Difficult.

Photo copyright Aji, 2023; all rights reserved.

It feels like we might actually get some rain. I hope so; we got a short, hard storm yesterday evening, which was useful, but nowhere near enough. And as I said yesterday, I'm tired of watching the world dying around us.

Yesterday was a difficult end to a difficult week (and near the end of a difficult month), seemingly on every front. There's progress, or, rather, there's the potential for progress; nothing yet. But the process of dealing with Wings's dental work is going to be slowed way, way down, because that's how bureaucracies move.

There is a new dentist at IHS. I had already spoken to her on the phone a couple of times, and she bumped up his appointment from next month, squeezing him in at the end of the day yesterday. She understands completely in the ways that the bureaucracy refuses to acknowledge that this is not a "cosmetic" matter, but one of medical necessity, and she had spent time researching his issues in like demographics to find the "magic words" that we all know every so-called "health-care system" in this country requires before they will even entertain examining you. But . . . IHS considers what he needs to be cosmetic, period, no discussion, even though it's very clearly not, because we Natives are far less than even second-class citizens on our own lands. So the question becomes what no one tasked with this has ever been willing to entertain, which is how to get it reclassified. [To be clear: There are people within the system whose job this is; that's NOT the dentist. And yet she's the one doing all of this, trying to get us some help.]

So where things stand now is waiting to hear back from three other providers, one of whom is "in the system," so to speak, one of whom is not but "works with it" somehow, and and third who is outside of it entirely. At issue is exactly what needs to be done and a distinction between two differing final approaches, not just because of cost but because of risk in a diabetic (and in a surging pandemic, i.e., the level of invasiveness involved). She's waiting to hear back from them all now. Depending on what they say, it may involve travel to Santa Fe and Albuquerque, which is extremely hard on us physically (especially the latter). And if that happens? Well, this is all going to take a VERY long time. But it might also buy us some room on the payments, even if the overall cost winds up being the same. He's not happy; he wants to get this done and not have to deal with this disaster (one a decade and a half and more in the making) any longer; I don't want him to have to wait, either, but this is what this country and system do. He's resigned to it, I think.

But that doesn't change the fact that we will have to pay for a great deal of it, and in the meantime, we have to pay for everything else we're facing, from medical bills to regular monthly expenses to quarterly tax prepayments (and I've missed the first two quarters already, obvs). So I have GOT to bring in some sales. I need to boost my Patreon back up, too; it's down more than $300 a month, and for us, that's much too big a hit, one we can't afford. But I can't even get time to write, and I think I'm going to have to stop posting every single day, because aside from the fact that my health is suffering? I can't get anything else done, and I have to bring in sales.

The other day I posted Wings's newest two works, here, both at lower price points than is usual for him. I also posted his newest gemstone-bead trio a week ago, here. Sales have been terribly slow all year, and . . . the possibility of $25K. I don't have any way to solve that outside of making sales, so I'm begging folks, please: All the links are listed below, so please share:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (current priority still the Zero-Odor sprays, because these days we're back to wet dogs again; and the liquid soaps, which we can't get locally); 
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

There's lots of fabulous work on the site, and things are grim here, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2023; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.