Brick Lane

We visit a gallery with Stan and Silver in the East End, then stroll to Brick Lane for a curry. This the Tower Hamlets council and fascinating - no doubt, poor and ethnic with the shiny city immediately west -the most visible structure being London's most recent sky scraper The Gherkin where Swiss Re domiciled. We choose lunch from multiple venues where outside-proprietors convince us their offers the best Bangalese or Hyderabad or whatever. We settle for one that looks less disco and more family-style. The kids shy away from anything hot while me, I like to tempt misery. I recall a similar place in Cambridge, MA, where Eric and I ate chicken Jal Frezi so hot it made us sweat. Those were good memories from a difficult time - post college, first job, breaking up, pre-Sonnet and my-oh-my the dramz. Brick Lane has gentrified on one side, similar to the Portebello Road which is all high-end antiques on the Notting Hills side while the other a flea market by Golborne Rd and the canal. For Brick Lane, it goes hindu-hindu to .. gay and tailoring. I walk by at least a handful of cool vintage shops and a number of metro-bars. Clubbers know about the biegal bakery which is open 24 hours offering the best bagels and salt-beef sandwiches in London, no question .. we pass a mosque calling to prayer and filling with elderly and young men, who are serious and seem disconnected from modernity. Too bad I think "threat" before anything else.

Me to Eitan, hovering: What do you want to say to my blog?
Eitan: Ummm. Ronaldo ?
Me: Anything else?
Eitan: It's now the Easter Holidays, and dad is making us tidy up even more, which I don't understand. It's the holidays.
Me: And?
Eitan: It's boring.
Me: Why?
Eitan: Dad says he's going to through it (our toys) away if we don't take them off the ground. I tried not doing it, and he didn't do anything about it.
Me: And what does that tell you?
Eitan: That you're just threatening us to try into actually doing it. And scaring us into thinking that we are going to throw the toys away.
Me: So will you put your toys in the future?
Eitan: No.