Monday, May 2, 2022

Talk about lying down on the job.

Photo copyright Aji, 2022; all rights reserved.

Mr. Snek, hangin' out under the mower in the hay barn yesterday.

Snakes are supposed to bring prosperity. Instead, we got news this morning that our debit card info was stolen (not hacked; stolen by a vendor, but who knows which one), and they've already charged $300 worth of Uber rides on it. Our friend who works at the bank knew immediately that they were fraudulent charges.

There's no Uber here.

So we're dealing with that mess this morning and the process of trying to claw it all back. 

Talk about lying down on the job. Mr. Bullsnake and I might need to have a little discussion about this.

And our world is still in flames.

Multiple new starts over the weekend, plus loss of containment both on the Hermit's Peak/Calf Canyon Complex to the south and east of us, which is now spreading again in all directions, and on the Cerro Pollado/Freelove Canyon Fires to the west of us. The winds kicked up extra-early today, and reportedly aerial support turned back to base in ABQ, because they can't fly in these winds. That means all firefighting will be left to ground crews, and as someone said yesterday, if it jumps 518, it's all over.

Meanwhile, I'm still struggling with the lupus meds and effects and trying to figure the best way forward, and there are no answers. But the crippling effects are really getting to me now, and I'm beginning to think that I'm better off not taking them if all it's going to be is too much pain to walk, constant insomnia, and other effects that force me to stay housebound. But lupus inflicts long-term organ damage, and being unmedicated also means a likely earlier death, so at some point I'm going to have to figure out exactly what I'm willing to trade off for what. I'm leaning strongly toward quality of life over quantity right now.

Despite all of that, and a bunch of other colonizer nonsense too, we were blessed this weekend to make a really good sale, and so we'll be able to cover the most urgent expenses in the weeks to come. But I'm still increasingly disabled, and I can't work if I can't get the pain under control, or get back my ability to walk [mostly] unhindered. That's the point of the extremely costly therapy: rewiring my brain to lower my pain response and let my body start finding ways to heal a little. So we will still need to make steady, consistent sales over the course of the coming months to keep everything above water. Links are here:

  • Sales here
  • Testimonials here
  • Amazon wishlist here (priorities are first and foremost, the other ladder, the Thermacell lanterns [the flies are already out, so the mosquitoes won't be far behind], and the liquid soaps, which prevent our hands from cracking and bleeding given that we're forced to wash them fifty times a day;
  • Patreon here;
  • Ko-fi here.

We're still hoping to put aside enough for a new well when the ground thaws enough to drill in the spring, too, Nah, we've given up on the well. No one's available to drill before the latter half of summer, and the tax burden means we would never be able to afford it anyway. But it's perhaps even more of a good time to make a purchase, because Uncle Sam is a vindictive colonizer, and my current stress levels about paying it all are off the charts. And there's lots of fabulous work, so please share all of the links. 


All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; 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