In 1767, Mozart's opera "Apollo et Hyacinthus," premiered in Salzburg.
Also in 1767, the Townshend Revenue Act was passed by Parliament on June 29, imposing duties on tea, glass, paint, oil, lead, and paper imported into Britain's American colonies in hopes of raising £40,000 per year.
While we are on the subject of 1767, it was also the year Eugénie by French playwright-watchmaker Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais premiered at the Comédie-Française in Paris.
Also in 1767, Joseph Priestley pioneered carbonated water (and soft drinks). "Sometimes in the space of two or three minutes [I have] made a glass of exceedingly pleasant sparkling water which could hardly be distinguished from very good Pyrmont," he wrote. (As I type this, I am sipping Grape Crush, wondering if this is what he had in mind...)
And in 1767 Jean Chastel killed the Beast of Gévaudan. (Isn't the internet grand?)
Now, you might be asking yourself, about the significance of 1767?
Aside from being the year my mother was born, the number also represents my place, as of this posting, in line for entrance into Ravelry -- the most ultra-chic, ultra-exclusive, totally faboo fibre community the internet has ever know. We are talking The Order of the Skull and Bones of the knitting world.
I couldn't sleep last night. I started off thinking about how Rabbitch is going to get in this week, and how terribly jealous I am. Then I started worrying. What if I don't know anybody. What if nobody talks to me? What if nobody wants to be my friend? What if the other knitters think I dress weird, or make fun of my yarn overs, or think lace is sooooo 15 minutes ago? What if people laugh at me behind my back because I can't learn to knit lace continental? Or because I'm fat? Or because I couldn't pronounce "vegetable" correctly until I was 12? What if they tie me to trees and give me Ex-Lax? I saw "Sorority Girls From Hell" -- I know what people are like!
The only way I could get to sleep was to make a conscious decision to go to my "happy place" and to think about raising chickens and sheep and goats and baking cakes and making sausage and knitting sweaters and sitting in front of a fireplace during a snowstorm and drinking tea while listening to folk music. (I have an active fantasy life. I even thought through which cake recipes I would bake.)
Meanwhile, I have about 2 weeks left to loose 50 pounds, get a new wardrobe, and learn to knit lace continental.
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Musings of a happily married, middle-aged male, Jewish litigation paralegal. Who knits. Wow. It's even more exciting when you read it in print.
About Me
- Aidan
- Looking to e-mail me? Try me at aidangilbert AT gmail daht com. I'd love to hear from you. Look for me on RAVELRY -- codename: LaceWeightGuy. (I thought the name was slimming.) Now, enough about me, Let's talk about YOU!
7 comments:
Oh, my gosh, what a funny post!
There are currently 299 people ahead of me to get into Ravelry -- now I'm concerned that I am not as worried as you are!!
um, you may want to cut back on the caffiene there. Any time now...
Call me a loser. I have 2 Ravelry friends. I'm used to such a status. Also, I have to see it to believe it with the whole raising chickens thing.
There are so many people ahead of me for Ravelry that I suppose that next summer will come and go before it's my turn to hang out with the cool kids. And now I'll have all of that time to worry about how passe they may find me!
And....is knitting lace continental different than knitting it the other way? I learned how to knit continental and never knew that there was another way to knit (except that plenty of people told me that I was "knitting all wrong").
If there's a painless way to figure out lace knitting continental will you share your wisdom with us? I feel forever caught in throwing...
I certainly will share...but I am not particularly hopeful. I switched from "throw" to "pick" last fall, after injuring my right index finger. I learned the skill by knitting what seemed like a huge number of felted hats in garter stitch and a number of "Baby Surprise" sweaters, which are also knit in garter stitch -- so no purling, no yarnovers. And I've never improved on my skill set.
So now, when working in stockinette or on lace, I "throw"...and feel guilty.
Hey, they let me into Ravelry and I can't knit continental at all! I'm a "klutzy thrower" with a distinctively awkward style. So don't worry that they're all cool kids over there, heck, some of us haven't been kids for a looooong time!
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