Friday, April 3, 2020

Clearing skies. No rest from the wind, though.

Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved.

Clearing skies. No rest from the trickster wind, though.

Another gust just ripped through here as I was typing those words, a reminder that we're also not safe from more ordinary risks now, either.

At the moment, though, the biggest risk to our well-being is not the wind, or even what's free-floating on it, but the lack of sales that have resulted from it. And, of course, how we're going to survive — not this quasi-quarantine, but the rest of the year.

Everything here is canceled, and as of this morning, there's a curfew in effect. No one (excluding "essential personnel," obviously) allowed outside between the hours of 10 PM and 6 AM. And it needed to happen, because we're now up to 12 confirmed cases as of yesterday, and at 33.4%, the highest per-capita ratio of the entire state, and people are still not taking it seriously.

But that presents long-term problems for us, and for a lot of folks. The whole economy of this county is based around tourism, and the reality for Indigenous folks here is that there will NO economy for us, none at least for the duration of the summer, and at this rate?  Probably not all year. No tourism, no art markets, no ability to sell. Most of our clientele has moved to online patronage now, so we are hit less hard than most. But the four sales we've had so far this year? That might be all we get. We'll be fine for a while, having stocked up on food and supplies and firewood and so forth. But the bills still have to get paid, and honestly? If we don't start making some sales soon, I don't know how we survive the year.

Four (yes! we had one Thursday) sales are not going to keep us alive, and we still have taxes and other expenses to pay. Just to cover all of the outgo over recent weeks, I need to bring in about $5,000 fast; I've got to make sure we can get through the rest of the year. So please share all of our links, because while we're all in isolation? Income is already nothing, and we can survive the isolation, but not the inability to feed the maw of all the billsThe links are here:
Note: For now, please don't buy anything off the Amazon wishlist; to do so would be crossing a picket line, and some of their workers have struck this morning to fight for safer working conditions because their lives are being put at even greater risk during this pandemic. If you find one of the items elsewhere, wonderful (I found a lovely convection bread machine with a GF setting via Crate and Barrel online, but I can't justify the cost, at least not now; we haven't had anything like the kind of sales that would permit that), but for the duration of the strike, please don't buy anything off the list from there. 

Other than that, please share everything. Thanks.


All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used 
or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

No comments:

Post a Comment