A good omen?

Photo copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved.

The tanagers showed up about four days ago: two breeding males in evidence so far. I think they're a little early this year, probably due to the heavy rains and moderate temperatures. A good omen? We've been hoping so.

The weekend was, entirely predictably, awful. Saturday's date is a marker I'd rather forget, and so was yesterday; at least those two are behind me for another year. But speaking of good omens, we were granted one beautiful, indescribably gift yesterday: an loan arrangement by a dear friend that will make it possible to clear the medical bills under terms we can handle. I only got two hours of sleep last night, but at least that was only a mix of my medical issues and sitting up with Raven, for the first time in eighteen months.

It will, of course, take a little time to get things arranged. In the meantime, we still have the last $1,700 of last year's installment plan for taxes to get paid, along with ordinary bills. We also have, thanks to my faulty memory and no way to foresee just how bad the local medical and Rx bills would be over the past several weeks, a horse vet bill from this morning, because Miskwaki and Miika were overdue for vaxes/deworming/annual check-ups. The good news is that Miskwaki seems to be in absolutely perfect shape. Miika has turned out to be very overweight, probably the equine equivalent of metabolic syndrome as a result of the terrible start she had in life nutritionally. She's not in any danger at the moment, but left unchecked, it can lead to laminitis/founder, and her front hooves are already at risk because they went untrimmed for so many years before she came to us. Unfortunately, without a vet exam, it was impossible to gauge her weight, because from Day One she's always looked frankly preggers when she's not. Anyway, had I realized when we made the appointment weeks ago how bad these last weeks would be financially, I would have rescheduled by a couple of weeks, but I forgot all about it until last night, so here we are.

Also, clearing the decks on the hospital bills doesn't mean we can stop working.  We still need sales to get us through the whole year, to take carer of regular bills and incidentals and all the future testing I ned to have done and just generally make it. [For the person who has not paid us for work for more than two months, we need your payment, too.] Here are the links, because I still have to keep everything moving, and that means making regular sales:

• Wings's site, for sales, with lots of new items posted;
• Wings's direct PayPal link;
• A way to buy me coffee (which actually goes to all of our medical bills, which continue to mount);
• My Patreon, The Interstices (Writing Between Worlds) (and if you subscribe today you won't be billed until June 1st for May);
• Amazon wishlist, just updated with a bunch of cleaning and writing materials that we can't regularly find locally (yes, I do my research notes by hand, always);
• Partial registry #1, from Bed, Bath and Beyond. I've added two or three new kitchen-y things on it now, stuff that I didn't realize we'd need.

I'm ecstatic to be able to forget, at least for now, about my thyroid (yes, there's still some swelling and so forth, but it's not nearly as noticeable as after the first botched biopsy). Now I have to work on the asthma/respiratory and autoimmune stuff, as well as ruling out anything malignant in the liver tumors and making sure there are no other masses lurking anywhere else. Wings dropped two new works four days ago, in addition to the new cuff and two new pairs of earrings that I posted here a couple of days before that. Please share the links around, offer recommendations and testimonials, consider purchases, and help me be able to breathe, literally.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.