April is a terrible month.

Photo copyright Aji, 2025; all rights reserved.

The green is already visible in the aspen pollen. That shouldn't happen until May, but here we are.

It also explains why we're both so miserable. Not necessarily the aspen pollen per se, but the fact that all it is out there now, early and in force, and accompanied by a lot of things that don't actually belong here. Like tumbleweeds. Like the invasive elms and especially the Russian olives that are still everywhere, even though everyone knows the damage they do.

Of course, I'm extra-miserable today because I had another episode last night. On the plus side, if there can be said to be a plus side to this, I think we've pretty decisively established one of the triggers. But it doesn't change the fact that I feel like death today, and my head is splitting, the latter a direct result of my BP skyrocketing suddenly. It's HA, hypertensive anaphylaxis, and it's an allergic reaction that cannot be mitigated by an Epi-Pen. For people with HA, an Epi-Pen risks killing us outright. Anapylaxis, in most people, is accompanied by a drastic drop in blood pressure. In those rare few of us with HA, it inexplicably skyrockets in a matter of moments, which explains why it nearly killed me more than once eight years ago. And BP meds don't help, because normally, my BP is low.

It doesn't help that last week wore me out completely, because I have no reserves to mitigate this. It also doesn't help that today is another marker, or rather, tonight: the night Dom left us, lying in my lap in that toxic tin can of an RV, 10:42 PM. I'd been away for five weeks, and when I got back, the cancer that riddled her little body had suddenly showed itself. She had only a couple of weeks left, but we didn't know it then. 

That was back when April was, you know, normal here, and it was so bitterly cold, with several inches of snow on the ground, that it took some doing for Wings to dig her grave because the ground was frozen solid. She wasn't a very big dog, but it was a lot of work. And we both still miss her every day, just like Lilith [and Grif, my soul dog, two days from now, She-Wolf near the end of the month]. April is a terrible month.

And by this point every year, I'm so far behind on everything. And now I have to figure out how to prepay our taxes for next year, because this is two years in a row with this nonsense and I can't do this again. For two years, I've been very literally killing myself trying to cover everything, and it is what it is, and I'm too tired to give a shit anymore. My illness is progressing, and the world is on fire, and right now, I'm tapped out on every level. But the world doesn't give a shit, so we need to bring in more sales, a lot of them, immediately. There's too much that still has to be covered, well pump, new tires on te truck, medical stuff, and we're out of time.

Links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (Priorities are Amazon gift cards, which we can ALWAY use, and those adjustable Black KN95 masks are badly needed, because I gave away all the rest of ours to relatives; it would good to have several boxes, so I can keep handing them out, too); 
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

After such a grim year last year, and this one beginning at least as badly, we urgently need to move 2025 onto a better footing because taxes to this Nazi administration will take every last cent and we'll still owe them more anyway, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2025; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.