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| Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. |
One of many tasks from yesterday. Wings did the first half by himself; then, when I finished with the task I was already on, I came out and helped him stack the rest. No, that's nowhere near all of it; just that particular load. And no, that doesn't even scratch the surface of our task list each day. It's getting to be a little annoying seeing all these Virgos bragging about organizing their sock drawers with all this free time, because "free time?" We don't have any. All of this "isolation" is just more work days for us, seven days a week.
And no matter how much work I put into it, it doesn't result in sales. We've had four all year, one each month, and that is not remotely enough to keep us going; especially since it's entirely possible, given what's going on in the world right now, that we might not make another one all year long. We have shelled out SO much this year — on getting ready for what is eventually going to be a formal quarantine situation (yes, it is, and people need to get their heads around that now), on medical expenses, on helping out other folks — that I don't have any confidence in being able to get through the second half of this year. Or even into summer. Right now, I'd like to bring in enough to recoup the $5K+ we had to lay out on all those things and more (we helped a whole bunch of folks with cash to the tune of any absolutely unholy amount, but when it's a matter of shelter and food and basic survival, what are we supposed to do, say no? we can't).
Here's why (and we saw this coming in January):
Everything here is canceled, and as of Wednesday, there's a curfew in effect in town. No one (excluding "essential personnel," obviously) allowed outside between the hours of 10 PM and 6 AM. And it needed to happen, because at 33.4%, we have the highest per-capita ratio of the entire state, and people are still not taking it seriously. We have 13 confirmed cases in Taos County, but that's going to rise over the next two to three weeks. A LOT. Where last week they were projecting more than 500 deaths state-wide from this, that has now been revised drastically upward, to MORE THAN 3,000 DEATHS over a 12-month period. At any given moment, our state-wide population hovers just below or just above 2 million people total. For us, that's HUGE.
And all of this 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. I sure as hell don't know how some of these other folks survive it, especially if we can't help them.
So please share all of our links, because while we're all in isolation? Income is already at virtually nothing, and we can survive the isolation, but not the inability to feed the maw of all the bills. The 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.
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