my new tenant

Over to the right you'll notice a small ad for another blog. It's owned by Marian, AKA Panthergirl, a woman living in New York City who is the married mother of 2 kids--10 years apart-- and an incredibly youthful appearing 50. Go look at her blog page and see what I mean.

If you go visit, please let her know you're visiting from my page please!

The main content of her blog is hard to describe succinctly. What I find most interesting is tracing, through her own words, how Marian--her childhood nickname was 'Mudd' because of how her maternal grandfather pronounced her name: "Muddiyan"--managed to survive growing up with a crazy mother and somewhat removed father and what affects this had on her and her siblings.


In the past, Panthergirl's had a number of interesting posts relating to that journey. Most telling is her post on February 3, 2005 titled "Margie Dearest" in which she describes her mother. It's quite....interesting. She tackles her father and their relationship a while later on Thursday April 28 in the post "Who's your Daddy?". A warmer post is the one depicting her maternal grandparents from Wednesday March 31st. They sounded quite loving and the Italian immigrant experience is evident in their words. Here's a comment from her grandmother as an example: "I like-a candy, 'specially Hemena-Hemena Peanoots." (M&M Peanuts)

For me, Marian's most interesting post that I came across was the one that she wrote about vacationing with her kids. It's called "Making Memories" and was posted on Sunday April 3, 2005 and talks about a number of vacations taken separately and together with her children, Emma who's 20 and Lucas who's about to turn 11.

Here's a few tidbits from Panthergirl's list of interesting facts about her.

• I spent 12 years in Catholic school. I have recovered. Mostly.
• I have been struck by lightning.
• My 16-year-old self appears in the last segment of the film "The Groove Tube".
• I'm a volunteer for Greyhound Rescue & Rehab of Cross River, NY
• As a kid I kept collections of my dog's teeth and my father's toenail clippings. I was weird.
• I am a rabid Yankee fan.
• I love sushi and could eat it every day.

Personally I'd think the weird thing was being a Yankee fan and not the toenail clippings but hey, what do I know? In any case, it's quite obvious that Panthergirl is very interesting and well worth reading--every day, dammit--so get over there and give her a read. And I've not even mentioned her MiniCooper which is so neat looking....