Feijoa

Sooo, write every day for a month... "that's all you have to do". The pressure! Apparently there are no expectations, but of course there are. No one joins in with these things hoping no one reads them, and to have a readership you have to be writing something interesting. Or gratuitous. Or annoying. Or, if you're very good, all three. This will possibly pose a problem for me as right now I'm sitting (who are we kidding, I'm slothfully lolling) in a hammock in the sun. Being eaten alive by mosquitos, but too bloody lazy to move. And it's that laziness that made me sign up in the first place. (Oh and I want to be loved, love me!).

Ironically, my 5 year old Elfling is desperate to write. She is sitting below the hammock trying to sound out words (I can't bear to correct her) and writing in strange loopy font. Next to her, her 3 year old Monkey shaped shadow is mimicking her every move, wanting to read and write just as she is. If only they could write my blog for me.

While I eat vegemite sandwiches and ruminate on something interesting.

Until today I had never (to my knowledge) tasted feijoa. Never heard of it? Well, apparently it's New Zealand specific-ish. The wrinkly love child of a cucumber and a fig. It smells exactly like the fruity esters that I brewed in Chem classes with Mr Ash 11 years ago and is turned into the usual array of jams/jellies/candies/infused beauty products. My introduction was via a bottle offeijoa candy that I was given for my birthday by a friend with a suspicious kiwi accent. On opening it smelled medicinal and sweet and I intended to try it, but had to drive home, and somehow on the way lost the bottle, thus delaying my first taste. Having had 28 years without tasting feijoa I wasn't too worried but he seemed interested in my response (and to be fair, after flying the said bottle to me via Sydney where he lives, it deserved enthusiasm!).

The back story of why it flew via Sydney is complicated, mostly by the fact that in my spare time I like to pretend I'm an elf and smite things with elemental nukes. Some people like to party, me, give me my mythical Dragon's Marrow and some orcs and there's a near perfect Saturday night. My favourite part being when other people bring their elf/barbarian/halfling selves and trash orcs with me. You're interacting with others, getting rewarded, and can do it while wearing your pyjamas on the couch at the same time.

Some people, like my husband, play these games for years, and only know people as their avatars. To him, there may as well be a troop of halflings/half dressed high elves/blue skinned fairies tramping around the place doing whatever they do. When I first started playing with him, he had been playing for over a year. In a guild (which is a group of the same people in fantasy land) with other people from Australia and New Zealand. He had been encouraging me to join for months, and eventually bought me this laptop and a subscription for my 26th birthday as a last resort. It worked, and I got hooked (dragons and fairies and elves and shinies!) and started playing. After I got good enough (ie could run in a straight line and mash some keys) he started putting groups together, sometimes in guild, and sometimes with random people we met running around our virtual world.

Grouping is fun. Firstly, because when you have a limited attention span like mine, it means that evil characters die faster. Secondly, because it's social. You can chat to people either by text or voice. Sometimes we would be grouped with 15 year old hard core players who wrote a stream of "WTF OMG n00b" nonsense, but other people were much more laid back and fun and who didn't mind a suicidal wizard who liked to risk everything for shinies.

Because I'm me, I was interested in the people we played with. I would ask my husband about them, and he would confuse them, had no idea where most were from, how old they were or even if they were male or female. To him they were all pretty fun to play with, and being as his main interest was finishing the quest before jumping in bed with me. He's easy to please like that, but I'm a curious kitty so started to chat to people and become familiar with them. Some I had little in common with besides the game, and that was ok, because I love the game. But others, I would find myself talking to well after bedtime. Talking rubbish mostly, but making friends anyhow.

Which is how I met my feijoa friend (yes, I was getting to that) who lives in Sydney. And one of the less ridiculous discussions we had was about the feijoa fruit and the fact that I'd never tried it. He tried explaining it, I tried imagining it and... computer says no. I just couldn't get an idea of it. So, when I invited him to my birthday party which I hadn't expected him to attend, he brought me some. Which is how I ended up with a small bottle of feijoa candy lost in the tardis of my car.

And the verdict? I'm eating my 6th candy for this afternoon and I have no idea. I don't know what it tastes like and I'm not sure if I like it. Its vaguely aniseedy, and a bit like fermented pineapple. It's hard to know how much of the sweetness is from the candy and how much from feijoa. It has a vague tang. But I like it very much for popping my NaBloPoMo cherry.