Christmas Eve skies and late December melancholy. Sales/shares needed.

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

And . . . and update of sorts: On my way upstairs to take a shower, I told Wings to look out the windows of the guest room. Ice had not forgotten either, apparently. To the west-northwest, the clouds had shifted again, coalesced in a whole new way, in the form of the sandhill cranes that are my namesake, brilliant white whorled with soft gray and stretched full-length as they raced across the sky. The characteristic head and bill shape in the clouds was unmistakable, as were the legs and feet outstretched beneath wingspan and tailfeathers. These were, of course, much larger than the real thing, but what else to expect from spirit birds? Perhaps these are the spirits that for us preside over this night.

Christmas Eve skies. No snow, and not quite a sun dog; just a trick of the iPad and the light. 

It's been a melancholy day. Part of it is just the continual problems with my health, and the obstacles they create. I'm stuck with what few nitro I had left to last me two weeks, thanks to a bad screw-up involving both my doctor's office and the pharmacy. I walked out in tears, because I'm now even more limited than I would've been. No answers, no solutions, just stop-gap stuff and the terrifying reality that one of these times could be it, since, in spite of everything, except for knowing that my heart itself is clear, no one knows anything more than they did six weeks ago.

But part of it is the day and time. This is a difficult time anyway, from the 17th through the 28th, particularly. Nizise, Wings's father. Janet. Carter. Lin. And while his date of departure was August 6th of this year, the day Ice came to us four years ago was this one. Christmas Eve, at exactly this time of day. He is forever intertwined with . . . well, all four of those who've walked on, all of whom we loved dearly, and I find myself sobbing over Ice when it's really over all five of them.

It's also been disturbing today to see the number of homeless seeking a few bucks here and there for food and shelter, and how thin and hole-filled the alleged safety net actually is. It's nothing that will keep folks warm tonight. Oh, we got a warm-up, so it won't be the -6 that was predicted, but the new forecast of 17 is still dangerous if you're out in it with nowhere to go. [And for me right now, with this going on, it's dangerous enough that we can't go to the Pueblo for the Christmas Eve celebration, either, which is another source of melancholy.] We gave the last couple of dollars we could spare to the gentleman who stands at the corner of the blinking light, dressed daily in thread bare trousers and well-worn shoes, a white shirt and a necktie, and now a thin red Santa cap. He wants work, I think, and wants people to know that he's respectable, and he's probably living out of his battered truck and he insists on dignity in a society that refuses to recognize his own, and it all breaks my heart. ::Sigh:: we have done what we could for who we could this week, and that is our Christmas offering to whatever of our spirits preside over such things, and it will have to be enough.

Even so, this last week of the year will be hard, even if everything goes as well as possible. Forget what remains to be done on the house for now. We need to make some sales. A lot of them. But sales are not just what's going to keep me alive and Wings healthy; it's going to help other folks, too. Given the circumstances, I'm leaving up the donation link, too, and the registries have some new items on then, mostly lower-priced, to replace stuff damaged by the RV or given away when we first moved into it seven years ago. So please share our links:

• Wings's direct PayPal link;
• Wings's site, for sales;
• Wayfair gift cards, to replenish all the furnishings that the RV has destroyed in one way or another.
• Partial registry #1, from Bed, Bath and Beyond. There are new kitchen-y things on it now, stuff that I didn't realize we'd need to replace (either because the RV ruined it or because we gave it away when we had to downsize).
• Partial registry #2, from Wayfair. Still waiting for them to resolve this fulfillment/shipping problem they have with their site. Even so, I've added some things (kitchen/dining room stuff mostly), most of which are comparatively reasonably priced. Now, it's going to be mostly odds and ends that make this place more liveable, because of the sheer volume of stuff destroyed by too many years in the RV (e.g., by the oven and stovetop, by the wiring, by the water, by the mold, etc.), or that we simply gave away seven years ago because we had no room and no place to put them and despaired of ever being able to use them again. A CHANGE ABOUT WAYFAIR:  NO MORE CROWDFUNDING. Their Web site coding is bad, and it will not permit crowdfunded items to ship. Items purchased outright arrive in two business days, but you can't even get the others out of the warehouse. 

As I've also been saying, I am still catching up, and will be now for a while. But this is the holiday season, and the sales/commissions from these few weeks are what keep us alive throughout the whole long winter and spring months (to say nothing of what's in the offing medically), so please continue to share the links. And please refer folks to Wings's site (and if you have an endorsement, too, so much the better). I'll be trying, slowly but, I hope, steadily, to get caught up over the course of this week. We have some massive expenses coming down the pike, and a lot of testing yet to be done before I'm out of the woods. So please keep sharing all our links. For now, I'm just so damn grateful to be alive, to have a healthy heart, to be back home with the love of my life and our dogs, the whole world is beautiful, even in spite of my terrible depression. Thanks again, to everybody, and we love you all.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.