I believed it, for like 2 seconds.

The people at Google must love their lives.

Where else is it corporate tradition to pull the biggest (arguably) April Fool's prank on earth and pull the legs, so to speak, of millions of cock-eyed Gmailers. I'll admit: I'm not always the quickest person alive, but I like to think of myself as generally aware, in most cases fairly skeptical and even um, cynical, at times.

But last year, they got me.

Somehow, I fell for that whole "paper backup for all of your Gmail folders" thing. This morning when I was logging in at my desk and the back-dating feature flashed onto the welcome screen, I did have to read through it once, check what day it was and read through the intro again before yelling triumphantly, "Oh Google. Them and their April Foolery..."

I'm not that great at pranking, but if I were, I'd want to be Googlish. They are just so cool.

A note in explanation (as promised) of the previous post entitled, "How did everyone find out that I LOVE SURPRISES?!!"

If there's one thing I really do love, it's surprises. This, generally is something that only a few people know about me. But somehow, my newly acquainted work friends, my 'family' in Arlington and Ryan got the memo. (Although Ryan obviously falls into the "few people" category.)

In terms of surprises this week has been easily the best of '08, perhaps of the millennium. They fall into three categories:

a) Packages that are long-awaited and of a mysterious nature
b) Unmarked gifts left in my cubicle
c) Cupcakes

Now, unpacking this list:

a) It started at Jim's, sometime around 12/19, when it would be a natural time to be receiving a birthday present. Ryan had just lost the bid on eBay, so there was the dilemma of whether he should just tell me what it had been and laugh or wait to win another one and ship it off to DC. Obviously, loving surprises, I picked Option B. Then there was the issue of whether to send it to work or home or whatever, all the while interest/curiosity building.

Coming back to the issue of April Fool's, I got home today to a perturbed-looking Chris who, with an annoyed voice said, "Your package came, and Hanna, I think it's alive. I just didn't have time to deal with it -- my in-laws just got in, but it's on the back porch. It's yours to deal with." I kept repeating, "I AM GOING TO KILL HIM," in my mind.

Then, she smiled.

I believed her for longer than I believed Google, she should get a job with them.

b) This is a mystery yet unsolved. It involves rubber duckies and it involves potted ferns. They arrive at various times throughout the day. This is a creative and appreciated individual.

c) This week, cupcakes deserve a category of their own. My first cupcake story was, like, the epitomy of love-to-be-surprised-ness. It involved a few key elements: background knowledge of something I greatly enjoy (i.e. cupcakes), timing (i.e. the doldrums of late afternoon in intern row), and of course, shock.

KMK introduced a few of us to Baked and Wired a few weeks ago, but I kept not going because it's in Georgetown and I drive and Georgetown generally puts me over the edge of inability-to-find-parking upsettedness. When I finally had gone, there were no Red Velvets left. The key to the Red Velvet, is of course, that it is a vehicle for the cream cheese icing (which I once wrote an entire blog posting about, in the olden days). So, to cut a long story short, there was a phone call, that led to a curious trip to the lunchroom fridge, which led to a cupcake-sized box, which led to a Red Velvet and a Chocolate Doom.

Heavenly.

When I got home and expressed to Chris my unbounded delight, she smiled and said, "Well, looks like you're getting cupcakes from two people today," and produced a bag from Heidelberg's.

Was it national Make-Hanna-Happy week and no one told me?!