One day Rob mentioned to me, “Hey, did you know that MacBooks are available for Employee First Discount?”

I ran to Darin with this news. “Okay, then, let’s get you a MacBook,” he said. He got onto the Employee Purchasing website, filled out the information, hit Send.

Seconds later he realized he’d put 3 Infinite Loop as both the mailing and delivery addresses. So he called the support number listed and changed the addresses.

He called back the next day, just to double check. And indeed, they had made one teensy, weensy, mistake: instead of actually changing the address, they’d merely changed the city name. So instead of sending the computer to 3 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA, they were sending it to 3 Infinite Loop, Small Town Silicon Valley, CA.

Sigh.

The computer ships from China. They try to deliver it to an address that doesn’t exist. They ship to a gigantic Apple warehouse in Elk Grove, where it sits and sits and sits until they can figure out what the frack is going on.

Meanwhile, each and every day I asked, “Didja hear anything? Is it on its way?” Darin patiently explained the situation to me a few more times, and every time when he finished I asked, “Is there anyone we can call? Seriously, they’ve got to have packing numbers!”

Who cares. The Sturm und Drang is over. The doorbell rang this morning and I glanced out the window. “FED EX!” I yelled. Darin beat me to the door and he took in the smallest, thinnest box I’d ever seen. I felt a wave of disappointment. “That can’t be it.”

“Oh yes it is,” he told me, and he opened the outer box to reveal the Apple packing box, which is a marvel of modern industrial packaging. Seriously, if you want to see excellent design in box-making, hie thee to an Apple store and ask to see the box the MacBook comes in. It’s fabulous: thin, compact, yet complete.

And now, after double-checking that all the files have been ported over and all my major apps are working, I have a brand new machine. As I lay here on the couch, my MacBook rests on my abdomen, kind of scarily warm (gotta look into lapdesks). I am happy. All is right with the world, and not just because I made a killer lemon Bundt cake this evening.

For a while I couldn’t decide what to name my new toy. I thought about “Wicked Fast” (given that it’s at least five times faster than my iBook and has four times the RAM) — remember when the Macintosh IIfx was wicked fast? Hahahaha. And then I thought, No! I should name it after a current interest of mine.

Hence the title of this entry, which is also the name of my computer.

March: comes in like a lion, goes out like Poseidon on a five-week bender.

Rain. Rain. More rain. Right now it’s just cloudy, although the forecast says “Rain” when it doesn’t say “Thunderstorms.” It says this, in fact, for the next two weeks.

I’m one of those Seasonal Affective Disorder people. I don’t want to do anything when it’s wet and cold like this for weeks on end. We’ve been home sick and we’ve been home recuperating. My left jaw still hurts from the surgery. I think it may hurt a little from the dampness too.

The ground is full up with water — our front lawn is damp and springy, except at the bottom of the slope, where it’s a big puddle. I think I’ve been running outdoors once, maybe twice in the past month, and most of the trail runs we would normally hit are out of the question. I’m not currently feeling hardcore enough these days to go out in the drizzle, let alone anything stronger. Getting back into it takes time, and as Rob says, when the weather gets better we’ll be able to do lots more runs.

When the weather gets better. I’m really hoping it’s soon.

I don’t know where these storms are coming from. Hopefully they’re passing over the Sierras so we have a lot of snow packed up there. California with rain is not that much fun; California without rain is much, much less fun.

I had oral surgery this morning: a graft taken from the roof of my mouth and sewn onto my gum line. It was less fun than it sounds, although I did get a prescription for Vicodin out of it. (What can I say? I hear about the cool Hollywood drugs and want to try them, at least when it’s medically necessary.)

Between not wanting to touch my palate with my tongue, and not moving my left cheek (to avoid moving the sutures), I can barely move my mouth. I sound like Lili von Shtupp, from Blazing Saddles. Needless to say, my kids are paying me no mind, except to say, “Mom, why do you sound so funny?”