender loved biting hard.  And she also seemed to hate the sound of my voice.  I would be talking on the phone, and she would just start crabbing up a storm.  To conquer this, I decided to record myself reading a chapter of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies aloud, and every time I went by her cage I would start the recording so that she would get used to my voice.

By the time Thanksgiving came around, she was a bit better with me, and I decided to 'introduce' the two girls.  Everything went well, and my gloves were not needed.  I put them both in my bathtub in the middle of the day when they are normally fast asleep, and they sniffed at each other a bit.  However, Lavender does not wake up easily, and she just stayed still the entire time.  Glissette, on the other hand, woke right up and began jumping off the walls, quite literally.  She has become a good jumper (I've seen her jump a good 8 or more feet) and she kept jumping out of the tub onto me.  Eventually I took them both to their cage and they snuggled up together and fell asleep.

That first night they were play-wrestling a little bit, and it looked like one or the other would grab onto the other's face and make a smooshy face.  I tried to get a video of this, but every time the camera (or rather light) went on they would break it up and look like little angels.

Now, 3 weeks later, they are still getting along well.  Even though Lavender is a good 3 months younger than Glissette, she is at least 20 grams larger.  I think that Lavender will be the one that stays larger, and Glissette will be tiny, but only time will tell for sure.  Now, during out of cage time, Glissette runs around and enjoys her freedom, and Lavender is still a bit more conservative.  Glissette will jump on Lavender and run around and it seems like she is always playing a one-sided tag with her.  Since Glissette is now 'bonded' with me, she easily jumps on me and has given me quite a few face hugs.  All I have to do is stick out my hand and the majority of the time she'll jump right to me, it's kinda cute.  Lavender is still getting used to me, but she has started to groom me, which is a good sign towards her making me one of her family.  When I pet them while they're sleeping, Glissette just snuggles right up into my hand, but Lavender hates being woken up and she is vocal about it.  I doubt that will ever change!

And one last thing - people are always asking me what they eat.  I have Glissette and Lavender on what is called the HPW Complete diet.  It involves a staple food, which is the HPW Complete (it's a bit like a honey/egg/other-nutrients soup), and then I give them a variety of fruits and veggies.  Because I'm a dork, the HPW Complete isn't just frozen into ice cubes when I serve it, it's frozen into a butterfly ice cube tray.

Yum yum yum :-)

Glissette doesn't go to PR or DC

But I do! Back in October I went to a conference for work that just happened to be in San Juan, Puerto Rico. I'll share some highlights. First off, the conference itself was really well done. I went to a lot of workshops and learned a lot, and basically became excited about all of the possibilities out there for what I can do for study abroad outreach at my university. It was a bit overwhelming, really. So, to relax in between sessions, I went to the beach.

And I explored Old San Juan.

And I enjoyed the gorgeous view from my hotel.

And I met with one of our students currently studying abroad in Puerto Rico. And our little group rented a car to go visit the Yunque rain forest.

A couple of weeks later, I went to DC for another conference and got bombarded with even more information. I decided to extend my stay and spent Saturday in the city. I took advantage of this by going to the Cheesecake Factory, visiting my old retreat at the Smithsonian American Art and Portrait museum, I bought a dozen pains aux chocolate from Paul (yay for Americanized French bakeries!), found a nice little tea shop nearby, and spent a while reading. I was able to meet up with an old buddy from my time in Spain, Amie, and had supper with her. It was nice being in this city once again that I had called home for a summer.

And somewhere in there, autumn arrived in North Carolina. I didn't actually think it would happen - all of the trees were seemingly going from green to brown overnight without much color in between, and then for about 3 glorious days the maple trees let their true colors come through.