PayPal, Painting, and Puppies.

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

So I guess it’s National Puppy Day. In lieu of new house pix, have a photo from a couple of weeks or so ago of one of the neighborhood strays. This is the puppy who sat a watch for Cree on her first night in her new resting place. It turns out that “he” is actually she, and she has grown a lot in the past month. She has also had her first heat, despite being probably no more than six months of age, and I rather suspect that her ravening hunger, coupled with an otherwise apparently healthy body weight, means that she is already pregnant. Not by Raven, who shoots blanks, but given her skittish but very real attachment to us and to all things here, if she is pregnant, I’ll be very interested to see what the puppies look like. Griffin’s one-year anniversary is three weeks away; if one of the puppies channels him . . . . (No, I don't mean that Grif would be the father; that's impossible on multiple grounds. I'm speculating about the presence of his spirit.) She's here every day now (her [non-blood] sibling, a little less frequently), and so given that we've had to call her something besides "PuppyGirl," for the moment, at least, it's Esiban, which in my language means "Raccoon." When she looks at you straight on, the black rings around her eyes are more pronounced, like a little raccoon mask. She seems to like the name; she answers to it, even if she won't come close enough for us to pet her yet. She's clearly been abused by humans, making her very afraid, but she also wants very badly to be part of a pack — specifically, our pack.

I may not get to post this tonight. We have a little snow, which means, natch, that Indian Killer Telecom is worse than useless. We have TV, but no Web browsing or e-mail at the moment; it's gone in and out, on and off, for the last hour or two, and for what they charge, that’s absolutely absurd. We also learned, a month or so ago, that they screwed up the install for the new house, and it will require a very makeshift and unreliable fix. It’s unacceptable, but there’s nothing we can do; they effed it up and we found out after the fact when the state inspector came out a few weeks ago. He and the IKT guy got an earful. I am so very, very tired of half-assery.

I'm also tired of dealing with complications on the house, including this week's development of downing our fundraising site, but I don't have any choice but to keep moving forward, no matter how difficult people try to make it for us to do so. PayPal is apparently our one solution now. Thanks to the latest donations, we were able to go into town to the hardware store to pick up some more supplies today, and we'll be able to cover the additional lath and Structolite and next week's labor costs, but we have a long way to go on this house. So here is the PayPal link. For sales, here's the link to Wings's site, which has some fabulous new works available on it. And for the Lowe's cards, for supplies and materials like flooring and cabinetry and appliances that are far more expensive to buy here than from a national chain, here's the Amazon wishlist. If all goes well this weekend, I'll have photos from painting what will be our bedroom to post by Sunday; if all goes well next week, I'll have photos of the guys doing the interior plasterwork to post then.

Many thanks to everyone for your ongoing support, especially in the face of recent complications and setbacks. We are going forward, no matter the odds and obstacles. Wings's health (and mine, too) require that I do nothing less.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.