Wawa

And oh yeah…can we please get some Wawas up near Boston? Pretty please??? Preferably one in West Newton?!?!?!

Beautiful Mount Airy Lodge

Now’s the perfect time
The season is just right
You can play all day and dance into the night
All you have to bring
Is your love of everyt-thiiing
BEAUTIFUL MOUNT AIRY LODGE!!!!!

OK, anyone who lived in the NYC Metro area in the 70s-90s remembers the commercials and ads for BEAUTIFUL MOUNT AIRY LODGE. They were on constantly. I always thought it looked like such a fun place to go. I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to “play all day and dance into the night”…in fact, it sounded like my version of paradise! Maybe one day I’d be a grown up with a husband and get to go to BEAUTIFUL MOUNT AIRY LODGE. All I had to bring was my love of everything? I could do that.

Here’s an older version of the commercial:

My wedding to Matt is rapidly approaching, and due to a large family trip to China, our honeymoon is going to be put on the backburner. But, I thought in the meantime we could do a little mini-trip somewhere. (We’ll probably end up going to The Woodstock Inn in NH…we love that place.) But then I had a thought: what about BEAUTIFUL MOUNT AIRY LODGE?

We could drive out to the Poconos and play all day and dance into the night! Cheesy enough to be fun, I’d say!

And then I Googled “Mt. Airy Lodge.”

Beautiful Mount Airy Lodge has ceased to exist. I haven’t lived in New Jersey for ten years and what happens? Mt. Airy Lodge disappears. But before it disappeared, the once grand resort sat abandoned. You can view pictures of the vacant shell of Mt. Airy Lodge here and here.

Upon seeing the sad story, I felt like a piece of my childhood had died. It’s bad enough that Crazy Eddie went out of business (in spite of his prices being IN-SAAANE) and that Elmo has hijacked “Sesame Street”…now I find this out?!

Matt has asked me to stop singing “Beautiful Mount Airy Lodge.” :-(

ShopRite and Always Save!

Today I saw a ShopRite truck while going down Route 9 with Matt. I wonder what a ShopRite truck was doing around here…we’re probably at least 150 miles from a ShopRite.

ShopRite is one of the supermarkets I grew up going to. (Others includes: A&P, Grand Union, and Foodtown, as well as Keyfood and Waldbaums in Brooklyn)

I’ve had the old ShopRite can-can commercial stuck in my head ever since!

Beware of Driving in NJ!

Check this out!

Ribbit!

Look at that little toad! After almost stepping on him (he blended in really well with the ground!) he was polite enough to pose for some pictures.

Records

Last weekend we visited our friends Debbie, Paul, and their 14 month old baby Kaitlyn in Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania (Debbie and I went to high school together). On Saturday we went to Waterloo Village, which is a fun place to visit but has sadly lost funding since I last visited when I was 10 (*Gasp!* That was 15 years ago!).

On Sunday, we went to the Quakertown Farmers Market and Flea Market in Pennsylvania. We got incense, whisks, bandaids, and RECORDS! Yes, records, glorious records!

Matt and I recently acquired an old record player…I need to post pictures of it; the thing is awesome. It’s in a wooden cabinet with storage underneath for records. The problem is, we didn’t have any records. Until our little trip to Quakertown, that is!

We bought FIFTEEN classic albums for eleven dollars! Our collection now includes:

Steely Dan’s Aja (It was $0.33! Wow!)

Jethro Tull’s Thick as a Brick

The Allman Brothers Band: Beginnings (A two record set for ONE BUCK!)

The Sound of Music Soundtrack

Gregg Allman’s Laid Back…we’re going to see him at the Orpheum next month so we’ve gotta get in the mood! :-)

We got some more…I can’t remember what else. I think Matt got some Doobie Brothers. He’s a HUGE Michael McDonald fan.

Ooh, we also got a Boston album…Matt’s always been a big fan of them and I never listened to them much before, but since we got into Beatlejuice it’s really cool to hear Brad Delp singing.

It’s fun to have some of these classic rock albums on record. There’s something about the sound of a record that CDs and MP3s don’t compare to. My first record ever was Culture Club when I was a kid. I listened to it on my Fisher Price Record Player! :-)

Getting these records made me sad about the direction of album cover art. It’s been going downhill since the advent of CDs 20 years ago. The worst was on tapes. Album covers never translated well to cassette covers. But now with MP3s, album covers really mean very little. Even when I do buy CDs (which is rare), I rip the MP3s onto my computer and often lose the actual CD case. :-( I guess at this point it’s more important for a band to have an impressive website than an impressive album cover. The art of album cover work is nearing nihility. Sad, sad, sad.

But for now, Matt and I will be enjoying listening to old records in the attic. And we’ll be continuing to build up our record collection. I think next we’re going to try to find some jazz.

I’m from Joisey! Are you from Joisey?

Yes, I’m from Jersey! The land of full-service pumps. It’s illegal to pump your own gas in Jersey (and Oregon as well), and that’s absolutely OK with me. I don’t like pumping gas. The intricate workings of a gas pump are obviously far too complex for someone of my mental calibur.

What can I say? I’m from Jersey!! I pull up to the pump, roll down the window, and declare: “Fill it up with ‘regular’, please!”

When I lived in Watertown, I used to stop at a full-service Citgo for my gas on the way to work, but when I moved to Newton I couldn’t find a full-service gas station on my way to work.

Yesterday I had to meet Matt in Watertown after work, so I stopped at that full-service Citgo station. Let me tell you, it was great. I got to sit there leisurely as someone else pumped my gas…and it’s a good safety precaution too. Should I happen to faint when I find out it cost over thirty bucks to fill my tank, I’m already sitting down which will decrease my chance of concussion.

Nothing’s finer than a cute little diner in the morning!!

Yesterday Matt and I did a little day trip to Wilton, Connecticut to visit some family.

We travel down to the Tri-State Area regularly to visit family and friends. Connecticut has a surprisingly high amount of cute diners. Being from the diner capitol of the world, I love a good diner. Watertown’s got a few good diners but aside from those and The South Street Diner, Greater Boston doesn’t have a whole lot in the diner department.

My criteria for a diner:

1. It should be CHEAP. I should be able to spend less than $7 and leave feeling stuffed.
2. It should serve breakfast all day.
3. It should have fantastic grilled cheese.
4. It should have a rotating display case with desserts in it.
5. It should have frappes/milkshakes.
6. The waitress should be spunky, maybe a little rude, but will always call you “hun” or “sweetie”.
7. There is always Sweet-N-Lo at the tables.
8. They should be ready to fill Matt up with lots of coffee.

Jukeboxes at the tables are a plus.

On Saturday we found a very nice little diner in Milford called Kimberly Diner. It was crowded, cozy, and cheap. Matt got eggs and I got grilled cheese and a shockingly tasty cup of Manhattan clam chowder. The service was a little slow, but the food hit the spot and the total was only about $10.

Roller Skate Sneakers

Anyone else think those roller skate sneaker things are ridiculous?

Yeah, they’re dangerous…I don’t know that they’re necessarily more dangerous than 80s toys like PogoBalls, Skip Its, or even my favorite, Crocodile Mile.

But what’s ridiculous is that parents are suing the company that makes those stupid sneaker roller skates! Of COURSE those things are dangerous. Suing the company is like that person who sued McDonalds for making the coffee too hot.

Another qualm I have with those sneaker skates is that I see kids skating everywhere. It drives me crazy. At restaurants, I’ll see a 10 year old skating over to table with their parents. I’ll see them skating around stores. Come on, there’s a time and a place for everything. I wonder if they skate around the house too.

I can understand that they’re a cool thing to have, but I’m sure it would have been one of those things that I wanted and my parents would never let me have!

WHEN I WAS A KID, we skated outside or better yet, at a skating rink! I don’t think they even really have skating rinks anymore, which is truly, truly, a shame. I spent many fun hours at the Kendall Park Skating Rink. It smelled like feet, mildew, and Slush Puppies. But that’s where we skated, and we loved every minute of it!!!!

Another “You Know You’re From New Jersey When…”

There are a lot of “You Know You’re From New Jersey When…” type things floating around the internet. Some of them are not applicable to me and where I’m from in Jersey. So, I’m compiling my own in light of the fact that I was just there last weekend. Many of these are from other lists, and I made a few of my own additions and included links.

- You never had school on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur.
- You don’t pump your own gas.
- You know what real pizza tastes like, and you know that a bagel is much more than a roll with a hole in the middle.
- All good nights must end at a diner–preferably with cheese fries. You don’t understand why other states don’t have 24 hour diners.
- You say “cawfee” and “dawg”.
- You have always lived within 20 minutes of a mall.
- You’ve gone to the Princeton Record Exchange and left with a ton of CDs and spent less than $30.
- Every Passover the school cafeterias serve tuna on matzoh.
- You’ve been seriously injured (or know someone who was) at Action Park.
- It’s Great Adventure, NOT Six Flags!
- You know that the state isn’t one big oil refinery.
- You shop at Wawa, usually to get Tastycakes and Herr’s potato chips.
- Everyone calls the beach “The Shore”. (Actually, we never did this because we’re originally from Brooklyn, but most people do.)
- You know what a Piney is.
- You remember the song from the Palisades Park commercials.
- You know that “Acme” is an actual store, not just a Warner Bros creation.
- Every class you were in had someone named Maria or Tony.
- You weren’t raised in New Jersey — you were raised in either North Jersey, Central Jersey or South Jersey.
- In the summer you buy corn on the cob from a farm stand.
- You pick your own pumpkins for Halloween.
- You get excited when Shop Rite has its annual Can-Can sale.
- You’ve never heard someone speak with a “New Joisey” accent.
- You know what a “jug handle” is.
- You don’t think “What exit?” is very funny, because it’s not applicable for everybody.
- You used to shop at Bamberger’s, Channel, Bradlees, Caldor, and Jamesway.
- You can’t pass by an STS without thinking: “STS - Yes!”
- You used to go to the Turtle Back Zoo and The Land of Make Believe. (And you know the creepy legend of Jenny Jump!
- You know someone who has run into Bruce Springsteen.
- You know who Tillie is.
- You’ve been stuck in terrible traffic on the George Washington Bridge.
- You pass by abandoned farmhouses all the time.
- You know what jimmies are.
- It’s funnel cake, not fried dough!
- Not only was there an ice cream truck, but also an Italian ice truck that came around.
- Every time someone in Hollywood makes fun of Jersey, you’re mad and proud at the same time.
- You know that the Statue of Liberty is actually in New Jersey.
- You know “that smell” comes from Staten Island.
- Your car is covered in yellow-green dust in April.
- In high school you, or someone you know, worked at a Friendly’s.
- You have mandatory recycling enforced by law.
- You always pass by Buicks with Hefty Bags as windows.
- You’ve been on the water flume at Seaside Heights.
- You know about the legend of the Jersey Devil.
- At the end of the summer, you either go to a county fair, Fireman’s Fair, or a 4-H Fair.
- You’ve been camping. (Especially in the Pine Barrens or Cape May!)
- You know where the Giants and Jets actually play.
- You know that people from South Jersey have a different accent than from North and Central Jersey.