Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Bilbo Baggins ~ My Great-great-great-great Grandfather?

I have read "The Hobbit" only once, and that was over 30 years ago (I know because my maiden name, not my married name, is written inside). I rarely read books twice, not because I don't love them, but because, as the saying goes, there are "so many books, so little time." Yet I pulled this one off the bookshelf last year and started reading it again.

I love the opening paragraph...

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat; it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."

Who could resist that invitation to continue on?

So, of course, I continued on and had a thoroughly heart-warming visit with my old friends. I noticed something peculiar this time around, as pertains to a certain Bilbo Baggins. It would appear to all who know me well that the two of us could be related. Consider the evidence...

"There is little or no magic about them..." ~ That's me. I'm an ordinary, Plain Jane kind of gal.

"They are inclined to be fat in the stomach..." ~ An unfortunate similarity of late, though it wasn't always so.

"We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty, disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!" ~ What can I say? I am the Queen of the Homebodies and would be perfectly content to leave the house only once a week, if that were possible.

"Sorry! I don't want any adventures, thank you. Not today..." ~ It may look like a boring little rut to you, but it's my life, and I like living in it.

"He did not remember things very well, unless he put them down on his Engagement Tablet..." ~ In addition to being the Queen of the Homebodies, I am also the Queen of the Memory-Challenged, which by default makes me the Queen of the Pencil & Paper Club. I have a Teflon brain, and nothing sticks to it anymore. If I don't write it down, it's history.

"He liked visitors, but he liked to know them before they arrived, and he preferred to ask them himself..." ~ Yep and yep and yep.

"Excitable little fellow. Gets funny queer fits, but he is one of the best, one of the best -- as fierce as a dragon in a pinch..." ~ I can get flummoxed easily, but when push comes to shove, you'll want me fighting on your side. I'm as loyal as they come.

So, there you have it. Bilbo and I are obviously cut from the same cloth, and I am convinced that my family tree has roots that reach all the way back to the Baggins clan (with perhaps a tad bit of Took wanderlust tossed in). Won't you join me for a spot of tea in my neither too-wet nor too-dry comfortable little hobbit hole? Oh, the stories I could tell...

3 comments:

  1. but... the big questions... do you love mushrooms? and have hairy feet?

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  2. Then you must be my long lost cousin because I am sure I have Bilbo's blood in my veins!

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  3. I can relate in some ways too :)

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