being a Hobbit

 Honestly, that's what I'd like now. And not an adventuring Hobbit, like Bilbo, or one tasked with a horrible task like Frodo, but just an ordinary Hobbit. ("We're just normal Hobbits, just innocent Hobbits"?)

I don't know exactly what lady-Hobbits did but I like to imagine that many of them were craftspeople, or gardeners, or perhaps herbalists-bordering-on-apothecaries. Okay, then, I would prefer to be a Hobbit who weaves rugs and blankets to earn her bread, or who can throw pottery and has a kiln in her back garden. Something like that. Something more immediate, where I can see the fruits of my labors. 

Part of this is, well - if you've seen any news these past couple days, the world's in another big mess. Suffice it to say that rejoicing over death is wrong, and all the other harms of the world are wrong, and I am very tired of people.

I also had a bit of the stomach bug that has made the rounds of campus. I never get *very* sick with these things (perhaps it's the probiotic I take?) but I've had abdominal cramping and indigestion/upset stomach and lack of appetite, and yet, I am still soldiering on, because my schedule is such that I can't really take a day off.

In a minute I have to go prep the soil for a lab Wednesday, and finish writing an exam for next week. 

But I was musing on Hobbits again because, while taking a break, this crossed the transom of my Bluesky stream:

Apparently this is from a 1982 Russian version of The Hobbit. It's hilarious to me because I expect sort of "medieval peasant" or "late 19th century minor nobleman" dress for these things, and here's our man Bilbo looking like he could be headed to the Pride festival with those jorts and that leg hair. 

And yes, looking for the original source of the image first led me to this (from a tumblr that....apparently ships Bilbo and Thorin Oakenshield? Okay, whatever floats your boat)

Oh, I KNOW Tolkien would have HATED it but I find it very amusing. I mean, that's NOT Bilbo but it's still funny.

But then, more profitably, to this: Babel Hobbits. Translations in many languages, and also from most books a selection of the drawings showing the different ways illustrators imagine these creatures. (And yes, they have the edition illustrated by Tove Jansson, with a rather Snufkin-looking Hobbit)

I mean, yes, for me, my mental image will forever-and-always be the Rankin-Bass depiction of Bilbo (as voiced by Orson Bean) from the 1977 (? if I remember correctly, I remember watching it on tv and anticipating it like crazy when I saw it was coming on, and after that, getting a copy of the book and reading it - I would have been in like third grade). But it's still fun to see how other illustrators imagine him. (And yes, I know some reviewers apparently really loathed the cartoon, but then: I was a kid, it was my first exposure to it. And after all, it led me to the book (which remains a favorite and is probably the novel I've re-read the most times*)

(*I still have not read all of The Lord of the Rings. Got about halfway through it at one point, bogged down in the battles, gave up, gave the books away to a book sale on the ground of "meh, I'll never read it" but recently traded some other unwanted books for a nice (new) box set version at the local used-and-new bookstore, so eventually I plan to read it)

Though I admit my love is for the more "homelike" side of the Hobbit life. 

 

And I am enjoying Legends and Lattes - am about 60 pages in - because so far most of it is Viv (the protagonist, a battle....orc? I think she's an orc) planning out her coffee shop and doing the things (with the help of Calamity, a "hob" (hobgoblin, I presume) and Tandri, a succubus (who I presume becomes Viv's love interest, at least based on their initial interaction) and it's just.....that sort of mundane, "I am making the life I want" thing is nice to read about. (And perhaps for me, now, because at times I feel a bit frustrated or disappointed in the path of my life, it's nice escapism to read about someone getting to do it. Oh, the other things I MIGHT do, too much of a learning curve and I have the need of a regular gig - I don't have a pouch of platinum coins won in a lifetime of killing enemies). (Also, it looks like the author has a second book called Bookshops and Bonedust, which I may want to read after finishing this)