Saturday...

[fajrdrako]

An amazing day.

(1) Got up early enough to dye my hair, all by myself, for the first time. Felt proud of my competence.

(2) Went to Charles de Lint's yard sale. Found a treasure trove of Batman graphic novels, including Bruce Wayne: Murderer and Bruce Wayne: Fugitive. Also a hardcover copy of The Vintner's Luck by Elizabeth Knox, a book on writing, Conrad's Fate by Diana Wynne Jones, and two Naomi Novik novels. Feeling very happy about all of that.

(3) Walked to the Museum of Civilization and saw half of the exhibit on Petra, Lost City of Stone. Fascinating! I hadn't known much about the Nabataeans; they turn out to be astonishingly cosmopolitan, with a language like Aramaic. A city of wonders, in stone.

(4) Walked back downtown to C-ACE, the anime convention, to man the OSFS table. Spent my first half hour there talking to Beulah, my second half hour talking to Joel, sitting with his Barrayaran Emperor Penguins. Then I went to the OSFS "Meet and Greet" party, where we talked, ate crudites, and watched Doctor Who: School Reunion.

(5) Went home and drank tea with Yolande, Beulah, maaseru and maaboroshi. Lovely visit.

(6) Went to Festival Japan restaurant with Pat and her friends Pat and Suzanne, Beulah, Lyn and Alayne. Ate and talked. Talked and ate. Typical Dunnett gathering. They enjoyed my Malta scrapbook; I loved seeing Pat's photos of Malta.

Comments

[widget-alley.livejournal.com]

...... wait, wait, you're kidding, right? You didn't ACTUALLY go to Charles de Lint's yard sale, right? ....... Right?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yup, I did. Me and many, many other people. Best yard sale in town.

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

that is a lot!!!!!
Many fun things, but you make me tired just by having me read it.
My parents visited Petra, they were much impressed.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

They actually saw Petra! How wonderful that must be. Such an amazing, lost place.

Yes, after yesterday, I'm taking it pretty easy today. I went for a walk to the library and back - that's the extent of the exercise! No more walking anywhere till tomorrow.

[rosiespark.livejournal.com]

That icon is breathtaking. In a good way, of course. ::is transfixed::

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes. In a good way.

(Transfixed myself.)

[ceruleancat.livejournal.com]

Sounds like an interesting exhibition. I'd like to have seen it. I just edited an article on Petra, so some of the things on the site sounded familiar. Wouldn't have gone there, though. Much too deserty for me. :)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, I fear it's too deserty for me, too. Though I would like to see it - but there are other sites and other cultures I would want to see more. What I loved about Petra is that the Nabataeans seem to have taken the best of art and culture from just about everywhere and incorportated it into their very sophisticated urban environment. Quite a standard of living - at least for the upper levels of society.

[ceruleancat.livejournal.com]

Yes, they seem to have had a very sophisticated lifestyle. They were also very good with water management, and created quite a sophisticated system of dams and cisterns to simultaneously protect the city from flash floods and conserve the water, which got them enough water to even have a recreational pool.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes - there were pictures of recreations the pool, and it looked beautiful. There were also examples of their water-pipes, with the pipes interlocking so as to be watertight. And little channels for the water alongside their roadways - very, very impressive. Apparently with about as much rainfall in a year as Vancouver gets in a day, they could supply enough water for a population of 100,000. Since their population was c. 20,000 they had water to spare. In the desert. You really have to admire that.

And their sense of art.

A luxury environment in the middle of nowhere. Now, I don't know much about their actual society and how it worked, or their individuals - according to this exhibit, they're still working on archaeology that will elucidate more about the lives of the middle class and the poor and, presumably, the slaves.

But obviously they had water for all.

[ceruleancat.livejournal.com]

Yes, and makes me cringe even more at the waste of rainwater and floodwater here. You can make it useful if you take the trouble to, even in the desert, but why bother?

At any rate, they were a. intended to be in the middle of nowhere, that was part of their defence strategy (did the exhibition show the access to petra, through the deep narrow canyons?), b. I think they were very big on trade, so they had the money to do stuff, and c. from our perspective, almost everywhere was the middle of nowhere at the time, so 20,000 was probably a bustling metropolis. :)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

In Ottawa at the moment, water seems to be in excessive supply. It's a raining day... Not as in a 'gentle rain from heaven' but more like an ungentle and unpredictable torrent. I have arrived at work thoroughly damp and grumpy about it.

But then, no one ever described Ottawa as a dry city. It's one of the reasons it's so pretty.... Lots of greenery.

Yes, the exhibit rather thoroughly showed the defenses of Petra, in a series of relief maps, photographs, and films. A little hard to figure out from the two-dimensional diagrams, but impressive however you look at it.

And yes, 20,000 people was a big, concentrated population in one place. I'd like to think it puts our current overpopulation into persepective, but it really doesn't.

I suppose Petra was a sort of capitalist success story - from sheeps and tents to a fabulous city in a few generations. In the end, it wasn't even conquest that did them it, it was earthquakes.

[ceruleancat.livejournal.com]

In the end, it wasn't even conquest that did them it, it was earthquakes.

The city itself yes. The Nabataean people had to deal with the Romans.

And all I can think about the water supply issue re Ottawa is - envy, a lot of it. My brain is dry!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Too bad we can't share resources. I could use some dryness. My brain is waterlogged today. Just like my walking shoes.