A Glider Romance…Well, Sort Of

Maverick’s ladies, Melisande and Musette

On the 23rd, I made a trip to Lone Tree to meet a lady who needed to rehome two female gliders. I know, I know…this would put me at nine gliders, but ever since Maverick realized there were other gliders nearby and he could see them but not interact with them because they wouldn’t accept him, he’s been lonely. He watched them constantly. Both my other cages contain males, which may or may not contribute to the lack of acceptance, depending upon who you talk to, so something needed to be done. Enter the lady I was meeting. She lives in Aspen, which is apparently a good six hours away from Colorado Springs, and was heading out on a trip from Denver International, so we agreed to meet in Denver the day before she left so I could pick up her girls and bring them home to hopefully become friends with Maverick.

I’d never driven to the Denver area alone before, and I’ve only gone up there maybe five times, including this trip, in the five years we’ve lived here. So naturally, I was nervous. I’m not fond of driving on interstates, and I love to drive. The longer the drive, the better. But interstates are populated by eighteen wheelers.

When I was seventeen, while driving my dad’s car back from somewhere I wasn’t supposed to have been, with two people I wasn’t supposed to be with, we were hit by a Ryder truck. That truck skidded 61 feet before he hit us. I saw it coming and stepped on the gas, but this was an economy car, which means there was really no pick-up at all. By the time we started moving, it was because we had been launched, Dukes of Hazzard-style, by the impetus of collision. The truck’s tire tracks were in the trunk all the way up to the back window. We were lucky. Not only did the tracks end at the window, but the gas tank was under the trunk. One of the police officers on the scene told me that when he heard car-and-truck collision, he’d thought they would be hosing us out of the vehicle.

Add this to the experience of growing up in an area of high traffic, which means you regularly heard news reports about eighteen wheelers jackknifing on the highway, and you get a good idea of my paranoia. The nice thing was that outside of the interstate, there were other highways we could use that did not allow trucks. For the area of New York that I trekked through most often, only the Long Island Expressway allowed trucks. The Northern and Southern State Parkways, the Grand Central Parkway, and the Van Wyck did not, so I most often used those. The City, or Manhattan to those who didn’t grow up there, was about an hour away from my home. We drove in often with my parents as kids, and as teens and young adults we drove in even more frequently because that was where the nightlife was. We averaged that trip at least once or twice a week, and an hour-long commute is a normal thing for New Yorkers. Even a two-hour one doesn’t raise any eyebrows: lots of people live in New Jersey and make the commute to NYC every day to work. So we made this drive often, and I knew the parkways well and didn’t have to deal with trucks. Paranoia indulged.

But now I’m driving to Denver. Alone. For the first time, with only a couple trips under my belt. What’s so amusing is that the drive isn’t that bad, trucks aside. It’s not…while I’m actually doing it. But when I think about doing it, I get chills and cold sweats. I have no idea why.

I left about 9 am because I wasn’t sure about traffic or where I was going. We were going to meet at Park Meadows Mall, at the junction of I-25 and CO-470, which I, for some reason, thought was on the  far side of Denver. I left way too early, because traffic was smooth sailing, and the mall was on my side of Denver. Lone Tree is actually on the outskirts of Denver. I was on the road for maybe an hour, tops. As she was coming from Aspen, she had a longer drive ahead of her, and wouldn’t arrive until 2:30. I had lots of time to kill. Wandering around a mall covered maybe an hour. There’s just not a lot to do in a mall if you’re not a size 3 and you’re holding onto every dime you’ve got. I drove to a couple of other places nearby too, but ended up hanging out in my truck for about an hour before she arrived.

I met the family and we talked gliders for a few minutes before all of us hit the road again, and I brought the newly named Musette and Melisande home. What can I say? I was in a mood for some elegant French names this time around. So no themes followed this time, although Musette did come from a really old Judy Garland musical cartoon called the Gay Purr-ee from 1962. It was one of my favorite movies, about country cat Mewsette leaving home for the big city, Paris, and leaving behind her beau, Jean-Tom, who follows her with his little sidekick Robespierre in order to keep her out of trouble. Meowrice was the villain of the piece, voiced by Robert Goulet.

The two of them are absolutely adorable, fully as sweet as Maverick. I didn’t put them all together right away, though. They were both a little freaked out, which is understandable. A long car ride, a new person, a new environment…anyone would be a little freaked. So they went into their own familiar cage for a couple of days.

Last night, I took the girls and Maverick into the tent together and took video. It couldn’t have gone better!!! No fighting. No crabbing. Lots of Maverick marking them with his scent, and them allowing it. Victory!!!!

My initial plan was to let them have a few “dates” before moving them all in together, but after returning everyone to their cages last night and feeding them, I noticed a huge gap between the back of the girls’ cage and the floor, big enough for one of them to either escape or get a head caught. It was probably a result of the ride home in the back of my truck, and I couldn’t fix it. And of course, now that I’d seen it, I couldn’t unsee it. There was nothing for it: the girls were moving, and right now.

Fourteen hours later, all is still well. All three are sleeping in the same pouch, and the cage is a combination of items belonging to all of them, so the scents should be mixing well, and Maverick certainly spent plenty of time last night marking everything new that came in. The girls even spent time marking themselves with his scent by rubbing their heads back and forth on the scent gland on his chest. I couldn’t be happier with the outcome. Maverick has friends now, and is no longer a lonely single. And now, I really can draw the line and say no more gliders. Nine is more than enough.

But for some reason, other glider owners have been laughing at me since I said that…

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Down to the Wire

11 days till Christmas, and seven till Yule on the winter solstice, which, being Wiccan, is really the day I should be celebrating on, but it’s easier just to stick with Christmas Day. The kids would undoubtedly be happier if we went for the solstice, since it’s sooner, but, hey, we’re not even certain yet that they’re getting gifts this year. They’ve misbehaved so often and so badly in recent days that I’m inclined to just return everything and be done with it.

And there’s so little time left. Is Bryony’s bag finished? Not. Even. Close. I will have to work until my hands can’t move to get this thing done in time. I don’t know if I can do it. I forgot to reckon with how much I have to do during the holidays. There’s all the cooking that has to be done, which, thankfully, doesn’t take place until the day in question, but there’s getting things wrapped, shopping, hiding things cleverly enough that the kids can’t find them, and a zillion other things that I have to do, both concerned with the holiday and not. Tomorrow, in fact, we have to get the kids out of school early to get them to the pediatrician by 3:15, because their behavior has been such that it’s time to consult a professional. Bryony got herself in-school-suspension for half a day for bullying another little girl so badly that the child’s grades have dropped and she’s depressed. I was shocked to find this out, because we have had numerous conversations about bullying and how to treat one’s friends. Apparently, nothing has sunk in.

And Aneira is a teenager in nearly everything. Her mouth is writing checks her derriere can’t cash. The disrespect level has gone through the roof recently. If I spoke to my mother the way she’s been backtalking me lately, I wouldn’t have needed braces. I wouldn’t have had teeth. As it stands, after the latest episode of backtalk, when I asked her to help with the dishes only to be refused, I informed my child that I will continue to feed and clothe her because the law requires that I do so until she’s eighteen, but not to ask me for any extras so long as she refuses to behave like a member of the family. Her reaction was to shrug and say “Fine”, and walk away. Meanwhile, I went from anger to tears and back to anger. So, to the pediatrician to consult about behavioral issues and modification. I’m nervous, because with both parents being bipolar, the likelihood of the girls having the same problem is astronomically high, and I’m not keen on putting my kids on meds. I’m hoping that if they are diagnosed as bipolar, or ADD, or something like that, there’s a way to avoid meds. I just don’t want to start them down that path this young.

The animals also need attention as well, particularly the gliders, because they won’t stay tame without human interaction, as evidenced by the Dragons. As I’ve said before, they’re one step up from feral. One very short step! I don’t want the others to regress that badly either. So I find time to spend at least an hour with each group. Normally, that means I spend time with one trio and Maverick one night, and the other trio gets me the next night. The girls make an effort to spend time with Stitch, the rabbit, and the dogs are woven throughout the pattern. They’re easy because they have free run of the house and backyard, other than the master bedroom, so they’re not missing anything at any time. Still, making quality time for everyone and keeping up with everything else drastically reduces the time I have for working on Bryony’s bag or for sleeping.

Which explains why I am still up at quarter to five on a Wednesday morning.

Tonight was the Kaos Krew’s night for tent time. We’ve made progress in some areas, not enough in others. We have reached a point where all three of them run to me for comfort and safety when something startles them, and their idea of fun in the tent is to use me as their personal jungle gym, which means they’re all over me, including up in my hair. What we have not learned is that it’s not nice to bite me. Zoe, in particular, has a penchant for biting my fingers and toes. I invariably forget to put socks on when going into the tent with them–every time. And of course, it doesn’t take long for Zoe to figure that out and make a beeline for my toes when she thinks I won’t notice. Yes, she did get me once tonight. You would think, as often as she does it, I would have learned to never forgo socks. Even Aneira has learned that, and she doesn’t spend as much time with them as I do. She puts shoes on to go in the tent, yet I can never remember to put on socks. Go figure. But at least we’re making progress on bonding, which is all to the good. That means that at some point, the biting will stop. I hope.

Please, please, wish me luck on getting this bag finished in time. After that, I think I’m done with crocheting for a little while!

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Petaurus Playtime

Sweet little Maverick

Petaurus breviceps means “short-headed rope dancer”, which means sugar glider. And playtime has taken a new turn. Many people in the glider community recommend small camping tents as a safe place for gliders to play with their humans, zipped inside. So I ordered one a while back, apparently from China or some such, given the time it took to get here. If it came from China, it made good time. If it came from the States, not so much. But I wanted an inexpensive, small tent, and that’s what I got. $19 for what is supposed to be a two-person pop-up tent.

I had to laugh when I got it today. First off, my understanding of “pop-up” was something like those fabric windshield shades for vehicles, where they come in this round bag, you take them out and they pop into two rectangular pieces of fabric that you place in your windshield. When you’re done, you put them together and grab the two corners diagonally across from each other, twist them in some way I never got the hang of, and they become round things again that fit back in their round bag. That was what I expected: take tent out of bag, already assembled, and it pops up into an instantly usable tent. Apparently I was wrong in my expectations, because what I received is the tent and two disassembled poles that slide into tunnels on the tent and bend, creating a dome tent. I was under the impression that dome tents and pop-up tents were two different things. Whatever the case, it does fit into the section of the bedroom that houses the cages. Tightly, but it fits. And I’m sure you’re supposed to disassemble it again to put it away after each use, but that, I could see, would rapidly get very old. So what I do is squeeze the two poles together flat, and wedge the whole thing between the cages and the wall, so I just have to pull it out and go in.

The other thing that made me laugh is that you can only call this thing a two-person tent if the two people in question aren’t above the age of eight. There is absolutely no way anyone taller than 4’6″ can comfortably lie down to sleep in it unless they’re in the fetal position, and then there’s only room for one person, unless the second is sleeping literally on top of the first. But for glider playtime, the tent is perfect. And really, for $19, well, I got what I paid for. Fortunately, I didn’t buy it for camping. We have a tent for that, which we haven’t yet used in seven years. It’s a huge, two room monstrosity, either 10′ x 12′, or 10′ x 18′. Massive.

Anyway. Until the tent arrived, we’d been using the bathroom for playtime, and thought we’d pretty much glider proofed the room. The one area we really had to worry about was the vanity. A few years back, when we started renovating the bathroom, the PIP decided to be creative with the new vanity. He bought an antique stereo system, the kind that came housed in its own cabinet, and repurposed the cabinet as a bathroom vanity. He did a fantastic job on it, but it doesn’t sit directly on the floor. It has legs that are about 2″ long, so there’s a space under it that is perfect for gliders who are scared, but not so perfect for the human trying to get them out of said space. We thought to roll up a towel very tightly and wedge it into the openings to keep the gliders out, and it worked…until little Canth figured it out within two minutes of entering the bathroom for the first time since arriving in our house. Half an hour later, playtime in the bathroom ended until last night, which was the first time we ventured into the bathroom in a week. And thankfully, the tent arrived today.

The glider play tent

I can’t say that the first tent playtime session was a rousing success. It wasn’t horrible, and wasn’t fantastic either. The Dragons went first because they’re the hardest to deal with, not having been handled for so long. They are one short step up from feral, and it’s going to be a good, long while before we manage to gain their trust. I’ve finally got them taking treats from my hands, and tonight was the first time little Ruth climbed up on me, which is a step in the right direction, but they weren’t sure what to think about this new structure. Mnementh was the only one who wasn’t actually stressed out.

After the Dragons went back to their cage, it was Maverick’s turn. Of all of them, he’s the one who has been handled so much by his previous owner that he’s pretty much unfazed by any human being in his orbit. He’s got the sweetest personality of the seven, and he doesn’t so much bite as nibble on you. It doesn’t even hurt.

Well, as unfazed as he is by people, he was not so calm about the tent. Holy cow. I’ve never seen him move so fast. He had a complete panicky meltdown. The second I sat down in the tent, he swarmed up my arm to my shoulder so fast that I couldn’t track him with my eyes, poor little guy. It took him about fifteen minutes to calm down, but even then, if I brushed against the tent in any way, he freaked and was right back up on my shoulder.

So not a resounding success, but not an epic fail, either. I think they’ll all eventually get used to the tent as time goes on, and I’m much more comfortable with not having to take them out of the room to play, and with the overall safety of the tent. Not bad for less than twenty dollars!

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And Then There Were Seven

I said no. I said it twice over. And then I said yes, and the three newest gliders arrived last night, bringing my total to seven. My bedroom looks like a zoo exhibit. There are currently five occupied cages in my bedroom. Five. In my bedroom.

But I’m getting ahead of my story, here. First, let me tell you how this all went down last night. It was quite the adventure!

The gliders were shipped in from out of state, so they came by plane. My friend, who coordinated everything, was to take possession of the gliders when the flight came in at 7:15, so I drove her to the airport. So far, so good. We got there in time, and she went in to baggage claims while I drove back around to the cell phone parking lot, which is a bit away from anything. Behind it is woodland, and in front of it is a hedgerow and trees, so as you’re passing it, it’s pretty much hidden. Since there are signs at Arrivals stating no waiting, it’s the only other place you can wait for someone. Well, okay, fine.

My friend calls me a bit later and says there’s a problem. Ten gliders were shipped. Two were going to Ohio, and eight to Colorado. The airline, which shall remain nameless, mixed up the carriers. So the two for Ohio were in Colorado, while our gliders were still in transit to Ohio. Oh, boy. And all of the gliders have been in small containers for hours with only enough food to get them to where they were going. Now we have an issue. My friend is working with the airline to resolve it and get everyone to where they’re supposed to be. Shouldn’t take long to resolve, and ours will arrive tomorrow (today) instead, early in the morning. Okay, no problem, I’ll circle the airport a bit. It’s now dark, and the cell phone lot–the nearly invisible-from-the-road lot–is empty. Well, I’m not turning myself into a sitting duck in an empty parking lot where no one can see if there’s trouble, and I haven’t seen a single security person the whole time I was sitting there. Time to drive around the airport. It doesn’t take very long to circle it; Colorado Springs Municipal Airport is one of the smallest I’ve ever seen. Okay, scratch that: for a commercial airport, it is the smallest I’ve ever seen!

Time passes, and my friend calls again. The carrier containing the two Ohio-bound gliders is actually a cat carrier with two smaller boxes inside. Hamster cages, actually. These two need to come out and stretch their legs and food needs to be found for them. Problem: gliders that don’t know you are not going to stay with you, you can’t leash them, and the bar spacing on the cat carrier is such that they can conceivably squeeze out and get loose, so what do you do? You get a ton of zip ties and start creating your own “bars” to keep them from entertaining that idea. So she is now zip tying the carrier door, and airline personnel have gone in search of baby food at one of the airport shops. I hate to think of what an airport charges for baby food!

I’m beginning to get a little concerned. Aneira has already Skyped me to ask what’s going on and why am I not home yet. I explain what’s happening to my family…my extremely patient family. By this point, I have stopped circling the airport and am now parked in front of Arrivals, where I am not supposed to be. However, as I mentioned before, I was not inclined to sit in the cell phone lot anymore, and I was also not inclined to waste anymore gas. I’m not driving an economy car, I’m driving a very thirsty truck. I tell my friend all is well–and it is; my family is okay as long as they’re kept up to date–and do what she must, I’ll be here.

More time passes, and by now we are closing on 11 pm. My friend calls again. While in the process of zip tying the carrier door, she has managed to rip her thumbnail past the quick rather badly, so she needs me to come in and help with the ties. Okay, where can I park the truck? The guy in baggage tells her to have me park in the employee parking lot and enter the building from there. So I drive over there, and as I enter, I see a sign that informs me that parking there is by permit only. All vehicles not displaying said permit will be towed. This justifiably worries me, as I am not an employee and therefore do not possess any such permit. I call my friend and pass on the information, and the baggage gentleman says no worries, it’s okay. So I park, and hobble my way across an expanse the length of which rivals a football field. This is a long walk for me, and my hip has no qualms about telling me so.

Inside baggage, I commence zip tying the rest of the carrier door so that we can let these poor babies have a touch more space than what is available in a hamster cage. Once this is done, we can release the two gliders into it, feed them, then hurry on home, because the airline has redeemed itself somewhat: because these two arrived early, and my friend was smart enough to open the carrier to ensure all was well, she was able to quickly tell them we had the wrong carrier, and the airline was able to catch their flight in the air and halt their progress in Chicago. And fortunately for all involved, there was a flight coming to Denver that was leaving ten minutes later. The airline managed to get our gliders on that flight, and gave my friend vouchers for the taxi that she was going to take to Denver and back to pick them up. The flight was due to land a little after midnight; it was currently about 11:30.

Dealing with eight strange gliders is a lot to ask of anyone, so my friend told me that, to cut down on everyone’s stress, she would bring me my trio as soon as she got back to the Springs, which would be at 4 am. As I still had a cage to put together, with no illusions that it was going to be easy, I’d already figured on being up that late anyway, so I agreed.

I came home and wrestled the cage into submission for about two hours, then joined the PIP in front of the television for a bit, until my friend calls and says she’s back, and could I instead come to her house to help her with the other five gliders as well as pick up my own. Naturally, I went, helped her out, and collected my boys.

Can you imagine what their shipping containers smelled like after housing animals all day long?! Yeah, “rank and reeking” doesn’t even begin to cover it. The shipping containers went directly into the garbage after releasing their tenants into the new cage. It was quarter to five.

Now, being a mom, I have one superpower that works most of the time: I have the ability to tune out anything but bloodshed. I subconsciously recognize the tone of the scream I am hearing. I know when it’s simply that Bryony is angry at her big sister, and when it is something worse that I need to address myself. This ability works on the pets as well, so if the dogs bark in the middle of the night, unless there’s some urgency to it, I will sleep right through it.

My superpower went on vacation this morning.

The Kaos Krew started it, by barking–constantly–for two hours, thereby causing the boys to bark back. At this point, the rabbits decided to add their two cents by thumping their back legs very loudly. Normally, only one member of the Krew barks at a time, and only for a little while. This ruckus drove us to sleeping in the basement. It was 5:30 in the morning. Furballs 1; humans, 0.

The three new additions are all considered “half-tails”, although only one actually has anything approaching half a tail. The other two have considerably less than half a tail. We were told that one of them was a birth defect, and the reasons for the other two having only half tails is unknown, as they were rescues. It doesn’t appear to bother the fuzzies in question though.

They have all received new names. This time, I went with a dragon theme. I have read and reread Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series any number of times since I was a kid, and still do. She was a fantastic writer, and, really, who wouldn’t want a dragon?? So, the glider with the longest tail is Mnementh, the medium tail is Canth, and the smallest tail is Ruth. If you’re familiar with the books, you’ll recognize the logic. In the books, Mnementh is the largest male dragon on Pern. Bronze dragons are second in size only to the golden queen dragons. Canth, in the books, is a brown dragon, which is the next size down from bronze and are also all males. Then there are the blues, then greens, and then there is Ruth, who is the only white dragon ever on Pern. He’s a sport, the smallest existing dragon. His story, The White Dragon, was the first one I ever read. So there you have it!

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LPCS

Maverick’s cage, complete with adorable cage set. He’s very happy with it!

I know, the title is a bit confusing, so allow me to explain: LPCS stands for Lay’s Potato Chip Syndrome. This refers back to the commercial that says you can’t have just one. The same goes for other things in life, and that brings me to our lives. You can’t have just one sugar glider. Yes, LPCS has taken over my house. Sort of. We’re drawing the line now.

Since Maverick’s arrival (Yes, the name remains. It was put to a vote, and two of my children’s favorite people voted in favor of Maverick. And I promised to abide by the ruling of the second person, so the name stays.), three more gliders in need have been brought to my attention. Well, actually it was eleven, but three of the eight males are coming to us. Quite soon, as it happens. That puts us at seven. Five males, two females, and, for the moment, three cages. The plan is still to acclimate the original members of the Kaos Krew to Mav, and move him in with them…eventually. The other three are already bonded to each other, and will have their own cage.

The funny thing is that the PIP called it a week ago. He said this would happen, and I blithely told him no. I was ending it at four. We didn’t need any more.  He suggested that I make room for another cage, because he was sure there would be more. I laughed at him.

Look where I am now.

When I sheepishly ate crow and told him about the three boys, he only laughed. He’d expected it because I’d mentioned them before. I had actually said no to taking them, initially. Twice over. And initially, they were set to go to other homes. But both homes fell through, and I was told how bad things were for them, and I weakened. I couldn’t help it. I saw pictures, and gave in.

The thing is, gliders are incredibly easy to care for, once you have the essentials. If you have the ability to make their diet, which is made up of things you eat anyway, and they have a large enough cage, and you have time to spend with them each day, it’s not difficult at all. They’re considerably less messy than my rabbits, and less smelly, by a long mile, and cleaning their cages is a lot easier. Paper towels in the catch tray, which you throw out every other day and replace with more, or cut a piece of fleece to size, and shake it out every other day, then wash while another piece of fleece replaces the dirty one. Hardcore cleaning once a week, for which I have a steamer. Add the fact that they’re frigging adorable, and there you go.

Having them leap to the front of the cage to see you every time you walk through the door is gratifying. Hearing them bark makes you go “Awwwww” every time. And watching them “ride the lightning” on the wheel makes us all laugh. The largest expense has been housing, and that, too, can be accomplished pretty inexpensively if you keep a weather eye on Craigslist.

This is not to say that it can’t be expensive. You have to have a vet accustomed to sugar gliders, for one thing, and sugar gliders from breeders can run anywhere from $250 to $1500 for one animal. And since they don’t do well as singles, then you’d have to figure on spending $500-$3000 for a pair. I’ve been lucky–all of mine are rehomes/rescues.

This is also not to say that it’s all fairytales. Gliders are nocturnal, which means they’re noisy at night. All night. Again, I’ve been lucky there: mine, on their own hook, have changed their schedules. When they arrived, they would get up at ten or eleven and stay up until about six am. Now they get up around four am, and stay awake until about four pm. And, of course, it takes time to create a bond with them. It’s not like a puppy, kitten, dog, or cat, who will pretty much warm up to you right away. It can take years to bond with a glider. My first three still bite me. Maverick has been handled so much by his previous owner that he pretty much doesn’t nip at all.

My bedroom, though, looks like a zoo exhibit. Currently, there are two large glider cages, two rabbit cages, and four spare cages inhabiting the room, with the third glider cage soon to be moved in. Fortunately, the master bedroom is a huge room, but I’m going to probably get rid of all but two of the spare cages soon. The larger spare will be kept as a hospital cage in case one ever becomes ill, and the smaller will be a travel cage for trips to the vet. All others will go to new homes.

You know where you can really get in trouble with gliders? Accessorizing. There are any number of adorable bonding pouches out there for sale, and tons of people making cage sets that are equally adorable. And, well, it’s necessary to have another cage set on hand while the first is in the laundry, right? And they love toys. Fisher Price toys are always a hit. So are large Lego toys. And large branches and long chains for climbing. My glider cages are more brightly, gaily colored than the rest of the room.

But this time, I really am drawing the line. When it was ferrets, I stopped at six. With the gliders, I’m stopping at seven. Enough really is enough.

In crafty news, I have redone Aneira’s bag, and am beginning on the shoulder strap now. I reversed the colors this time, making the variegated yarn the background, and the pink yarn the pattern. As you probably saw in my last post. The holes are in place for the drawstring, and I managed not to add any stitches this time. The only thing I still didn’t get right is the base, which still cupped as I made it. I blew it off, figuring that this child is going to load the bag with all her junk anyway, and the bottom is going to cup no matter what with all the weight. Give me a couple of days, and it’ll be finished completely. Then I can focus my attention on Bryony’s bag. And finishing the first crocheted glider toy.

I really hope the kids can appreciate all the love and effort that’s going into this. I know Bryony probably won’t, as she’s the baby, but she might surprise me. She loves her crocheted blankets because I made them. Aneira is old enough that she should understand, especially if Bryony does.

Well, it’s time to get the littles fed for the night…Maverick, at least, will be up soon!

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Settling In

Front, l-r: Inara and Mal
Rear: Zoe

The littles appear to be adjusting pretty well to their new home, and the kids and I, at least, are thoroughly in love with them. Not so sure about the PIP, after last night lol.

I crashed early, primarily because the girls, who are currently enjoying a four-day weekend, have spent so much time fighting that the headache I had got exponentially worse due to yelling at children. Lately, they literally cannot get along for more than two minutes at a time. It’s been like this all summer, and has continued into the new school year. When I pick them up in the afternoon, they have not seen each other all day. Before I’m even off the school’s street, which is fairly short, they are already at it. In the truck, I generally make my displeasure known by turning up the radio. I don’t have that option at home. So listening to not only the fighting itself, but the many and varied complaints of one child about the other–because once Mama has yelled, it is now necessary to bring a suit against the other combatant and cite how she was looking at the other one, etc.–and then trying to settle them both down because they are escalating further as they each recite their respective litanies of horrible things the other sister has done to them, and then the tweenage attitude of Aneira because she doesn’t want to hear anything that doesn’t follow what she wants (at the rate she is going, her teenage years are going to be a nightmare, and I will run away from home)…I’m sure you get the idea.

So a couple of times a week, since the accident last May, I get headaches, and last night was one of those nights. The PIP took over the children and I fell asleep with the lights on, because falling asleep wasn’t actually my intention; it just kind of happened. I woke up again around 1 am because the PIP was visiting the finally awake littles. He was grinning over at me, telling me how cute they were being, and he wanted me to let one of them out. They make him nervous because they’re so tiny. Well, okay. I carefully opened the cage door. Zoe and Mal leapt away like they’d been scalded, but Inara leapt for my shoulder. As she landed, she urinated down my arm. For such tiny animals, they can produce a copious amount of pee! The PIP started to laugh at me, but Inara wasn’t done. She ran from one shoulder to the other and launched herself at him, landing on his shoulder and peeing down his back. As I said, copious. I wouldn’t have thought she’d had anything left, but their bladders seem to operate the way a male dog’s does. So at this point the PIP was yelping, “Get it off! Get it off!” Inara jumped back onto my arm and from there into the cage, apparently well-satisfied with her evening’s work, and the PIP ran for the shower. I just started to laugh, which really isn’t fair, since I did forget to warn him about sugar gliders going to the bathroom anywhere. He knows the rabbits do it, but they’re not generally doing it on his person!

I’ve read, over and over, and heard from owners in various glider groups, how noisy gliders are once they’re up for the night, and I don’t know what it is, if it’s because they’re still settling in or what, but I haven’t noticed it much. In all honesty, my rabbits make more noise. Certainly Blue does!!! Stitch is more the quiet type, but Blue does his level best to annoy. I’m convinced he does it on purpose. And Stitch has his moments too, but not as often as Blue does. In comparison, the littles are as quiet as church mice. Only once have I been awakened by a barking glider, and probably could have gone right back to sleep, but a barking glider is an awake glider, which is an opportunity for me to giggle, which meant I stayed up for two hours with them.

On the Yule present front, I am currently ripping back several rows of Bryony’s bag because I realized I had made a couple of mistakes in coloration, and I also can’t get the left side diagonal line to look the same as the right side diagonal. So it’s back to the drawing board there. Fortunately, the two bookmarks I’m tatting for them are going well, as is the other bag, so I’m thankful for small favors there!! I can’t wait for them to go back to school tomorrow, not only because I am heartily sick of the constant bickering, but also because it means that I won’t have unexpected visitors walking in on me working on Yule gifts! That’s been an issue. Fortunately they haven’t seen much!

Well, I guess I’d better get off the computer and commence with the chores of the day, such as laundry. If I don’t do it now, my own clothes will never make it to the washing machine!!!

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Family Expansion

Inara, the mom…I think.

No, I most certainly did not have another child, much as I wish I could, but we did expand the family by three this weekend!!

I’ve always been fascinated by, and wanted to have, sugar gliders. They are disgustingly cute little animals. I’d seen other people with them, and we briefly touched on them in school during the exotic animals portion of the curriculum (and when I say “briefly”, I mean it–there was only one chapter on gliders), but the purchase price for one was always extremely high, at least as far as what I ran into every time I looked for one, and then on top of that was the cost of purchasing and accessorizing a cage, which itself can be an additional few hundred dollars more. With a dog, you can opt to get only the dog, a collar, a leash, and food and water bowls. It’s far from an ideal scenario, but you could, in theory, do exactly that, not that I ever have. I’ve crate-trained–or attempted to, as Vanir has been particularly resistant to the idea–all of my dogs, and I have spent a fair share of my money on never-used dog beds (mine is apparently better), grooming tools (why, hu-mom, why?), and barely-touched dog toys of all kinds.

You don’t have the option of a bare-minimum approach with small animals, especially if there are other, larger animals in residence. The cage is an absolute necessity, even before the animal you’re going to install in it.

Zoe, the baby

Once upon a time, I had ferrets. Six of them, to be exact: Loki, Timon, Khian, Ralph, Alysheba, and Brandy. I made a three hour drive from Long Island to New Jersey to buy a custom cage from a family who built the cages and themselves were owned by 40 of these little troublemakers. I drove home with the cage strapped to the top of my much-loved 1977 Chevy Malibu. When my mother found out, she pretty much had a belated heart attack, but that’s another story altogether. Suffice it to say, she was not happy.

Some animals are born escape artists. Ferrets are among them. Not all of them, of course, but there are enough within the species that it’s a rote caution when buying one to be warned that this tendency exists. Of my six, only one qualified. Their cage being built by someone who was well experienced with ferret capabilities, I thought I was safe. Khian was dead set on proving me wrong, and did so on many occasions, managing to work himself out of the cage and come find me every night for weeks until I finally figured out how he was doing it and solved the problem. But above all, ferrets are mischievous and playful, and they remain that way into old age.

Sugar gliders remind me of them. And for some reason, they also make me think of the fire lizards in Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series of books. I don’t know why, especially as we’re talking mammals here, not lizards, but that’s what they make me think of.

Anyway, a good friend of mine let me know last week about a family of gliders that needed to be rehomed. Their human family is military and got orders to a state where gliders are still illegal. Mom, daughter, and neutered dad would come with everything: cage, toys, food, everything needed to start out with gliders, and the cost would be minimal compared to what I would have paid if I had gone about getting everything one at a time from different sources. Still more than I had available on short notice, but between me and the previous owners, we worked it out, and the trio came to their new home on September 2nd!

I can’t even begin to explain what a ride the last two days have been. Well, the last week, really. I joined every single online glider group I could find. I put books on my Kindle. I nailed my friend with every question I could think of. I started researching diets. I am armed, but far from dangerous…I will probably be asking questions for a good long while!

Zoe, again

Being the good little Firefly geek that I am, they have been named Mal, Inara, and Zoe. They are tiny little handfuls of joy and utter chaos. Playtime takes place in the bathroom, because it is the only room that can be completely shut off from the rest of the house and in which, as long as the toilet is closed and the tub or sink is not full, there is nothing which they can use to get into trouble. We bring a few toys in, then we bring in the gliders.

It’s like two people trying to play tennis with three balls all at the same time. Gliders never stop moving, unless they’re asleep. If they’re out to play, and you are supervising multiples, it’s a hilarious comedy. Even with Aneira and I both in the bathroom, and possessing one more hand over the number of gliders, we wind up just keeping an eye out for potential trouble and let them wreak havoc until they’re tired…which takes awhile. We’ve been peed and pooped on, and it hasn’t put us off. I guess that’s to be expected with me, who chose to become a vet tech fully knowing that such things could and would occur, probably daily, but for my fastidious Aneira, I was amazed that she handled it very well, and still loves the gliders!

Bryony still hasn’t really been allowed to do anything with them. Being younger and more hyper, she’s likely to terrify such tiny animals. Right now, we’re letting them settle in, and during the day, I carry them around my neck in their bonding pouch while they sleep. The dogs are endlessly fascinated, but they’ve been ousted from the bedroom unless supervised. Love my dogs, but don’t trust them an inch with tiny animals.

Just watching them jump all over their cage has been so much fun, and makes it so hard to leave them be, but I know they need the time to get used to us. Still, I just keep thinking of the old Looney Toons character–a Yeti?–picking up Bugs Bunny and saying “I will love him and hug him and squeeze him and I will call him George.” That pretty much sums up how in love with these three I am!!

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