The Last Real Gas Station

En route to my family's lake house in upstate NY, we stopped to fill up the Honda at a gas station somewhere in Pennsylvania. It seemed like any other gas station until I went into the restroom: the ladies' was only one room, but there were two toilets together in said room. No stall, no dividing wall, nothing. Just two toilets side by side. Pilot and co-pilot? Not understanding the set-up there - it seems like you'd have to be pretty good friends to make use of that. It can't just be the woman behind you in line, it can't!Turns out, I had stumbled into the Last Real Gas Station in America. Or at least the type you can't find in Northern Virginia. I took a closer look around, and indeed, this wasn't the prissy, computerized-sandwich-making, expresso-brewing, convenience mart gas stations we've grown so accustomed to. No, it was just like the grimy gas stations of yore. The cashier stood behind bullet-proof glass. Meanwhile a sullen, long-haired man sat in the corner playing video poker right next to a display of Penthouse magazines and other publications of that ilk, which were unsullied by any brown paper covers.

A few steps over from the display of rude bumper stickers, three solitary hot dogs spun round and round on one of those metal hot dog warmers. Their presence seemed almost like an afterthought, or a purely decorative nod - just to continue the grand Gas Station Hot Dog tradition. How long those particular hot dogs had spun there, I couldn't say. The dawn of time, perhaps, or the late 90s at least?

"Who would buy one of THOSE?" I thought, just in time to look over and see my dad carefully putting mustard on said Gas Station Hot Dog.

Hating on Flyover Country

I have family in upstate New York and I feel it is such an overlooked part of the U.S. I only go there in the summer when the weather is nice, mind you, but it's just lovely there. Everyone buys corn from roadside stands, the major holiday in the town where my family lives is "Hot Dog Day" - all very quaint. So I'm always interested to hear about upstate NY in the mass media, and I saw that one of the documentary films in this year's SILVERDOCS festival is about a family living there. Here's the Washington Post article about the film:

"This haunting documentary situates its audiences in the lives of a working-class family in rural Upstate New York. Four generations grapple with a host of America's most entrenched social ills: joblessness, abusive relationships, teen pregnancy, post-traumatic stress disorder and child molestation. Seeping through each gorgeously shot scene is a painful sense of listlessness. The lack of hope within the family is juxtaposed with the natural beauty caught by the filmmakers' cameras."

That doesn't exactly make you want to get in a car and visit, does it? The painful listlessness of Hot Dog Day...

In Honor of Summer

Brooklyn, 2008

Across the Pond

Do you think that taxi drivers in London have any control over the advertisements on their cabs? I wonder if the cabbie who drives this one is embarrassed that he is pimping a cheesy romance novel. Maybe his fellow drivers snicker about him behind his back.

I was sorry to see that Hannah Montana made her way to the UK. Miley Cyrus, I will ruin you!

Tweener fads are big around the globe, I suppose... Look at this British remake of High School Musical:

But I absolutely love the UK. Even the food:

Food pics in Scotland: Vegetarian haggis (the real thing was too scary to contemplate), and an assortment of fried foods, including fried sausages.

Had the most amazing grilled cheese sandwich from Borough Market. Truly an masterpiece in cheese.

We ate our sandwiches in the courtyard next to Southwark Cathedral, and our pleasant lunch was disrupted by a large man shouting epithets in an Eastern European language after he spilled one of his two giant bottles of beer. All the businessmen and school children eating nearby looked quite perplexed by the situation. "This is why you don't drink two 40s outside the church," my brother noted sagely.

March isn't tourist-season, so we had our little capsule on the London Eye practically to ourselves. Unfortunately, our fellow riders included a little girl who decided about halfway through that it would be loads of fun to shriek at the top of her lungs without ceasing. The sound bounced around the glass pod until both of my eardrums exploded.

Is it lame that I booked my room at EasyHotel just because I really like the color orange?

Trying to get a picture of the whole room was impossible - it was so small that you were immediately sitting on the bed once you opened the door. The bathroom resembled an airplane bathroom with the addition of a shower.

I think London is the greatest city, I mean, just look around!