I have read "The Hobbit" only once, and that was over 32 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 a few days ago 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 am having 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 these similarities... 

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

"They are inclined to be fat in the stomach..." ~ True, lately, I'm sorry to say.  It wasn't always this way.

"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 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 mine, and I like living in it.

"He did not remember things very well, unless he put them down on his Engagement Tablet..." ~ Not only am I the Queen of the Homebodies, but I am also Queen of the Memory-Challenged, which, by default, also makes me the Queen of the Pencil & Paper Club.  I have a Teflon brain, and nothing sticks to it anymore.  Slides right off...

"He liked visitors, but he liked to know them before they arrived, and he preferred to ask them himself..." ~ Yep, yep, 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..." ~ Like Bilbo, I can get flummoxed easily, but when push comes to shove, you'll want me fighting on your side. 

So, there you have it.  Bilbo and I are cut from the same cloth, and very nearly the same age, too.  I'm only up to page 31, but I am convinced that my roots trace all the way back to the Baggins clan (with a little wanderlust Took mixed in), straight around a winding branch, smack dab in the middle of a neither too-wet nor too-dry comfortable little hobbit hole.

Pull up a chair and have some tea.