Charged Into the Call

The leaves are on their last leg. Most trees, like the magnolia out in front of my house are down to a few brown leaves after yesterday’s ferocious wind.  It seems as though it’s old Mao’s poplar trees that are the only arboles to still hold their lungs.  Looking at them now all standing at attention along the airport express way.  I’ll miss these leaves for the next four months.  They are browning on the edges now.  Some trees have allowed the leaves to turn yellow.  Green, mostly, for a short while longer.

A guest wanted dinner.  Nothing fancy.  “Just some place you enjoy.”  That’s what I’d say if I were in his town.  Ahh but the wife will join and she’ll want to have wine so it can’t be too informal. And he doesn’t want duck, so the old-reliable joint is out.  There was always that that place off to the side of San Li Tun, but after twenty phone calls I discerned that the number wasn’t busy, it was simply out of service. 

Every new place I came upon during my online search is in a mall or a hotel.  I don’t want to go to a mall.  Heading into the old city began to seem ever more attractive.  Why not?  I’d just been to Dali courtyard a few weeks back.  Predictable but predictably good.   At 7:45PM the traffic’s navigable.  You can cut across town without too much heartburn. And before long you’re in the heart of the old city in a tight courtyard admiring the quiet and the wonder of your friend who is seeing it all for the first time. 

They bring the dishes out too fast.  The fixed menu hasn’t changed since the last time I was here a few weeks back.  I could buy this wine in my local market for a third the price.  But the atmosphere is what we came for and it is satisfying.  It also reminds me of how much I miss Laurence Braum’s Red Capital Club, which was a yet again a more interesting setting with a proper menu, full of useful anecdotes. 

I had a call at eleven.  There’d be a pre-call at ten thirty.  This would be a completely different topic than the one I’d been driving on all day.  I excused myself form the others in the car and began to chat away about what we’d do and how we’d argue what it was we wanted to say.  I charged into the call when it happened, minutes after getting home, feeling like someone who had just thrown open the door to a room full of people.

Tuesday, 11/14/17