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bo·de·ga/bōˈdāgə/

1. A grocery store in a Spanish-speaking neighborhood.
2. A wineshop or wine cellar.

How many of you knew what that word meant? Every time I've ever read it in a story, it conjured images of ...well, to be perfectly honest, I'm not even sure. So, tonite I decided to Google it, after hearing it 3 times in episodes of Castle, recently. It's kind of funny because I hear it the most often in the In Death Series by JD Robb. It's weird how sometimes you assume something and go on for years in your life thinking something is one way, when really it's the other.

Ever come across things like that? I've always been a pretty serious reader. When I say serious, I mean I love to read. Its fiction, for me, that does it. To my way of thinking fiction is the BEST vacation. So, because I've been reading since I was 3, you could say I've been to a lot of places and seen a lot of things. Anyhow, back to my silly little point. An example of something being one way for years and then you find out the truth and it changes. Feel free to laugh your ass off, but for years and years I thought the word "idly" was pronounced id LEE. Yes, that's correct. I knew what it meant, because for me it's easy to determine definition by the context of the sentence. It's almost like cheating the system. Then, when I head it spoken, it finally clicked that I"d been pronouncing it wrong all these years. I was embarrassed for myself. Funny how life can do that.

Reading has shaped me into the person I am, and continues to make me want to strive to be the person I wish I was. I feel like I absorb parts of stories. They become a part of my life, my mind, my personality. For some reason, when I read a book, if it's a good one, there are parts of the story that stick with me forever. Scenes I guess you could say. At different moments in my life, I run through those scenes and wonder how the characters I love would handle it. Or, it just takes me away for a moment and makes me smile.

It breaks my heart that there are probably millions of people who will never know the joy of reading a good book. The pleasure in getting so caught up in the world of an author, that you dont' have a clue what time of day it is. What you were doing before you delved into the story. Why you can't put that book down. I hope that this is something my so will grow into, as right now at the age of 7, it's something he hates. I equate all of the knowledge and skills I have, to my love of reading. My views. My beliefs. My hopes. All thanks to the imagination of an author.

I don't know where that came from, but at least I didn't flake today.

Peace,
Kristi