Mom again, and an unexpected flower

My mother was curious about the Chinese restaurant I often have lunch in—in part, about what made it worth getting on the subway to for lunch, alone, on a regular basis--and she didn't have to fly home until this evening, so we agreed to meet for lunch. She met me on the street outside my office, and after I said hello, I asked if she'd mind cattitude joining us. She didn't mind at all, so Mom and I got on the subway, and he walked down, and we met at the restaurant. I walked in, told them three, and as the server was bringing us menus, I explained "I brought my family today." We had two kinds of dumplings—fried pork dumplings and steamed seafood dumplings—and an order of shrimp rice cake. (Mom asked us to decide, since she'd never been there.) We all liked everything. I wasn't quite full, so we got a scallion pancake to fill in the corners.

Mom said she would like to do this again on her next trip. Then she said she'd walk Cattitude back to his office, so I said goodbye and went down into the subway, and they talked about me, or plotted world domination, or something.

Before all that, on our way through the park this morning, as we walked past one of the big old locust trees, I saw that it had a sucker sticking out of the trunk, as old trees will, and a flower cluster growing on the sucker. I leaned down, and the flowers were open and fragrant: and two or three months out of season. Suckers like that often mean the tree doesn't have long to live, but they don't usually grow flowers, certainly not months after the rest of the tree has bloomed. (Oddly, the lilacs across the path from that tree produced a few flowers an August or two back.)

Mom again, and an unexpected flower

My mother was curious about the Chinese restaurant I often have lunch in—in part, about what made it worth getting on the subway to for lunch, alone, on a regular basis--and she didn't have to fly home until this evening, so we agreed to meet for lunch. She met me on the street outside my office, and after I said hello, I asked if she'd mind cattitude joining us. She didn't mind at all, so Mom and I got on the subway, and he walked down, and we met at the restaurant. I walked in, told them three, and as the server was bringing us menus, I explained "I brought my family today." We had two kinds of dumplings—fried pork dumplings and steamed seafood dumplings—and an order of shrimp rice cake. (Mom asked us to decide, since she'd never been there.) We all liked everything. I wasn't quite full, so we got a scallion pancake to fill in the corners.

Mom said she would like to do this again on her next trip. Then she said she'd walk Cattitude back to his office, so I said goodbye and went down into the subway, and they talked about me, or plotted world domination, or something.

Before all that, on our way through the park this morning, as we walked past one of the big old locust trees, I saw that it had a sucker sticking out of the trunk, as old trees will, and a flower cluster growing on the sucker. I leaned down, and the flowers were open and fragrant: and two or three months out of season. Suckers like that often mean the tree doesn't have long to live, but they don't usually grow flowers, certainly not months after the rest of the tree has bloomed. (Oddly, the lilacs across the path from that tree produced a few flowers an August or two back.)