So this is a pretty good encapsulation of our feelings about Avis after this weekend.
Without getting too much into the boring logistical details…it involved wrong instructions about dropoff locations from ten or so different people, hours and hours on the phone variously being put on hold and hung up on, and a fabulous time driving around the city at midnight on a Saturday before finally being a) forced to pay for overnight lot parking and b) told that we’d have to pay for another day’s rental because we dropped the thing off the next morning at 8AM – which was, by the way, still well within the 24-hour rental we had paid for (our answer: no).
Bad Avis.
The wedding that we rented the car to go to was a blast, though. As was the drive up, mostly because it was kind of weird.
We thought about stopping for lunch at one of the most cheesetastic places I have ever laid eyes on, Frank Pombo’s Bethwood, which…well…look at it. Has anyone been? Is it completely amazing, or just off-the-reservation bizarre? We were tempted by the turrets and the promise of a “bounteous feast,” but the butlers standing at the door holding trays of champagne left us a little intimidated, so off we went.
Where we ultimately ended up was wildly perplexing on the opposite end of the spectrum: we were in search of a diner, but after miles and miles and miles of seeing nothing but Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonald’s…Paddy’s Texas Weiners it was. And when I say that this place was stuck in time, I don’t exactly mean it in a Peach Pit kinda way.
There’s this Stephen King novella in which a couple gets lost along a back road and ends up in a town straight out of the 1950s…and then slowly they come to realize that it is a town from the 1950s, and is actually populated with dead movie stars and rock stars (Elvis, Marilyn, etc). And then it turns into sort of a horror story because said movie stars and rock stars won’t let the couple leave and…well…it’s not one of Stephen King’s best, but that’s what Paddy’s made me think of. We’re talking DEAD SILENT, with multiple roped-off sections, empty cake stands, non-working RC Cola machines, and a menu based around things like liver. And a waitress who asked suspiciously whether Kendrick was the baby’s father (of course my immediate impulse was to say “No” – an impulse that I quickly regretted once I saw her expression, which was not a good one and made me worry about the state of our eggs once they arrived).
Anyway, here’s us at the wedding (it was on a beautiful, beautiful farm in rural NJ, and the rain – that’s why we look a little damp; we had just gotten caught in it – only made it even more cozy and romantic inside the tent). I picked up that dress at a discount store (Winner’s – kinda similar to TJ Maxx) last time I was in Canada for something like fifteen bucks, and have been waiting for the perfect time to wear it. I was thinking baby shower (three weeks!!!)…but on Saturday morning it was pretty much the only formal-ish dress in my closet that fit, so: there you go.
I loved these rustic centerpieces and chalkboard menus (click here for an easy wedding DIY using chalkboard paint).
Congrats to Brian and Laura!!! So happy for you guys.
Aaaaand here’s us mid-Avis-crisis just a few hours later, on our way to Day 2 of Childbirth Preparedness class via East 11th Street, where we were finally able to unload the car (whee!).
