A collection of anecdotes and other things

As mentioned in a previous entry we bought some feijoa fruits at the farmers market.  It had a very strong, strange tropical smell--like no other food I can really compare it to except pineapple and wintergreen.  It was bizarre.  (We didn't take any pictures, but here is the link to the wikipedia page for more information if you're inclined.)  The flesh was soft but not very juicy, a bit like the custard apple from several weeks ago.

Also, I said I would put up pictures of (the inside of) passionfruit, so here it is.  Pretty weird looking, right?

You just eat all of that yellow-green slimy stuff.

Lemon lime & bitters soda.

Lemon lime and bitters is quite common here, but I don't recall ever seeing it in the states.  Also, at least where we were looking in the supermarket, it was all +bitters, and no regular lemon/lime.

Yesterday I had morning tea and a long conversation with the coordinator of volunteer services in Armidale.  When she asked what part of the US I was from, she said it sounded like I was up there close to Canada. (Reid doesn't think she could have known, and like other Australians just pretends to know where Wisconsin and Michigan are.)  I thought she did though. Who knows. I also never know what to say when people ask where I am from, specifically. I said Wisconsin, yesterday, because it was just me and not Reid. When it's both of us, though, we tend to just say we were "living in Michigan", which is usually followed by the clarification "northern middle part of the US, by Chicago, close to Canada."  Et cetera.  I don't think either of us really think we are "from" Michigan, though. (After all... we never even really went in to Detroit, in the three years we lived there.)  Anyway, it was a great meeting.  Like all the other Australians I have met, she was really, really nice.  And a great conversationalist, which is good for quiet folk like me.

Ever since we bought a microwave and I saw the settings for fish fillets and chicken fillets, I have been wondering how Australians pronounce English-French words. Like valet, being pronounced "val-let" as opposed to "val-ay" in Downton Abbey, but I was wondering if that was more of a thing of the early 1900s, and maybe English people aren't so concerned with their grudge of the French anymore. But we finally got the confirmation: yup, they say "fill-it". At least some Australians do.  I often wonder what these people think of me and my accent.  What words do they think I say ridiculously?

We have heard a little on the news how a new budget proposal is going through legislation and they want to add a $7 co-pay to all general practitioner doctor visits. And the public is outraged.  Let me repeat, SEVEN DOLLARS.  No longer free, okay, but still.  You Australians don't understand.  You just don't get it.

The other week I was sitting in the Armidale library minding my own business when I heard a conversation begin behind me at the collection desk.   An older gentleman was trying to renew his genealogy book, but what surprised me is that it was Michael Caine talking.  Well, obviously, not really.  I knew it only sounded like Michael Caine but I had to look to make sure, and nope, wasn't really him.  The Cockney accent was 100% exactly the same though.  I like to think of someone following this man around with a tape recorder and making some hilarious dubs on youtube.

The timeless, epic battle between land horses and seahorses continues.

Reid has been asking me to do the landhorse versus seahorse picture since ... gosh, 2009, New York. I've done a couple drawings in the past but this one is by far the best. I'll post the finished painting when we get there.  Anyone know of a building that needs a mural?  I think this would make a great mural. Give me a projector and a wall and I will do it.

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(P.S. I love to hear from you. :)