Perfect red.

Photo copyright Aji, 2026; all rights reserved.

Those are the leaves on the smaller of our two fire maples, the one so wounded by the summer's extreme heat and drought that we did not expect it to survive. We certainly didn't expect it to manage any fall color. But instead we have perfect red.

It has been A DAY, and mine is nowhere near over, even though it's pushing midnight. The big thing we needed to do, tried to do, we couldn't do, all because of circumstances entirely beyond our control. Which might prove to be a huge problem down the road, but there's not a damn thing I can do about it except hope, pray, and try again next week. Then it was the pharmacy, neither our scrips done even though they were supposed to be ready a week ago. So there was a long wait there, and a huge fucking bill, because HHS is now trying actively to kill diabetics, and we're just lucky that we could shell out $370 cash for his test strips. Of course, that's a bind I wasn't expecting now, with the end of the month looming, but his health will always come before anything else.

But those two things took up most of the day. I'm so far behind just on today that it's not funny. I needed to bring in some sales today, too, and what do you think the chance of that was? Yeah, nothing. And this nonsense, combined with the chemo effects [yesterday] and the blinding fatigue and the unrelenting physical pain just keep putting me further and further behind every day. Clearly the rest of the year is going to be very hard. And I've still got to bring in a lot more sales through the end of the year. It's been hellishly expensive already, and we've also got some other big-ticket things to take care of between now and then, and that only happens if we make some sales now. And we can still use help with shares, testimonials, wishlist stuff, etc. To that end, links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here [Too many obligations, too many folks in need; I can't justify spending money on them right now, but I'd really love to be able to get the rest of the towels and the second bath mat];
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

And we do still need to make those regular weekly sales, so please share all of the links. We really do need to get this year onto a better footing than the last two, a year that, so far, has been very grim.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2026; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.