Monday, September 19
Sep. 20th, 2022 12:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
A cool, rainy day. Not much actual rain, but kind of drizzling. Crisp, cool air.
That I managed to get key things done today, in spite of having one of those days that feels like time is pulling at you in all kinds of directions to keep you from your goals.
I spent far too long talking with the contractor (he likes to talk, and takes a very long time to get to anything relating to needing my input on the job). He says he's not racist, then says many racist things using racist labels. It's hard not to engage with someone when they do this.
He's racist.
So, when he talks about how (slur) are buying up all the houses and renting them, thus ruining the market, I say "maybe the issue isn't WHO is doing that, but the fact that the government doesn't tax people who own more than one home at an appropriately higher level", or, there should just be a limit on the number of homes a person or business car own for rental purposes.
Or, when he talks about (slur) owning a huge house, and lying about how they are going to use it, because it wasn't a private home, but a huge home built to house six families of migrant workers who are brought in by the home owner to drive trucks for his business. So once again, I say "is this really a race thing, or another loophole in the system that could also have been taken advantage of by a Caucasian person and could be fixed by actually enforcing existing laws?
I tried to explain how you can't get angry at the migrant workers, who are people doing their best to get by, but to be angry at the people exploiting them and the system, no matter what race they are.
So, these conversations become a time-suck and I'm not sure why I bother.
THEN, as I am trying to leave, he stops me because he needs to talk about the house project. Sigh.
I am ready to leave, after chores etc., and as I am driving away I see the tire pressure light. When we get cooler weather they always read low. I can't even get to the garage to use our air compressor because we have two trailers parked in the driveway blocking it completely.
This means I need to go to the gas station nearby.
I do this, and the super friendly owner wants to chat too, about the possibility of an after life.
As much as I hate to do this, I eventually cut him off, saying I need to get going.
I BARELY make it to the vet clinic before they close to get Fatty's drugs. This always happens. I don't know what I have to do to get to the clinic without it being a race against the clock, adrenaline pumping. I guess I have to avoid the contractor, and yell at everyone "I CANNOT TALK, MUST MAKE IT TO THE VET CLINIC".
Then I got some groceries, picked up supplies at two different places for canvasses and paint in preparation for the paint night fund raiser (which I had better firm up and actually commit to), and turtle food.
THEN, I finally dragged my weary bones up to the pottery studio, for the first time this year (I could have gone over the summer, but was too dang busy).
One of the remaining two other potters was also very chatty, she has a tiny new grand daughter, and her daughter and family live WAYYYY up North, so it was quite a hike to visit them.
There were some items that got glazed over the summer, and they looked good. I had several items that were bisque fired that I needed to glaze, so I decided I would just do that and not try to start anything new tonight.
I got them glazed, and they are on the cart awaiting the kiln.
I am very grateful to have this studio, and I hope I actually manage to make good use of it this winter. I have been SO busy and tired this summer, there was nothing left in me to do pottery.
I have been continuing to paint rocks, since the other ones are pretty well sold out (big shock to me), so I will do some more. Then, I think I will move on to something else, since I have been painting a LOT of rocks lately.
Today I learned about Servilia's Pearl.
Servilia's pearl was a pearl given by Julius Caesar to his favourite mistress Servilia. It was described by imperial biographer Suetonius to be a lone (uniones, meaning "singleton")[1] large black pearl[2] worth six million sesterces (approximately 1.5 billion dollars in 2019 value), making it perhaps the most valuable gem of all time. It may also be the first known individual pearl recorded in human history.[3]
It isn't really possible to easily compare the value of that pearl to others in existence today, to know whether it would really be worth that much currently. It's a bit of speculation to translate six million sesterces to modern dollars.
That said, it is known what a soldier's annual income was, and how that would compare. "A contemporary comparison would be that 900 sesterces was the average yearly salary for an infantryman in one of Caesar's legions,[18] or that it could pay for a year's rent for 3000 Roman tenants."
I wonder what happened to it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servilia%27s_pearl
A cool, rainy day. Not much actual rain, but kind of drizzling. Crisp, cool air.
That I managed to get key things done today, in spite of having one of those days that feels like time is pulling at you in all kinds of directions to keep you from your goals.
I spent far too long talking with the contractor (he likes to talk, and takes a very long time to get to anything relating to needing my input on the job). He says he's not racist, then says many racist things using racist labels. It's hard not to engage with someone when they do this.
He's racist.
So, when he talks about how (slur) are buying up all the houses and renting them, thus ruining the market, I say "maybe the issue isn't WHO is doing that, but the fact that the government doesn't tax people who own more than one home at an appropriately higher level", or, there should just be a limit on the number of homes a person or business car own for rental purposes.
Or, when he talks about (slur) owning a huge house, and lying about how they are going to use it, because it wasn't a private home, but a huge home built to house six families of migrant workers who are brought in by the home owner to drive trucks for his business. So once again, I say "is this really a race thing, or another loophole in the system that could also have been taken advantage of by a Caucasian person and could be fixed by actually enforcing existing laws?
I tried to explain how you can't get angry at the migrant workers, who are people doing their best to get by, but to be angry at the people exploiting them and the system, no matter what race they are.
So, these conversations become a time-suck and I'm not sure why I bother.
THEN, as I am trying to leave, he stops me because he needs to talk about the house project. Sigh.
I am ready to leave, after chores etc., and as I am driving away I see the tire pressure light. When we get cooler weather they always read low. I can't even get to the garage to use our air compressor because we have two trailers parked in the driveway blocking it completely.
This means I need to go to the gas station nearby.
I do this, and the super friendly owner wants to chat too, about the possibility of an after life.
As much as I hate to do this, I eventually cut him off, saying I need to get going.
I BARELY make it to the vet clinic before they close to get Fatty's drugs. This always happens. I don't know what I have to do to get to the clinic without it being a race against the clock, adrenaline pumping. I guess I have to avoid the contractor, and yell at everyone "I CANNOT TALK, MUST MAKE IT TO THE VET CLINIC".
Then I got some groceries, picked up supplies at two different places for canvasses and paint in preparation for the paint night fund raiser (which I had better firm up and actually commit to), and turtle food.
THEN, I finally dragged my weary bones up to the pottery studio, for the first time this year (I could have gone over the summer, but was too dang busy).
One of the remaining two other potters was also very chatty, she has a tiny new grand daughter, and her daughter and family live WAYYYY up North, so it was quite a hike to visit them.
There were some items that got glazed over the summer, and they looked good. I had several items that were bisque fired that I needed to glaze, so I decided I would just do that and not try to start anything new tonight.
I got them glazed, and they are on the cart awaiting the kiln.
I am very grateful to have this studio, and I hope I actually manage to make good use of it this winter. I have been SO busy and tired this summer, there was nothing left in me to do pottery.
I have been continuing to paint rocks, since the other ones are pretty well sold out (big shock to me), so I will do some more. Then, I think I will move on to something else, since I have been painting a LOT of rocks lately.
Today I learned about Servilia's Pearl.
Servilia's pearl was a pearl given by Julius Caesar to his favourite mistress Servilia. It was described by imperial biographer Suetonius to be a lone (uniones, meaning "singleton")[1] large black pearl[2] worth six million sesterces (approximately 1.5 billion dollars in 2019 value), making it perhaps the most valuable gem of all time. It may also be the first known individual pearl recorded in human history.[3]
It isn't really possible to easily compare the value of that pearl to others in existence today, to know whether it would really be worth that much currently. It's a bit of speculation to translate six million sesterces to modern dollars.
That said, it is known what a soldier's annual income was, and how that would compare. "A contemporary comparison would be that 900 sesterces was the average yearly salary for an infantryman in one of Caesar's legions,[18] or that it could pay for a year's rent for 3000 Roman tenants."
I wonder what happened to it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servilia%27s_pearl
no subject
Date: 2022-09-23 04:36 am (UTC)