A Beautiful Night for a Birthday

It was balmy and breezy last night on Second Avenue and Fourth Street in the East Village, as Plot and Duck said good-night to the Great Birthday Boy and The Great Five Head. They were turning uptown to go dancing at a club in Harlem that doesn't start playing Afro-Beat until midnight, and Plot and Duck were turning downtown to head back to Brooklyn, take off their shoes and ransom Isabella by paying off the well-remunerated baby sitter. BZWZ was meeting old friends after dinner and she was to head up to Harlem later to hook up with PD and 5H.

Dinner was at a friend's quite handsome restaurant, someone whose child is a friend of Isabella, but Belly didn't get to come. Perhaps this is because she's not even four yet, but perhaps it has a little to do with how she managed to use PD's I-Phone at the restaurant the night before last, punch in his secret code, which she somehow knew, and order herself a present that nobody knows what it is yet. PD caught her as she was pressing Y, as in ARE YOU SURE YOU WISH TO PLACE THIS ORDER? (Y).

No lie. Plotnik's grand-daughter is figuring stuff out really early.

The restaurant specializes in pork, but there really wasn't all that much pork on the menu. The real surprise of the evening was sea urchin, kind of spread out in its briny tastiness on pieces of toast; Jerusalem artichokes, chewy and a little weird while also being a little delicious; and everybody raved over the sardines. Plotnik thought the sardines, while better than most sardines, still tasted like sardines.

The restaurant is on E. 4th Street, not too far from Plot and Duck's old apartment on E. 10th St. So many people on the street, so many outdoor cafes, all filled; so many taxis and trucks and cars, so much garbage packed into so many black bags piled up on the sidewalk, so many young skinny girls teetering on the breeze in stiletto heels and tight dresses, so many big bouncers in black suits and ties outside the clubs, such a beautiful night and so many people out to enjoy it.

The lights of Manhattan (lots) and Brooklyn (less) from the Manhattan Bridge.

All the cabbies -- Plot was one of those once. All the guys walking in tuxes carrying instruments -- Plot was one of those too, though he usually played when he was gigging in New York, meaning he didn't have to lug any instruments with him and the clubs supplied the p.a. systems. Before that, with his first bands in NYC, when he was playing guitar, and when he got paid from a club at 3am, he'd put the cash in his pocket, figuring if he put the money in his guitar case and somebody robbed him of one of his guitars, he'd lose everything.

It's nice when you know the restaurant owner who is also the chef, so he comps you to appetizer after appetizer and comes out to chat about who's got the best pizza in Brooklyn and who isn't talking to whom.

At just short of 2am, the baby sitter paid off and put in a cab, Isabella asleep in her folks' bed under the air conditioner, the phone rings and it's BZ, on her way home in a taxi. Plot will answer the buzzer in half an hour and ring her in.