We woke up to sleet today, which I called rain mixed snow. A native eastcoaster reminded me of the range of vocabulary at our disposal. "No, it was sleet." I was humored that he felt compelled to correct me and charmed by an old word found again. "Sleet! Why of course. I'd totally forgotten about that word." People commented about the snow being an April Fool's Day joke. They did this repeatedly, as if they hadn't heard others saying it, which you couldn't have avoided. I think the easy comic relief was a desperate attempt to lighten the mood. The snow was a drag. A gray, wet weight of the enduring winter. One of my coworkers offered the most pleasant explanation: "April came in like a lion!"

I arrived at the office to find my desk shrouded in plastic wrap. The desk, the monitor, the computer, the chair, the messy stack of papers—all wrapped. I wasn't the only one: a lot of desks looked alien-pod slimed. No one said a word as I stretched and squeaked the film from my things. I assumed they'd spent 15 minutes unearthing their desks and were annoyed and tired of it by then. Truth is, no one thought it was funny. I mean, we just started this big composting and recycling campaign! We had no receptacle for the wads of plastic.

More time setting up the computer. Everything is ready to go except VPN, which fails to connect every time. I sat on the phone for an hour with a very helpful and easy-to-understand support person this evening. Still no luck. He wrote to me later and thanked me for being a pleasant client. I feel for those people. Since the release of Windows Vista, I can only imagine that the frustration has reached new highs. But I was ready for this problem. I knew there'd be something that wouldn't work and I'm prepared to spend hours on the phone and even anticipate having to take it into a person somewhere. In his message, the support guy said he hoped that "they" get it fixed quickly. I hope so too. But I have to admit there's a part of me that fears it can't be fixed without some kind of major reinstall.