Chocolate Dipped Oreos

... and then Frodo said, '“I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again.” ... Maybe you're like me and as a child you liked to stare intently at your cookies as you ate them. Checking the jagged impression of each bite before you dipped the cookie once more into a cold glass of milk. 'Daydreaming dessert' let's call it. Well, in these unimaginably dark times I found myself staring into one of these nonpareil chocolate-dipped Oreos and being startled because I was thinking, 'Now where is Lincoln, Nebraska exactly?' And then I saw happy Hobbits tending grand wooden vats and immense draft horses pulling carts of packages wrapped with string to be mailed out across Middle Earth and later at night a furious dance with swirling Lincolnites' (?) faces streaked with chocolate, ebullient Season Folk twirling and flirting. The truth is, it feels like the Dark Lord is upon us and we're now lost in a Wilderland of JD Orcs and Kristi Balrogs and Marco Nazguls, and that their noxious fires are spreading. So I'll take consolation knowing that somewhere out there, beyond the mountain passes, as the great American writer of the midwest, William Gass, called it 'the heart of the heart of the country', there's a Shire with Hobbits, er, I mean people, or angels, creating treats with honor and care and offering balm au chocolate! Tolkein reminds us, “Hobbits have always been fond of all kinds of food, and they eat six meals a day (when they can get them).” Six meals means six desserts to me! If you're reading this out in the Shire, I mean, Lincoln, stay on guard! Watch for dark riders! Keep the chocolate flowing! Before we all sail to the West!