Dudes, let me tell you that I now have a reason to hate February a little less. Last Friday, when it “snowed” and left that frozen coating all over the ground and left black ice in unfortunate places, I made sure that Franny was ready for school early, so we could have a leisurely walk though the half-inch of snowy ice.

We walked slowly, and stopped to let Franny crunch icy puddles and make snowballs. We took the streets to school that seemed to have the most snow on them, so we took a slightly different route through the residential neighborhood her school is in. Frannie and I decided to turn down a street we never take that had a sidewalk covered with pristine snow as far as we could see.

I was stopping to look at frosted trees, and rooftops, and the poor cold flowers when I saw a “for rent” sign in the window of an apartment. We had been planning to move when Franny finished school in June, but have heard rumblings that the rent is going way up here soon with the new owners, so I was keeping my ears pricked for affordable places, and have been checking craigslist for average neighborhood prices. I was also distressed to learn this weekend that our neighbors who have lived here for many years were chased out by the fact that their roof has been leaking (and has gone unrepaired), causing a mold bloom which was making them sick.

I walked up to the apartment, assuming that it would be a bad fit–that it would be a two-bedroom or would be outrageously expensive. It was neither of those things and looked pretty big. I wasn’t sure how they fit three bedrooms into what I assumed was a four-unit building, but it turns out it’s a two-storey duplex. We looked it over on Sunday and the landlady offered it to us on Monday. I feel like we’re getting away with something, because our neighbors who just moved out told us that the owners of our current building own another building in this neighborhood, also on Aurora Avenue, and are charging higher rent there for a two-bedroom than what we will be paying at our new duplex.

So now we’re moving, starting mid-March. It’s really fabulous, like a house that just happens to be attached to another house. In addition to the three bedrooms, it has two bathrooms, spacious living areas, a decent, finished basement, a fenced backyard, and garage storage space. This means I can boot the monkeys outside when they are driving me crazy. And we’ll be so close to the Zoo again we’ll be able to hear the lions roar, just like before when I moved to Phinney Ridge during grad school.

Goodbye, too small apartment! Goodbye, bass-playing neighbor boys! Goodbye, sleeping in the living room! (The curtain experiment failed. That child needs her own room, and she’s about to get it.)

We’re stupid excited. Now we can have my friend Supa over for dinner, because we will have enough space to host her and her entire dynasty. You’re first on the list, Supa. Also, IRL friends, if you have any boxes to loan let us know. We have none!

In Other News: The New Workout Plan

“My name is Ella-May from Mobile, Alabama/
and I just want to say since listenin’ to Kanye’s workout tape/
I been able to date outside the family, I got a double wide/
And I rode a plane….”

Since I am about to stop nursing, I have made an executive decision to stop eating like a fucking pig now. The time when I can chow like there’s no tomorrow is after dinner, so I have stopped eating dessert, unless it’s something special or on the weekend. If I’m hungry after seven, I eat a piece of fruit. Let me tell you, this is painful. I have had actual dreams about butterhorns, and I don’t even think I’ve had a butterhorn since, like, 1986. I’m not starving myself here, people, I’ve just cut out night snacks, but my brain is now trying to kill me.

Actually, it’s getting a little easier. It’s been about three weeks and just from behaving myself at night I can wear a pair of pants I said goodbye to after the xmastime food orgy. I just have to keep these things in perspective, because nothing could be harder than when I had to give up my hookers-n-meth habit. Boy, did I miss Tawny and John-John. I pour out a fotie for my hooker homies.