When I moved to DC, I thought that it was an East Coast city that got snow regularly and that it had the infrastructure to handle snow. How wrong I was. This city can't handle more than an inch of snow. Normally I just make disparaging comments comparing DC to Chicago, but at the end of January I ended up cooking for a baby shower twice due to DC's lack of snow skills.
My friend Y was pregnant and her due date was the second week of February. I met Y at work and became friends with her and C, who are both great. So C and I arranged to have a baby shower for Y. We sent out invites, reserved a room, assigned various people to bring food and/or drinks - the whole shebang.
Three days before the baby shower, we found out that there was a major storm heading towards the East Coast. The weather people were predicting 6 to 12 inches of snow in one night. But then the predictions began to be downgraded and nobody was sure how much snow we would get. C and I decided that we would do the baby shower and if work was closed due to massive snowfall, then we would just have some extra food at home to eat instead.
In the end, we got no snow at all but work was still closed down. Why? Because they got a half inch of snow. Seriously. So I was stuck with 36 angel food cupcakes and a whole bunch of tea sandwiches, all of which needed to be eaten in the next day or two. I ended up having a spontaneous get-together at my place with a bunch of friends to eat all of the baby shower food, and then I made it all again the next week.
It all worked out in the end. Y had her baby three weeks early, a couple of days after the rescheduled shower. But I learned a hard lesson about DC: the idea of snow makes everything shut down.
On the other hand, I can assure you that it is really easy to make angel food cupcakes and tea sandwiches. Trust me, I made them twice in a week.
