Sunday

Friday evening Sunshine was doing important job-related stuff so I was on my own for dinner. I used to go to the restaurant down the road called Bún Việt (and later Deli Saigon) on those nights. It was one of my favorites. I'd go there when Sunshine worked because she didn't love it as much. Then for some reason, without notice, Bún Việt closed. This happened just before I flew to the states in April. A new place cropped up in the same spot by the time I'd flown back again. I'm not so interested in the new place. These mysterious closings happen all the time. Favorite places like the Vietnamese restaurant Miss Kim, or pan-Asian Green Chili, or the MGM coffee shop, have all disappeared. Some of these have been replaced with new restaurants, others are just cavernous and cluttered gaps where buildings used to be. Luna D'Autunno, our first local Italian restaurant, and my favorite, closed to remodel months ago. By now I'm no longer really banking on their eventual return. At the Indian restaurant Alibaba, also my favorite, the manager informed us personally one night that the restaurant was relocating. We were given their new address on new business cards, a map on the back and everything. But no restaurant has ever opened on the indicated corner. It's all very strange. I need to remember that this happens all the time. The first two restaurants we ever tried to find in our neighborhood, based on high recommendations from our guidebook, had mysteriously disappeared by the time we'd moved in (one, the Indian restaurant Tandoor, merely moved--we did finally find that one). Yeah, so places change. It's just a side-effect of actually living here that we can register, and become disappointed by, these normal cycles. [Cavin]