On the other side of the road, facing the pond, there is a field of the common cattail. Along the road, clusters of purple loosestrife is blooming in peak, behind them are taller cattails with brown, dense cylindrical spikes(flowers). They make me think of troops in marching phalanx. Cattail—male troops, purple loosestrife—female troops.
A group of geese sway their big bodies in the grass. Constantly they move their heads up and down, picking food from the grasses. Two are bolder, they ignore my approaching by wandering to the edge of the green lawn.
My next stop is my park. When I have my car parked in the South parking lot, my feet landing on the ground, I feel I am back to my territory.
Walking across the green turf, I get to the Garden at Northwest corner. Alliums rounded corollas are getting bigger, their purple color is getting more noticeable. But the most striking finding are those slim, trumpet-shaped blooming flowers clustering around each of the “purple ball”. Two days ago, I still thought them look like sewing needles, hard and sharp which I dared not to touch, the balls look like meteor hammers. Now the needles magically bloomed into flowers. Now I start realizing the so-called meteor hammer are corollas with tens of flower buds!
I touched them cautiously to avoid getting painful piercing. But my caution seems having no sense, since they are soft! Just as soft as the flowers supposed to be. This experience tell me, Sometimes your first Impression can be wrong, don’t do judgement before you really know.
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早上问儿子他觉得他玩游戏的利弊。他说利是：一是他因此想学一门乐器了，二是他因此想学在平板上画动漫了，三是他学了更多的中文，四是他有话题可以和同学朋友们谈。弊自是不必说。我就说既然如此，就要平衡利弊，使利最大化，弊最小化。他说如果大家都不玩游戏，大家都平等，他也就不会玩了。但因为大家都玩，他不玩就显得不合群，没办法和别人谈到一块了。听他这么一说，想到国内禁游，18岁的以下都如此，小孩也就没那么难受了。当我说到从广播听到对一位年轻作曲家的采访，她为一款日本动漫游戏的配乐很好听。他说还有欧洲的，中国的作曲家也在做这项工作。有一款游戏的配乐是中国作曲家原作，但音乐制作是在美国完成的。想这么个我一直认为五音不全的孩子竟然开始和我谈这个话题，真是令我大跌眼镜。哪天他若是真能开口给我哼两句，我又会做何感想？我说：看来种族间并没有本质的差别，以前认为中国人缺乏创新意识，在音乐美术方面与西方人天生就有差距，其实不是这么回事。
小孩说了几次想吃莲藕，中国超市没有，终于从代购那买到了。做了莲藕排骨汤和糖醋藕片。做完，觉得少色，就加了葱花。见到葱，问儿子，你听说过这话吗"你是哪根葱呀？“ 说完，我大笑，儿子小笑。
没想到儿子说他知道，在中国时就听到过，还说对了它的意思”你以为你是谁呀！“
他又问我莲藕算是菜吗？我说和土豆一样，是root vegetable.。他说但觉得没有土豆那么多淀粉。我说因为它是水生的，而土豆是陆生的。其露出水面的部份是荷花，又和他说了”荷花出於泥而不染“
又问他是怎么想起来要吃莲藕的，他说是看了一个他喜欢的美国主播主持的一个外国人学中文节目，节目是同声传译《舌尖上的中国》，美国女主播用中文说，说不出的部份就用英文代替，有时还会夹带日文。
