Marta's Mathoms

Just poking in to give a hearty Hear, hear! (hear what?) to two of my favorite hobbits. In their honor, here's one of my favorite passages with JRRT at his snarky finest before sharing a bit of heart.

For ADELARD TOOK, for his VERY OWN, from Bilbo, on an umbrella. Adelard had carried off many unlabelled ones.

For DORA BAGGINS in memory of a LONG correspondence, with love from Bilbo, on a large waste-paper basket. Dora was Drogo’s sister and the eldest surviving female relative of Bilbo and Frodo; she was ninety-nine, and had written reams of good advice for more than half a century.

For MILO BURROWS, hoping it will be useful, from B.B., on a gold pen and ink-bottle. Milo never answered letters.

For ANGELICA’S use, from Uncle Bilbo, on a round convex mirror. She was a young Baggins, and too obviously considered her face shapely.

For the collection of HUGO BRACEGIRDLE, from a contributor, on an (empty) book-case. Hugo was a great borrower of books, and worse than usual at returning them.

For LOBELIA SACKVILLE-BAGGINS, as a PRESENT, on a case of silver spoons. Bilbo believed that she had acquired a good many of his spoons, while he was away on his former journey. Lobelia knew that quite well. When she arrived later in the day, she took the point at once, but she also took the spoons.

This is only a small selection of the assembled presents. Bilbo’s residence had got rather cluttered up with things in the course of his long life. It was a tendency of hobbit-holes to get cluttered up: for which the custom of giving so many birthday-presents was largely responsible. Not, of course, that the birthday-presents were always new, there were one or two old mathoms of forgotten uses that had circulated all around the district; but Bilbo had usually given new presents, and kept those that he received. The old hole was now being cleared a little.

Every one of the various parting gifts had labels, written out personally by Bilbo, and several had some point, or some joke. But, of course, most of the things were given where they would be wanted and welcome. The poorer hobbits, and especially those of Bagshot Row, did very well. Old Gaffer Gamgee got two sacks of potatoes, a new spade, a woollen waistcoat, and a bottle of ointment for creaking joints. Old Rory Brandybuck, in return for much hospitality, got a dozen bottles of Old Winyards: a strong red wine from the Southfarthing, and now quite mature, as it had been laid down by Bilbo’s father. Rory quite forgave Bilbo, and voted him a capital fellow after the first bottle.

The big news today is I did the Mereth Aderthad through Zoom. It was a SWG event where peoples presented papers and did readings of their fic. Which was nice and the main point (so many smart, funny people!) but it was really the chat that did me good. Just hanging out in real-time with fellow fans was really nice.

I made a passing comment over on Tumblr that I'd been feeling depleted, and it struck me that of course I was. It's been a really rough month - my grandma but also it's another death-anniversary that still hits me hard, and I think I'm even grieving having to give up Peeta. Every time I look at her it's been hard, though she's also been extra mischievous so I'm more convinced than ever surrendering her back is the right thing to do. On top of which I've got some specific reasons to worry about my work's longtime survival, and the GOP budget is really going to do a number on my student loans. Oh, and I had to send my new computer back. That's quite enough for anyone to be getting on with! With everything going on with the world it somehow feels a bit small, but how silly is that? It's my life.

All of which made today really nice. Jut getting to hang out and not think about anything but geekery for a few hours. And doing it from behind my screen was probably the best way. Logistics aside, I think the in-person socializing would have been way too intense. I do need to do that more often.

That's the news from Lake Wobegone (Woe-be-gone?). Here's hoping you all are having a good Saturday.

Thanks everyone for the messages and well wishes. It's been a quietish day, less busy than I usually let my Saturdays be. I went to see Superman and got a sweet treat waiting for me in the fridge; but for now am enjoying lying down and relaxing, and of course enjoying people wishing me well.

Here's hoping it's a good year!

I've got next to nothing to report, but I wanted to check in with you all, all the same. It does me good to at least pop in.

I bought plane tickets to London for October to go see the Kid, along with trip insurance. I'm not 100% sure if I'll go or not. I could give all sorts of practical reasons for why I'm reluctant, and there are some things making October not the greatest time, but really, it's hard to want to leave America just to come back these days. I think I'd really struggle emotionally with that part of it.

I'm much more political than I can remember ever being. It makes sense in a lot of ways; but it's draining. I've started volunteering with a second group, and also taking the time to do a kind of news roundup every day on Tumblr. I'll admit I'm struggling finding the balance and wish I didn't have to give so much time and effort to it, but it feels like now's not the time to lean out, at least for me. Not trying to get into specifics, because I recognize not everyone wants to think about that so much, but in the "what I've been up to" these days it ranks pretty high.

Things are at least settling down again after my grandmom's funeral. Mainly I'm just tired and an extra bit stressed.

Peeta continues to be a menace, and I'm beginning to think I may not be her forever home. Technically, I'm still fostering so I can return her and ask to try another (the group says they'll take her back and they're no-kill). She's sweet sometimes, especially later in the afternoon, but in the morning she beats up on me a lot. It's probably just looking for attention and wanting to play, and I've tried several things to redirect her aggression, but none of it's really worked. I've given myself another two weeks to make a firm decision but at this point it feels more like working up to admit defeat. I hate feeling like I've failed her, which I do, but cats live a long time and I need to be rational about it. It may be better, too, if she needs a home with more activity than I can provide. But it still breaks my heart a bit.

That seems to be the theme. I'm dealing okay with everything going on these days, but it really is a lot.

New Peeta pic below the cut. You'd think with a face like that she wouldn't be any trouble at all, but you would be mistaken.

I did see F1 this weekend, which was a lot of fun. I don't get the ins and outs of racing strategy, but the characters were interesting.

I hope you're all doing okay and weathering the heat okay. With all the complaining, I am glad to have AC like never before.

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I'm back from the funeral. Mostly I'm exhausted and angry, primarily about an arcane theological thing. My grandmum was very speciic about her funera plans, and they centered on a Catholic eucharistic mass. About half her family, mine included, aren't practicing Catholic so can't take communion. There are ways to structure things to downplay the eucharist things, like you could have a memorial without a eucharist or have the priest invite non-Catholics to come up for a blessing, say. She didn't do that and the impact was most of the family in atteendance couldn't participate.

Which was very excluding and pulled up a lot of old pain: she wanted her whole family to be Catholic, very much so, to the point I always felt like all the hard and serious work I've done to make my peace with God was just discounted and not taken seriously because I don't don the right label. Which is bizarre because, with everything I've gone through with religion and life generally, it's a minor miracle (if you'll pardon the pun) I've not gone full atheist.

I don't doubt I'm reading into this in a big way. Funerals have a way of opening up old wounds, and there are some things I'd rather do most anything than think about those parts of our relationship. I wish I could think less generally, just now.

Anyway. Long day. I'm sure things will seem less sharp-edged in a few days, or even once I've slept in my own bed. Thanks for all the sympathy, and the space to think out loud. It really is hugely appreciated.

My grandmother died over the weekend. It still feels very ureal. I'm not particularly upset, just feeling a bit disjointed and out of sync with normal time somehow. But basically okay.

I did write a ficlet today, about a last meeting between Rory Brandybuck and old Bilbo at the long-expected party. You know, growing old vs. not, saying goodbye vs. not, all that kind of thing. I can't quite decide if it's just therapy by another name or if it's something I want to turn into a properly edited and published story. There's no rush on that. Mostly it feels good to have written again. I do wish I still was able to do that under normal circumstances.

That's the news from around here. I hope you all have a good week.

Three somewhat-big stories of the real-life variety.

First, my grandmom needs full-time care. She's my last grandparent and well over 100, still pretty sharp mentally but definitely physically frail. I'm sure the assessment is correct. It's still hard to hear. Especially when they throw around the "h" word (hospice), which again, I know doesn't mean she's on death's door these days but is still hard to hear. Even harder: people comforting me saying they fully expect her to be around for her birthday next month. She was supposed to live forever!

Second, we're the proud owner of a shiny new toilet in La Casa de Marta, and not of the porcelain variety. Peeta had a few instances where she pooped on the mat right in front of the littler box, which was one of those high-rimmed types meant to keep the litter in. She was also pooping right at the entry way, so I thought it was too narrow for her to get all the way in and turn around (she's larger than Bilbo ever was). So I invested in a much bigger, lower pan she could enter in more than one place, new mat that had not a whiff of stinky, and enough litter to fill it. Plus some new pouncy toys because I'm a soft touch. )Kitties are surprisingly expensive for ten pounds of hiss and vinegar!) No more mat-poops yet so here's hoping.

The good news is she's much more talkative and we're finally setting some "No!" boundaries. The trick is crawling into her little kitty-noggin and understanding why some ways of doing things are really quite unacceptably tempting. What a strange place to be.

Finally, there's a work thing, not even a bad thing, but I did lose access to a certain database. Logistically, it's the right call. But how will I cope without my blessed resource? (I will, I don't need it, but durn it that was my emotional support database.) It really does feel like the end of an era. Possibly I'm more emotional about my grandmom than I'm admitting to myself. It's definitely leaving me feeling off-balance, though.

Here's hoping you are all enjoying some summer fun or otherwise have good things going on.

The Kid is more or less through school. Most of her professors ended up exempting her from her final exam and will just grade her on her coursework. For her senior thesis, she showed her professor her data and defended her conclusions, but still has to finish off the actual paper. And she still has to translate something in lieu of an exam for her French course. But mostly her profs had been working with her for years so weren't too tied up on formalities when she'd been doing good work all semester. A few i's to dot and t's to cross, but we're close enough to call it.

I'm proud of her. Proud of me and her mum, too. We got her through her BS too which is no small thing. Wish I was there, but we're planning a Zoom celebration tomorrow afternoon.

In other news, Peeta is being a bit difficult. She's zooming hard in the wee hours and it's making it hard to sleep because she runs on the bed and over me as easily as anywhere else. Last night I tried to shut my door but, clever little lady, she was able to reach up and move the door-handle. I locked it, but she scratched at it until I let her in. She doesn't mean badly, but I'm worried if I can't get more sleep I'll have to give her up. I do love her and hate the thought of that, but I'm definitely a bit frayed at the edges at this point. I'll try a bit longer before I give up, though.

Happy weekend to everyone.

The biggest news of the last few weeks is, the Kid's mum had her visa cancelled and they're speeding up plans to go back to Skopje. Her school's working with her so she can do her final exams remotely once she's settled there, so she and her mum can travel together.

Practically speaking, it's not such a huge change, it's just moving now rather than in August. And it's not like she's done with school. But it means she won't get to do the graduation ceremony, she won't have those last weeks with her friend around graduation, she won't have one last summer in her city. And I'm very, very angry. Trying hard not to be because that only hurts me, but with middling success at best.

Other than that, I've been spending more time reading the news than any of us probably should. And I've been reading the Federalist Papers and, of all things, the Harry Potter books. It's nicely nostalgic. That and settling in with Peeta. She's a bit of a meanie-butt and she plays hard enough at night, I'm not getting as much sleep as I'd like. But she's a good girl at heart and gives a good cuddle when I need it most. She's gotten more and more comfortable around me, and the night I learned about the Kid, she actually settled right by my shoulder for the first time.

I'm trying my best to have a life outside all the "interesting times." Sometimes I've even managing it. And if it's only a "sometimes" kind of thing, that still feels like an accomplishment.

I am trying to check on you all every now and then. Hope you're all doing well and enjoying the spring weather as it warms up. Stay well!

My pet insurance finally agreed to pay their share of Bilbo's hospitalization costs. They weren't denying it, just taking a long time to decide on it. Long for me - I was anxious because it was a lot of money, and I was nervous they'd refuse; it was only a few weeks. But they kept promising a decision and then not getting back to me. I may have been obsessing a bit, understandably so but not their fault.

The main thing is I don't have to think about it any more.

Things are going okay, more or less. Sometimes I still think I see her out of the corner of my eye. Sometimes I'm a bit sad. But more and more, life's just what counts as normal these days.

I'll probably start fostering another cat soon, with the goal to adopt if we get on. She's a quiet baby and quite shy, but took a chin scritch like a champ even from a stranger and in a strange place. (That's the volunteer from the adoption group holding her, not me.)



I reread the first Harry Potter book and am working on a reread of the Silmarillion. Those first chapters have always fascinated me. Let's see if I get to the point where I have to break out my notecards, to keep the various elves straight.