Had Fifty New Species

 

Not really on vacation today.  China certainly isn’t. Weekend’s over.  Emails flying back and forth.  But this isn’t another hotel.  We’re staying at my daughter’s friend’s place.  Lovely family we knew from Beijing.  Their older daughter, a recent Wellesley grad is articulate, staring down a crossroad between east coast and Texas, US and China, and I enjoyed getting to know here over biscotti and coffee.  Three little boys popped in and out around the table as my wife and the lady of the house chatted entrepreneurial talk like it was way overdue for them both. 

I took the back seat as we sped across Dallas, en route to the Dallas Arboretum and I let the ladies continue their jam.  Dallas looked a bit like some city in China with all these brand-new overpasses and a whole lot of space between not much of anything in particular.  The Arboretum was reservation only, but our host had a membership and soon we were soon inside, standing beneath a few lovely white oaks.  Recently reconnected with my Seek account I took it upon myself to identify every damn thing I walked by.  What a remarkable array of new trees to consider.  A “Mexican Sycamore” what a handsome tree.  Like fish-in-a-barrel they say, I had fifty new species by the time we left. 

 

Dallas, off in the distance, across a lake with one or another mansion on the far shore, before a mission-like adobe club house back up behind us, Dallas certainly felt prosperous.  Savoring the accents at the tasting garden they had the ladies manning the place offered me some bacon jelly and a sweet tart.  They talked about what they grew and almost on queue about the animals their husbands shot and the meat they cured.  And at the same time all the staff seemed to be from Mexico.  These two worlds, bright white and Spanish speaking evidence then at every turn, until I heard Chinese spoken and tried not to eavesdrop on the two couples where wee passing.  These ladies all covering their heads to protect themselves from the sun. 

 

Dallas seemed rather broad as we left and returned back to their compound in Frisco.  Their home, a gated community looked so remarkably like the places we used to live in back in Beijing.  Each one like the other, populated, apparently by South Asians and Chinese in the main, it seemed out of place and at the same time fitting, with the new-highway, new build-out vast nothingness of the city that I was able to see, I was quietly glad to have left these compounds behind. 

On our way out of town I drove to a recommended taqueria.  It was closed.  Searching for “Tacos near me.” I was glad to see that there were about three places within a five block radius and soon I was eating lenguita tacos and beef tacos on the President George Bush Highway,  (couldn’t tell you which one)., considering a mighty Texas downpour.  Over on the side of the road, was an SUV that had flipped not too long ago with a cop car standing near by, lights rotating. 

Monday, 06/28/21