a movie and late night gas stations

Monday, May 24, 2004, at 06:28AM

By Eric Richardson

Saturday night Kathy and I went up to Pasadena and saw Strayed (or Les Égarés, if you prefer) at the Laemmle Playhouse. Kathy's taken a lot of French, I haven't; so while she gets to listen to the movie, I read it. It was good.

Anyway, that's not the point of this post. On the way back it was a touch after midnight and Kathy wanted somewhere to buy a soda. The gas stations on Arroyo Pwky. in Pasadena were either closed or sketchy, so we made our way down the 110 and ended up exiting on Hill to head into downtown. On Hill, in Chinatown, there's a gas station that just recently reopened as like USA Gas or something like that after the major chain that was their closed up shop a while back. Not only were they open, the front doors were wide open and the only employee present was a friendly lady who was out sweeping by the pumps when we pulled in.

Now, this wouldn't be that surprising in Michigan, or Nebraska, but this is LA. In LA you get used to talking to gas station attendants through glass once the night becomes late enough. But here she was, in the middle of Chinatown, happily tending her wideopen store in the wee hours of the night. I thought that was cool.