And on the 24th day of January craigslist created Francis!

I didn't want to jinx it until I had this sweet baby in my greedy little hands. I found it! I found it! Wahooooo! Come on over to my house, I'm making coffee, and your order can be as stupid as you want it to be. I try to check craigslist and ebay once a week, but I've been trying not to be obsessive about it so imagine my surprise when I checked yesterday and saw that this had been listed on the 17th of January, almost a week ago! I'm 99% sure I found it so quickly because I had all but given up. My mom found this cheapy ($29) Krups machine at the market out in Palm Springs, and I told her to get it for me, to keep me in soy lattes, and out of Starbucks, until I could find this machine, which I told her could take YEARS. She bought it Saturday and Sunday I found my Francis Francis!

I found Nipper Knapp much the same way. For my birthday that year my friends and I went bowling. There was a boy there that I liked, and he was a friend of a friend and he had driven up from Long Beach just to come to my stupid bowling birthday party. I thought for sure this was a sign that he was interested. He bowled a few frames, never spoke to me and left. In my pity party (and definitely tipsy) state, I told my friend that I was DONE dating. I had THREE cats (sorry Nipper) and my guitar, and lots of cigarettes, and you know books, so I was done dating, and was just going to try to be happy solo.

I met Nipper at noon the very next day. He asked me on a date and I said "no thanks". I don't think I had ever said no to a date before that in my life. I told him we could go out, because I really wanted to go to this blue's bar we had been talking about, but I didn't want it to be a date and was that ok with him? He said that it wasn't really great news, but fine. I just learned a few nights ago, that Nipper was not really in the habit of asking out strange women, and that his suspicions about this type of gigolo behavior were confirmed when I turned him down. A few nights later he picked me up for our non-date, and we went for sushi beforehand. Half way through dinner, I asked him if it was ok if I changed my mind, and if our not date, could be a real date. He put his hand on my back (we were at the sushi bar) and smiled and said sure. There was something really sweet about the way he said it, but I learned later, that he was trying to contain his glee about the fact that he totally KNEW he was going to get lucky that night. Boy howdy. (sorry mom).

At the blues bar later that night, half way through my drink, I had the thought "I'm going to marry this guy". Later that weekend, maybe the next day, we were sitting on my front steps and Nipper said "I love..." as I turned towards him nodding, because I thought he was going to say "you" and I was going to say "ditto", he chickened out and said "your hair". He did say it a few days later and we laughed about the incident on the porch. I mean here is this guy who NEVER asks girls out and the day after our first date he's about to say "I love you". I'm sure this would be page one of any single person dating manual. "Do NOT tell person you love them within days of meeting them. Psycho." But the thing is, he did love me, and I loved him, almost from the moment he showed up at my front door. We were married 6 months later. Sometimes it just happens that way. I guess it didn't hurt that he put out on the first date. (seriously... sorry mom)

So here we are, almost six years later, one wedding, several cross country road trips, one trip to Paris, no cigarettes, lots of fights, lots more hugs and kisses, one house, one baby, two prius, zero cats, no bowling, and a Francis Francis espresso machine. I'm a very lucky girl.

Speaking of Francis: