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Health & Fitness

Special Delivery?

Delivery of people to work is harder than delivering cakes to weddings!

When I owned a business  the vast majority of my waking hours were spent baking cakes, freezing cakes, making icing, decorating cakes, assembling cakes, delivering cakes,  or meeting with clients.

I always thought it was the greatest job in the world! Not only did I get to be creative and artistic, people paid me to be both!

The downside of the business was delivery. I understand there are some reality shows depicting the risky business of wedding cake delivery. Let me assure you tiered cakes are delivered disassembled and then assembled on site. We never came teetering out with a three foot high cake to transport. If you are seeing that on television, it should tell you just how much “drama” is added to reality TV.

The drama came when we’d deliver two, three, or even four wedding cakes in one day. Each cake was delivered to a different location and plotted on a tight schedule, because just about everyone gets married on Saturday! I cried at least once nearly every weekend because I was sure we were going to be late! One CANNOT be late with the wedding cake!

The culprit, of course, was traffic. No matter how far ahead of schedule we began, one accident on I 95 could throw the entire day out of kilter. I just want you to know there is probably nothing more agonizing that being stuck in traffic in 98 degrees with the sun beating down on your buttercream!

So, I was interested in what Congressman Gerry Connolly had to say about Metro this week. The Congressman is a proponent of telework. He’s also a proponent of Metro. I believe if we had jet packs, he’d be a proponent of those, too, because Congressman Connolly understands what gridlock and traffic does to our economy and our lives.

I attended a meeting at the Prince William County Chamber of Commerce where Connolly spoke about the bill that he and Congressman Jim Moran have proposed to study the feasibility of Metro. The bad news, according to former Delegate David Brickley, is a similar study has been done at least three times before, dating back to the mid-1970s, but proceeded no further than the study.

Just so we all understand what is proposed: Congressmen Connolly and Moran want a study to determine if Metro is a viable possibility or if that dream is dead. I am in favor of the study because I want that answer. I want once and for all to be able to say, “Yes, this is a great idea and it is going to happen!” or “No, Metro to Woodbridge is simply too expensive and will never pay off.” If Metro to Woodbridge (or Centerville or Belvoir) is possible, let’s get started. If it is impossible, let’s get to work on the next best thing, whether it is light rail, rapid transit bus, VRE or something we've not even thought of.

I’d like to discuss this more with Patch readers, so if you have an opinion, leave it here and we’ll continue the dialogue. Elected officials represent us. It’s our responsibility to let them know what we want.

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