Well, it's been a while, I know. But, enjoy the latest chapter.

My mom needs to go to the supermarket and buy more groceries, so I suggest to my "guests" that they come along. It takes a while to explain to Legolas and Aragorn that they need to leave their weapons at home:

"What do you mean, Aubrey? People don't like weapons?"

"No, Legolas, it's not that; it's just not acceptable to display them in public."

"Not even a small knife?"

"No, Aragorn, not even a small knife."

He thinks about this for a minute. "Then how can they defend themselves, or hunt?"

"You'll see why people don't need to really hunt all the time once we get to the supermarket."

So for the entire duration of the car ride (which they thought was pretty remarkable), I was explaining a supermarket: How it has all kinds of food from all over the world and how there are other services like a pharmacy and video rental. They ask about videos, and I find myself unable to answer straightly; I guess we, who use these products every day, just take them for granted and don't really understand them ourselves.

We finally arrive, and we exit the car. We walk in through the revolving door, which they also find pretty remarkable, and we enter the building.

"There are so many people here," Legolas remarks to me. About thirty shoppers are visible at the present time, none really paying much attention to us. We follow my mom around to the different food aisles, until she says, "Aubrey, go pick out some fruit. Your, er, friends can help you."

So we make our way to the produce aisle. "Apples, I know these," says Aragorn with a smile. "But what are these orange things?"

"Oranges," I say.

"Oh. What are these oranges things?"

"They're oranges."

"That's what I said. I was asking what you call these oranges things."

"That's their name: Oranges."

"Aragorn, I think she's saying that the fruit bears the same name of its color."

"Thank you, Legolas."

I try to keep my voice down a bit when saying their names; the last thing I need is for someone to notice me talking to two men who strangely resemble characters from a certain movie.

"What are these yellow things?" Aragorn holds up a lemon and bites into it before I can stop him. His face contorts awfully as I wince and take the lemon away. I quickly place it in the trash near us and take a tissue from my purse. He wipes his mouth and removes the lemon he had bitten into.

"Those are lemons," I say. I then teach them all the names of the vegetables and fruits around us, and an elderly lady nearby gives me a strange look.

"They're not from this country," I say quietly, wishing she would mind her own business. I turn to the man and elf. "You know, it would look kind of more convincing that you're not from here if you didn't' speak in English all the time. How about you speak in Elvish?"

They gratefully accept my suggestion and converse in the Middle Earth language as I bag some nectarines and apples. They follow me around, and no one's paying much attention to us, that is, until a rather nerdy-looking stock boy wearing a pocket protector walks up to Aragorn and Legolas and starts speaking to them in fluent Elvish!

Oh no! I think. I didn't account on Ringies noticing them! Crud. Oh well, maybe they won't say anything about being from Middle Earth or ending up in my house or anything weird. Eventually, the stock boy leaves, and I walk over to them.

"You didn't say anything about being from Middle Earth, did you?" I ask.

"No, of course not," Aragorn says. "He was a nice young man. I was surprised that he speaks Elvish. Is that something children can learn in school?"

"Uh, not really; it's more of a voluntary thing."

"Oh." We take our bags of fruit and walk back towards my mom, who's about ready to leave. The food is purchased, and we walk back out of the store. It's about noon, and we notice a hot dog vendor, with all proceeds going towards the local girl scout troop.

"Would you like some hot dogs?" Mom asks.

"Sure," I say. Mom purchases four and I hand one each to Legolas and Aragorn. They each eat their dogs and I ask them how they thought they tasted.

"Great," says Aragorn. "Is this a normal thing for you to eat, or more of a rarity?"

"You fool," says Legolas, "something this great could not be an everyday meal. It's a special delicacy, right, Aubrey?"

"Um, well, I guess you can say Americans enjoy them," is all I can say. Good thing they like them; we're having hot dogs for dinner tonight.