elevenses

To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all. There are no words left to express his staggerment ... (JRR Tolkien, The Hobbit)

 I turned 46 last Friday, which as you may recall was 11/11/11.

My sweet husband surprised me with a Hobbit-themed "elevenses" party at 11:00 a.m. If you are not familiar with "elevenses," it is the meal that the Hobbits eat between second breakfast and luncheon. (They call it "elevensies".)

It is a brief, healing pause in the crisis of the day. :)

Hobbits prefer to eat six times a day: Breakfast, Second Breakfast, Elevensies, Luncheon, Afternoon Tea, Dinner, and Supper.

Bob had sent out funny Hobbit invitations, and gone to an English tearoom to buy some wonderful jams and drinks and sausage rolls. His mom and my mom helped him get set up, and he made scrambled eggs and cooked bangers (sausage) on the grill, and there were two types of bacon, and scones and REAL clotted cream, and he had decorated and had games for us to play ... riddles (Hobbits love riddles) and oh, it was so sweet I could hardly stand it.

Four of us there had just read The Hobbit this year, so that made it especially fun.

Long live elevenses, and Hobbits, and sweet husbands.

"'Never laugh at live dragons, Bilbo you fool!' he said to himself,
and it became a favorite saying of his later, and passed into a proverb."

"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations,
if you live near him."

"There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West.
Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure.
If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”