Everything's on fire, with no rain on the way.

Photo copyright Aji, 2021; all rights reserved.

It feels like everything's on fire, with no rain on the way.

Actually, if the forecast is to be believed, there is rain on the way starting tomorrow, and possibly snow later in the week, but as always, it's a matter of needing to see it to believe it. After last night's smoky sunset, the wind kicked up and the weather site insisted it was raining here, but NOPE. 

And, of course, the real "rain" we need is enough to pay for what's likely to be four figures' worth of radiology screening this week.

::Sigh:: I finally bit the bullet this morning and talked to Wings about it. I still soft-pedaled it because it upsets him so much to think I might be in any kind of danger from anything ever. But the changes just since Thursday are drastic and therefore alarming, and I didn't want him blindsided by it.

Tomorrow I'll call first thing and schedule the tests. It's more than one thing, and this initial visit is likely to come at ~$1,600 cash up front at the very lowest; if they have to do one of the immediate follow-ups, which we fully expect they will, that will raise the total to $2,500 or more (maybe even a lot more). I have to pay them before they take me back to the imaging room. So I have to have that much at least available to give them right off the bat. which means I have today and tomorrow to sell two cuffs, or two necklaces, or a belt, or a buckle and a pair of earrings, or some other combination of his work that will bring in enough to cover all it.

If it comes back the way all the evidence suggest it will? Survival is going to be a whole lot more expensive than that. Yes, I'm scared. On both fronts, medical and financial. I can't afford the travel, for one, never mind the treatment protocols or the surgery.

We need sales. Sales, sales, SALES. That's it; that's all; that's everything right now. Please, I'm begging folks:  Share our links, and if you're in the market, keep Wings's work in mind for purchases. 

There's still the plumbing repairs to pay for this week, remember. And it's got to be done now; it can't wait any longer. We're haing them come out tomorrow to spec it, and then we'll schedule them around my medical stuff. Found out yesterday, by accident, that the grant money for the well is a no; they couldn't even be bothered to notify anybody but the "winners," and that was more than a month ago. But since we have not been notified, that's our answer right there. I don't know how to make this happen now. Every time I try, something else emergent crops up, and this time it's a bad one, both in potential outcome and in costs. And yes, two nights ago, somebody tried to harm us, and me specifically, by reporting this site as a dangerous site that tries to steal people's data, which is absurd by any measure but apparently stalkerish colonizer hatred knows no bounds; they tried it with my FB last week, too. I'm so tired: of the pain and the fatigue and the grief and the loss and the fear, now very real and present fear plus anticipatory fear, too, and all these years later, I'm STILL dealing with a sociopath who wants to hurt us for the "fun" of it.

The last couple of years have required us to dig deep and ante up to help others at a level we've never done before. This year? The first month and a half of 2021? Had already buried that, and we're a whole lot more "mutual aid" beyond that point now. People are suffering. And I'm going to have to do some fundraising for a couple of other folks on here in the days and weeks to come. If we had money, we'd just give it to these folks outright, but the kind they need is way beyond anything we'll ever be able to do, hence the need to help with fundraising.

But as I said about that being why we do what we do, especially now in these days of pandemic, it's become abundantly clear that too often, there IS NO tomorrow, and the only chance you might have to help someone stay alive is TODAY. Things are bad locally; no economy, nothing. We have lost SO much to 2020 (and already in 2021 including a distant relative-by-marriage we learned of a few weeks ago, a brilliant Native artist whose death has hit Wings hard, plus another person from here related to a friend of ours, a third person walked on just days ago, plus another of Wings's contemporaries gravely ill now), so very, very many people, and the gifts and the talents and the knowledge and the wisdom they carried too often lost with them. People have needed so much more help than we could give them, but we did as much as we could, even when it put us in a bind, and we will need to do much more of that this year. People continue to need help, and we give it, but we're up well over $2 grand in just one week in February, and a whole lot more both before and since. Now, I'm staring down the barrel of likely $2,500 in immediate costs, and a likely eventual 6 figures thereafter (so yes, some of y'all have already guessed what this likely is, but I'm not discussing it with specificity until we know for sure, and then I will not be entertaining unneeded "advice"). So:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (priorities are LaminaSaver for Miika [she's set until August] & metal/glass/dishwasher cleaners);
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

And if you've been contemplating a purchase? This would be a very, very good time to do it; I've got to make up this staggering outlay somehow. There's lots of fabulous new work, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.