We know how fast it can change here.

Pohto copyright Aji, 2024; all rights reserved.

Hard to believe, looking at that sky today, that we're supposed to get rain and then snow this evening, innit? Of course, this time it's supposed to come from the opposite direction [the fringes of Tropical Storm Sara hitting Central America now], but the sky in that direction looks exactly the same right now.

Still, I helped Wings finish tarping the wood a few minutes ago, and we're getting ready, because we know how fast it can change here.

If it does what they predict, it's going to be horrible for the local folks who have no shelter. Because it's supposed to rain first, which will soak everything, and only then turn to snow, which will add more weight and cold. The mercury is supposed to get down near 20 overnight, but the wind chill will be MUCH colder.

This is why some of us a doing the work we're doing [although in my case, it's mostly from home and online; other folks are doing the harder stuff out in the streets]. As I said yesterday, some of us met then to try to figure out where we could put a dent in this mess. This was very introductory, but that was the point: figuring out what exists [very little] and what doesn't [nearly everything] and where we might be able to fill in a few of those gaps. I'll have more info in the days and weeks to come, but for now?  Go here, buy something, or several somethings, off the outreach group's wishlist, and you will literally be saving a life, probably more than one. It's not really possible to overstate how bad it is out there, nor how great the need is. I've sorted it in their Priority order, but they've given out so much stuff this week that they now also need stuff lower down on the list: the tarps, the duct tape, the safety stuff like flashlights and pepper spray; they also need large-size men's stuff, socks, and large- and extra-large-size dog stuff, like collars and harnesses and dog blankets.

And then there's my own actual work. WE NEED SALES. As always at this time of year, I'm already putting in 12- to 16-hour days every day, 7 days a week, because the work won't wait, and for us, being able to help anyone else starts with us making those sales, of course. But beyond that? I also am finding myself unexpectedly under the gun on another front; besides needing to bring in enough in seasonal sales to repay a big chunk on our '24 taxes, the election has made the need to replace my laptop NOW absolutely mandatory, before the end of the year, because the price, already hellish for the one I need, will skyrocket at the first of the year. So if you're contemplating buying? Now would be a really, really good time. Our laptop is our whole work, everything, and it fails me on the daily now.

Today's featured work is one with a message I think most of us need to hear now, one about resilience. It's a cuff with a phenomenal stone, but a fragile one, and the post explains how Wings chose to handle the inevitable; that post is here. So for today's inventory selections, it's another cuff that, in its own way, embodies this lesson. Its stone is not cracked or broken, but it's a very old one set into one of Wings's newest works, and while it's rougher than a new cabochon might be, it still manifests a extraordinary beauty:

• "At Angles to the Night," an absolutely dazzling Art Deco cuff with big, bold, deep freehand scorework one the wide band, and an old but beautifully beveled obloong cabochon of what we reliably believe to be orbicular sugilite in quartz, here.

There's more on the way very soon; he's got something like four more cuffs [an incredible one posted here yesterday], a couple of pendants, several new pairs of earrings [again, one, a small tiger iron pair, done yesterday and slated to go up by tonight], and eventually all the new coils he'll need for holiday inventory. And I need to sell them all, because I still need to make sales weekly for us to catch up on the year and cover all the stuff still in the pipeline that needs covering [laptop, roof next year, more medical, always prepaid taxes, etc.]. So: GO BUY! Links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (Priority is the liquid soaps and Amazon cards, probably most useful at this point); 
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

After such a grim year, this one already far worse than the last, we really need to get what's left of 2024 onto a better footing before it ends, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2024; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.