Feeling the Love for my Owner

By Maggie Mae…with Ronni Diamondstein

With Valentine’s Day and the Merchant Profile issue this month, what better time than this for me to shine a spotlight on someone I love, my owner Ronni Diamondstein.

“In real life I’m a school librarian,” she always says when people ask her what she does for a living. And while she has been a teacher and Library Media Specialist for over thirty years, she has accomplished quite a bit as a writer and photographer. While I don’t like it when she leaves me home alone to go to her job, I do like it when she does those creative things. I get to ride in the car with her and sit on her lap as I am right now when she’s at 
her desk.

I have seen my owner with a camera since the day I came home, and I got used to having my picture taken ever since. She takes outdoor pictures, too: animals, birds, trees, even a single flower. Some of her best pictures hang on our walls: Heavenly Leaves is over our fireplace; it won Second Prize in the Westchester Land Trust photography show. Gedney Geese won a blue ribbon from the Westchester County Women’s Club. The photographs of our town I recognize from our daily walks. They were part of her two shows at the New Castle Town Hall. Ronni was the first artist to show her works there after the newly remodeled Assembly Room was opened. No doubt you have seen some of her photographs of people and places in this magazine. Sometimes when we go visiting people I see my owner’s photographs on their walls. They bought them at Aurora on King Street or at one of the Katonah Museum Artists Association member shows. Of course, my owner continues to take a lot of pictures of me and I’m always on our holiday card.

Ronni writes a lot too. Like taking pictures, she has been doing this all her life. Her first published piece was an Op Ed in The New York Times, “Seeing the Light on Blind Dates” and she wrote for several English language magazines when she lived in the Netherlands. Combining her love of teaching with writing she has run many writers’ workshops and originated the Writers’ Night Open Mike in Mount Kisco. These days she enjoys helping me find my voice for my column in this magazine and working with high school seniors to polish their college essays.

She’s written and edited newsletters, too, and organized and promoted special events for public libraries and non-profits. Recently she used her public relations skills to help two teens launch a charity and promote it nationally.

Ronni says she’s a jack of all trades and master of none but I don’t think that’s true at all. To me she is my master and thanks to all her trades I am having lots of fun as Maggie Mae Pup Reporter. Who knows where she’ll take us from here!

Contact Maggie Mae Pup Reporter at maggiemae10514@gmail.com

Maggie Mae lives in Chappaqua with her adoring owner Ronni Diamondstein, who, when she isn’t walking Maggie is a freelance writer, PR consultant, award-winning photographer and a School Library Media Specialist and teacher who has worked in the US and abroad.