Celebrities' snow days are just as mundane as ours

Stars -- they're just like us! They shovel walkways! Their power goes out! They watch too much television, catch up on reading, eat comfort food. They hunker! As the winter storm shut down much of the Washington area Saturday, the snow days of the region's glamorous celebrities looked . . . pretty much like yours.

"The kids watched more television today than the rest of their weekly allowance combined," said MSNBC news anchor Norah O'Donnell, who lives in Wesley Heights and spent the afternoon hiking to Chef Geoff's. Her husband, Geoff Tracy, owns the restaurant, which was lucky -- the couple's house was low on food. "We raided the kitchen," O'Donnell said. "Chicken, onions, pasta. . . . I went home and made chicken soup."

Perhaps she should have traded recipes with Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes, who took advantage of the snow day to prepare a "five-and-a-half-pound brisket. Slow-cooked in a bottle of red wine for four hours," he wrote via e-mail. "I've been meaning to slow cook a brisket for a while."

Democratic political operative Debbie Dingell made biscuits and beef curry, and D.C. schools chief Michelle Rhee also holed up with home cooking. "My mom and dad came in from out of town," she e-mailed, "so we ate my mother's cooking all day long."

(Norah, Ben, Debbie, Michelle -- y'all need to have a potluck.)

Stars! They play outside with their kids!

Denis McDonough, the White House's acting National Security Council chief of staff, was 20 minutes late for a conference call because he'd been building igloos with his daughter outside their Takoma Park home.

Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan made snow angels with his 4-year-old. "A good snowfall is always great for the kids," he said, although he was worried about a scheduled trip to New York. "I'm crossing my fingers that the Acela will take me there."

Sarukhan was reached while huddling in his parked Cadillac in the garage of the official ambassador's residence in Northwest Washington's Foxhall neighborhood. He was trying to charge his cellphone. His electricity was out.

Also powerless: CNN's Wolf Blitzer, who took refuge at a friend's house and spent the day lounging and reading the news.

Also reading: "I've been reading a new biography of James Monroe all day," said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va). "It's a real treat for me to have all day to read." He and his wife were planning an evening viewing of "Frost/Nixon."

Also viewing things: Andrea Mitchell and Alan Greenspan spent the day glued to the television and a computer in their Northwest Washington home, working. The former Federal Reserve chairman was scheduled to appear on "Meet the Press" Sunday morning and hoped that he could get to the studio. "We are completely snowed in," Mitchell said. "Our street never gets plowed."