lavendertook

Now what am I forgetting . . . Ah yes! I need to be in bed in time for Sam to bring me first breakfast for febobe's birthday! And I'm late . . .



Beggin' your pardon, sir, but you need to eat right quick. Mr. Elrond's fixin' to bring you second breakfast real soon. Miss Arwen's going to bring you a heapin' big luncheon and Strider's going to bring you afternoon tea, and then will come dinner and supper and finally the big party for Miss febobe's birthday . . .

Happy Birthday, febobe!!!! (yes, those are some of your BB sneak peaks) (-: *hugs*

I hope you had a very happy birthday, lbilover! At its close, I bring you squirrel and turtle heavy spam of residents of Greenbelt Lake I took over the past year or so. Also included are a couple more critters who might be denizens of the Woodjinverse. <3



( For 22 more pics of Greenbelt Lake residents, come along with me here . . . )

Happy New Year and thank goodness 2011 is gone!

I have so much I need to report here and hope to get to some of it soon. This is just the first week since things went topsy turvy in October that I feel Ai kan haz owt of hamzter bal nou!!!

I spent the morning of the last day of the year reading some of FotR, going to the doctor and getting a pretty clean bill of health, except for the achy finger, reading some of TH, running errands, then had a yummy ihop breakfast that Thomas BringsTheFire would wax poetical over. I had an afternoon coffee date with a lovely woman, then stopped by the thrift shop, did some chores, IMed with my bb'smererid and delux_vivens, and snuggled with my kitties to bring in the new year. So I saw this year out well and am hopeful for 2012.

Meanwhile, here are some Chanuka Chobbits from earlier this week, bringing in light for the new year . . .



I hope to be a better flistmate in 2012. I hope I get to post more dollustrations and picfics. I'm so glad you're all here, dear flisties. *HUGS*

And now for the after-birthday birthday greeting!



These hobbit actors keep busy between shoots for the BigBang fics, but if they came up for air, they would wish dear lbilover a very happy birthday!!! Hope it was a lovely one!!

It's febobe's birthday, so you know that . . .



Frodo's had a rough time
and he's laid up in bed;
Little does he suspect
( Again, little does he suspect . . . )

I've been getting through this heat wave by living nocturnally and staying in, only going out after sunset to feed the stray kitties (poor things in this heat) and get supplies. So these pics are a reminder of the good green world I hope to return to. (-; Tomorrow for a few days it will only be going up to the lower 90's for a breather (yeah, it's all perspective) and I will venture out into the daylight again. But in the meantime, I will continue to bring you the cool fresh air of this forest stream trail at Patapsco Valley Park.

I'm sorry for being so behind on replying to comments and commenting on entries! I'm still eager to continue the discussions on my LotR EE entries and will be back there. But I want to make sure I get more of this pretty trail to you during this heat wave some of us are experiencing. And hopefully the green is a soothing reminder for my winter-bound friends Down Under.

So here is another pic of one of my favorite things: clear stream running icily beneath lush ferns and moss. Please click on the pic to see it better.



Here's a question for LJ experts: I want to post these pics here at the same size they appear when you click through to the pic on my LJ scrapbook, which is double the size of what I'm posting here, so that you don't have to click through. However, when I do re-size them in the url for the entry, they come out fuzzier in my entry than they are on the scrapbook page you click to, even though the pics are the same size. Do you know how I can fix that so that I can post the pics clearly on my entries at the size they appear when you click through to the scrapbook? The LJ FAQ was no help to me at all. Thanks!

( Come along this woodland trail where you can feel the breath of the trees on your skin . . . )

A very happy birthday to the very sweet and fun frolijah_fan_54!!! I hope this year gives you more time to enjoy more leisurely mornings with hot chocolate and all the good things. This wish comes with hobbits and spring flowers.



The friend I stayed with in Chapel Hill has a lovely garden with many fun things among the flowers, as Bingo and Sam found when they took a stroll outside. Sam was very appreciative of the sensibilities of anyone who could put such a fine statue of mushrooms in their garden, for what could be finer than mushrooms? Bingo is about to tell him.

( And moooore camellia blooms in Duke Gardens in Durham, NC below )

The voice post below is an excerpt from Tolkien's unpublished second Epilogue in The History of the Lord of The Rings, in the History of Middle Earth in which Sam and his daughter Elanor converse. More than first viewing the film of FotR, reading this passage for the first time completely renewed the love I had for Tolkien's writings when I was a teen. In keeping with the theme of this year's Tolkien Reading Day, there are a couple of mentions of trees in the passage.



Click here for the reading and more dollustrations . . .

That's one small step for a Hobbit, one cave troll leap for Hobbitkind.

Take one more step at Bingo's LJ here . . .

A National Squeeographic Special.

It all started when lbilover posted a google search that lead to Middle Earth, MD. Google it and you will see. Here's another view.

Saturday was as beautiful a spring day as you could wish for. ancalime8301 and I gathered our supplies and set off on a journey southeast around the Greenway Beltway and down through the Gap of Rohan Rt 5 to St Mary's County. We knew we were heading the right way when Howard Shore's Shire party music swelled just as a jet from the air show going on in the arena made a big circular con trail above us as we drove.

The land down there is pretty Shire-like, though more like the Westmarch because of being on the water. So we drove down to the end of Clark's Mill Rd, without seeing anything noticeably rabidly fannish Middle Earthy. I stopped at a house at the end of the road where a couple of guys were sitting out and, pulling out my google print outs, asked them if they knew of the place we sought or of any crazed Tolkien fans in the area, but they claimed to know nothing. I still suspect their gazebo overlooking an inlet leading to the bay to be an inter-dimensional portal, but I couldn't very well investigate it with them there. We drove down one of the side roads, Mill Pond Road, to see if we could find any more well, any clues. The dolls got out and looked around a bit.


Aragorn used all his tracking skills to find any clues, but either he found nothing or has declined to report what he found.
( The search continues . . .  )

Thank you to delux_vivens and strangemuses for the lovely virtual snowflake cookies and to shirebound and romeny for the lovely holiday cards!

Finally,continues Bingo and Sam's adventures while claudia603 visited for the TTT Symphony Moot at the end of August. It comes to a close with a trip to Annapolis, MD on Sunday. We all walked around old town a bit and then decided to take a harbor cruise on the Chesapeake Bay.


Sam: I don't know about getting on no boat for to have fun, Bingo-love . . .
Bingo: Trust me, Sam, it will be quite romantic. And I promise to hold you tight the entire time.
Sam: Well, in that case, all right.
( Cruising with hobbits . . . )

So it was Friday night in Radio City Music Hall before the the FotR symphony began, and these were excited hobbits. They may not look it, but I can assure you, they were. The hobbit wranglers, belleferret, frodosweetstuff, and I all got our tickets separately but still wound up in the same row a few seats apart from each other, and we managed to rearrange and sit together without any fuss (would YOU want to sit between a couple of hobbit wranglers?), so, luckily, the Frodo's and Bingo didn't have to do a reenactment of Heartbreakingly-Crushed-in-Dimril-Dale to persuade anyone to move.
( Bring forth the report, Frodo . . .  )

Last weekend I had the great fortune to join up with some of my hobbit posse in Manhattan to see the FotR symphony, a Tolkien manuscript exhibit, a talk with Howard Shore and some other Tolkien experts, and Billy Boyd's band Beecake. I'm still recovering from a sore throat, congestion, and tiredness, but it was totally worth it, as it was a wonderful time.

I drove up to lbilover's Thursday evening, where I met up with her wonderful self again, and met for the first time the delightful frodosweetstuff and belleferret. They had just gotten back from a Woodjin tour of the Pine Barrens. Having gotten lost in the Pine Barrens when I was a lil kidling, I was with them in spirit on that. Lbilover drove us into the city--bless her--to the Holiday Inn Midtown where we stayed for 2 nights with 8 hobbit dolls. It was quite comfortable, in a good location, and there was enough room for the hobbit dolls to skate back and forth on ice cubes without getting in our way.
( It's dangerous business walking out your front door . . . )