(no subject)

I think I'm going to have a garden this year. These past few years depression has manifested in me doing absolutely zilch on my nice big patio (well, big by apartment standards). But I still have all my pots from the years when I was an inexpert but enthusiastic gardener, and I have asked the maternal unit to bring me a big bag of potting soil from Rona or Home Depot on her next visit. She has a car, you see. Then I will meander down to the Home Hardware near me and see what they can do for me in the way of bulbs and stuff. Yay!

My shrink is in Vienna, allegedly at a psychiatry conference, but I think he's going to be doing a lot of sightseeing as well. At our last appointment he told me proudly that he was going to see the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (a Dutch orchestra located in Amsterdam, at an absolutely gorgeous music venue called the Concertgebouw) play Debussy at the Golden Hall. The Vienna Symphony is away touring, so the Concertgebouworkest has nobly stepped into the breach. Then he asked me anxiously if the orchestra in question was any good. I wonder sometimes if BC Medical Services Plan would continue paying for my therapy if they realized how much of our session was taken up with stuff unrelated to my mental health.

I forgot to tell him the story I got from my godmother (who's not really my godmother owing to the whole Communist,* atheist Jewish thing, but she fills that function in my life, so I call her that). Back in the day, the Concertgebouw used to have a chorus, a choir made up of gifted amateurs, not a professional choir. They were extremely well-endowed, and some clueless Concertgebouw administrator decided, "Oh, let's close down the chorus and then their endowment can go into the general pot." What he failed to appreciate was that one of the major reasons the chorus got such big donations was because a member of the Albert Heijn family was a chorister! Albert Heijn is a big Dutch supermarket chain and the family are very wealthy. Needless to say, having had his chorus ripped away from him, the gentleman declined to make any further donations to the Concertgebouw. EVER AGAIN.

* Technically I think my godparents resigned their Communist Party memberships in 1968 after the Prague Spring. So I guess you could call them socialists.

Signal-boosting

mandragora1 is a buddy of mine who has a friend and neighbour, Rachel, who has entered a contest with the UK Discovery Channel. Rachel wants to go wing-walking, which is moving around on the wings of a plane while it's in flight!!! Personally, I can think of few things I want to do LESS than wing-walking, but to each their own. I'll let mandragora1 explain further (her words in italics):

Please vote for my wonderful neighbour, Rachel, who's entered into an online competition to win a wing walk.

By way of background, Rachel had to take very early retirement due to ill-health. She has Crohn's Disease and has to use crutches to walk with due to badly hurting her knee. Despite this, when she's well she hasn't let her ill health from stopping her getting on with things - such as teaching herself plumbing and electrics and DIY, where she's so good that builders I've hired have offered her a job! She's one of these very capable people who could do anything...except when her condition flares up and then she has to rest until she's well enough to function again, which I know she finds very frustrating and upsetting.

She'll do anything for everyone to help out when she's well enough, is always on hand to help and would really love the chance to wing walk (even with a dodgy knee and crutches!).

If you can spare moment to vote for her, you'll not only make her very happy but if she wins but she'll also donate £100 to Comic Relief, so it's win win!

She's no 13 on the link below.
http://www.mywbcompetition.com/

You have to vote for three participants so please be as random as possible with the other votes (as we want her to
win!).

Also, if you could consider e-blogging this so that even more people see this and vote for Rachel that would be fabulous! Please help Rachel win - it would be lovely to make her so happy!

OK, enough mandragora1, it's me again. I voted, and you need to enter an email address and phone number. I used my Canadian phone number and it went through fine. If anybody isn't comfortable giving the Discovery Channel that info, no worries. Apologies if anybody finds this type of forward irritating. I don't usually re-blog this type of thing, but any friend of mandragora1... Please feel free to scroll on by if you're not interested. It's all good.