We call her Mar.

Many of you have never been around me in real life, and even fewer of you have met my mother. For the record, my mother is a lovely woman. She's sweet and kind and well-liked by pretty much everyone. She's laid back and ladylike and never inappropriate. She has a very sweet spirit and a big heart.

That being said, it is very easy for people that know her to understand why I have such a deep affection for her. She is my mother, my friend, my confidante, and one of the loves of my life.

When I was younger, I LOVED the book and movie, Little Women. Those little women were some of my favorite people, and they called their wonderful mother Marmie. Since I loved my mom every bit as much as they loved theirs, I started calling my mother Marmie as well. Actually, my sister and I both called her Marmie back then. I don't know if my mom really liked this, but she never objected to it either.

Eventually, I shortened Marmie to Mar, and Mar is still what I call her. Chris calls her that, too, and I think it's pretty cute. When people hear me call my mom Mar, they are oftentimes puzzled, so there's the explanation.

I can't end this post, though, without going on to tell about my sister. My sister... well, her nickname for Mar morphed into Marsupial (at first). I remember my brother, Jeremy, thinking Lisa was crazy for calling mom Marsupial. It was a little strange, I'll admit. However, Lisa soon began calling Mar by the name of Moogie instead of Marsupial, which was way stranger.

Wait! You don't know what Moogie means? Please, allow me to explain! *grin*

Moogie is the name of a character from the Star Trek television series, Deep Space Nine. My sister had quite a love affair with Star Trek during her high school years (she's over that now, for the record). That's not so terrible, right? A character from a TV show... not so bad.

Just wait...

Yep! That's Moogie! Beautiful, isn't she??? Okay, I know what you're thinking... she's not even smiling so I'm not really giving Moogie a fair chance here.

Is this better?

ACK! I think smiling may be worse! And no, she bears NO resemblance to my Mar.

So yeah, my poor mother was called Moogie for several years until my sister finally gave that up. I'm not sure what Lisa calls her now... maybe just Mom?

Regardless of what we call her -- Mar, Marsupial, Moogie, or just plain Mom -- we love her lots and lots!