Snowpocalpyse, Part 2

So, on Thursday, they closed the schools in Virginia. Drew and I had figured they'd probably do a two-hour late start; instead, everything got shut down, much to our annoyance -- the plows, after totally messing up early Wednesday evening, had been deployed to work through the night (we assumed), so why close school for the WHOLE DAMN DAY??

Drew went in to work, of course. He got a text from Nicole asking if Sydney could stay with us that day, and he said that he wanted to let Rachel and me sleep in (her request came in at 7:47 a.m.). I told her later that she could bring Sydney over at 10 and stay until 5, but by then she'd apparently found someone else because we never heard back. (Insert sigh of relief).

Instead, Rachel and I went sledding on the hill outside our house because McKinley hill, near school, is near the school construction zone. The street was the thinnest layer of snow over ice, which made it really fast (and dangerous, and I don't know what was going on with Rachel's sled, but the brakes didn't work and so I had to steer and stop with my hands and boots). We were out there for 90 minutes, and I'm so glad she insisted that I come ("go upstairs and get dressed as fast as you can," she ordered after she'd finished breakfast), because when we went out to look for snow pants for me an hour or so later, everything had melted!). Rachel read in one of the REI tents while I tried on pants (couldn't find any, alas) and that gave me the idea for a kid's book about a little girl who crawls into an REI tent and reads until everyone's gone, and then after the store closes, all the displays come alive and she ends up going on lots of outdoor adventures. Rachel thought that was a cool idea.

Then we got home, and Ivy's mom asked if she wanted to have a playdate. I had done a phone interview for a story I was working on in the car, parked at REI, and had another one scheduled for 4:30, but I ended up postponing it because events were moving so fast. So, I took Rachel to Ivy's, raced back to shower and change for an NU alumni event in the U Street (kind of seedy but trendy among young people with bars and restaurants) that turned out to be a total waste of my time because everyone was, like, 20. So, I stopped at Clarendon on the way home, got off at that stop and went to one of Drew's and my favorite restaurants in Arlington, Lyon Hall, and ordered a half-portion of a meat-centric dish: multiple sausages and bratwurst with spaetzle, lingonberry sauce and bacon-braised sausage: DIVINE, and I was by myself with a good book. Afterward I came back home to help Drew, who has swollen lymph nodes and is feeling crummy, with Ivy and Rachel. They ate pizza and Ivy ended up sleeping over.