The restaurant is closed

Since my mum closed down the restaurant, I haven't been back to see the block. In fact, I'm not even sure if I want see the block. In times of need, I find myself veering towards Chinatown hoping to make a free phonecall and grab a bottle of Sprite and to see if my mum wants to chat and I find myself stopping halfway through my step and thinking "Hey! It's not there anymore" and so I turn around and head to Mexicana's place and .. oh for God's sake, is there anything still standing anymore? Well apparently Starbucks is open til ten o clock.

For years I've hated the place- I never hated the Parramatta/North Sydney Shinjus as much as I *loathed the Chinatown one. It was dark, dingy and it smelt perpetually like fried meat and old eggs, the dinginess gave it an unhappy character- I think it probably felt to some degree unloved.. One reviewer said that it was 'the ugly stepsister' of the Shinju family. Nice. I was always endlessly competing for it in my mum's affections. Which came first? The restaurant or the daughter? 99 out of a 100 times the restaurant came first, a fact of life as a restaurant child. [I can see it to some degree happening to my friend Bear's child, I mentioned it to her and she just laughed at me. Poor little bear- I wonder if she'll grow up with the kind of resentment I did?]

But as much as I resented the place, grew weary with its smells and looks. It was still somewhere I could go- a place where I definitely knew where my mum would be. It was my territory- woe betide the hapless waiter who thought that he could deny this random stranger anything. Many a time I've walked down and picked up the phone to the gawping waitstaff while they whispered franticly among themselves "who is that? what should we do?" .. then my mum would walk through the archway and I would wave cheerily "Hi Mum!". You could literally see them melt into puddles of relief as they nixed contemplating the idea of calling the police while wrestling me to the floor for the phone [to call the police].

I'm uncomfortable with it, I'm uncomfortable without it. I catch myself thinking about it wistfully and then remembering the odor which makes me wince. There is nothing connecting me to Chinatown anymore and that makes me sad. The 28 years of history or so lost in a powder of rubble and yet, how many times have I complained to Sb that they should demolish the entire thing and restart again. Be careful what you wish for, you might just end up without that comfort zone you've always hated.