Amelia Bedelia

I love Amelia Bedelia. She was so funny because she did everything she was supposed to do but still messed up. Her employees asked her to draw the curtains in the morning, and she did, showing them a nice sketch later that day. (Speaking of which, I still don't remember if "draw the curtains" means to open or close them. Somebody help. It's a phrasing that's never been used in my working class home. And certainly we never had someone to help with chores until I was in high school and my mom got Ms. Gladys to come in once a week and clean. Until then, Mom did it all with a little bit of help from us despite working full time.)

Anyway, I think Amelia Bedelia is probably where I developed a love for word play, which sometimes gets me in trouble in here because I'm sensitive to double entendre--not as sensitive as some others are apparently.

I bought my niece Amelia Bedelia books one year, but I don't know if she liked them. She never developed into a reader, which again is a concept I don't understand at all.

I went to the public library Saturday and got a library card. My reading habit had become too expensive despite swapping paperbacks at a used bookstore. Plus, I've read so many mysteries that sometimes I don't realize I have read a book until I get it home.

(Random trivia: I saw a report last year that said the average American reads four books a year. Seriously, just four?)

Anyway, I got my card, browsed the shelves, and unsure how many books I was allowed, finally chose four: a biography of Anne Boleyn, a nonfiction text about the men who wooed Elizabeth I, a mystery by JD Robb (a pseudonym for Nora Roberts), and the first in the detective series set in Africa--I can't remember the name of it, but it has been turned into a series on one of the premium channels with one of the women from DreamGirls. I think the most recent titles is Tea Time for the Traditionally Built. What is the name of that book?

Thank you, Google and Amazon. By Alexander McCall, the series and title of the first book is The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. I haven't read it yet. I've finished the Robb book and the Boleyn biography and have started the Elizabethan suitor book.

The connections to children's books? Not a clue, but I remember my mom taking me to the library every Saturday when I was little. All three of us kids checked out the maximum number allowed as did Mom. It was a big deal when we lived in Apalachicola when she let us ride our bikes to the library in the summer because then we could read as much as we wanted. I read everything: my Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy mysteries (by the way I looked everywhere for secrets and keys and locks and mysteries--they seemed to be everywhere in fiction and nowhere in my life), my brother's Mack Bolan, Executioner series books, my sister's July Blume books like Forever, and my mom's bodice-ripping historical romances. Everything. But it was more fun when I got to check out books that I wanted to read.

I have a vague memory of my mom insisting on my getting my own library card at a younger age than the library allowed. The librarian didn't believe I could read the books I wanted to check out, so Mom had me read to her. Now, I'm wondering if that really happened or if it is another story my parents told me to convince me I was a reader. I don't know. I can picture the moment, and I remember the librarian being kindly but a stickler for the rules and my mom being polite but insistent, but maybe that's just my recreation. There are several similar moments that I just wonder about.

I still love to read. I remember pretty much taking a break from it when I started the PhD program at FSU. Of course I was still reading, but my reading choices were nonexistent. I had enough reading to do for courses that I stopped reading for pleasure. Sometimes I enjoyed what we read for class, but I missed picking out my own reading material, browsing the stacks. At one point I finally rebelled and went to a bookstore, choosing two books and reading again for pleasure, even if it was only for ten minutes at night. Of course, ten minutes at night turned into an hour, and I started losing sleep, but it was worth it.

Now I carry a book with me any time I travel and any time I have appointments, and I don't really care if I have to wait twenty minutes in a waiting room. That's twenty minutes of reading. Yay! And airplane flights? Awesome. That's even more reading time. I can read on a plane, train, car, bus, subway. It doesn't matter. I just love to read. I even read while I'm drying my hair in the morning. I just flip my hair over and read while I'm getting the wetness out. That's at least a few more pages.

I almost brought a book this morning since I knew I would get here about 7:15 and only had reading questions to check from yesterday and the coffee to make. Instead, I cleaned out my notebook and organized all my paperwork for the ISI, which will actually lighten my shoulder bag. Plus, I'm scared to bring a book up here. Then I'll spend lunch reading and not get nearly as much done, leaving more to do at night. For now, then I'm back to just reading 10-30 minutes at night, except for Saturdays.

Last Saturday after I checked out books I read the Robb novel, the whole thing, refusing to do anything else until I finished it. Wes couldn't believe I didn't get all my work done Saturday so that we could spend Sunday together, but I wanted a break Saturday, and reading is my break, my escape, my chance to slide into another world, become a detective or a queen or a criminal, anything but me, just for a few hours. If I can't escape to the beach, escaping into fiction is the next best thing.