Left home at 6:20, hopped the subway, and past security
at 6:50 - one of the great advantages of having an
apartment just a couple miles on the airport. My regular
angels weren't at the RCC - but I dropped their holiday
gift off with the "substitute angel," a Chinese lady who
has actually been quite attentive and pleasant over the
years, but whom I see relatively seldom; she promised to
save a few chocolates for the others.
Boarding was a zoo. Totally full flight, with the issues
that that causes. An interesting mix in the cabin, with
lots of people who didn't generally fly up front; my
seatmate was a retired firefighter from Lowell, going to
visit his son in Hawaii. He used credits fro his MP Visa
to upgrade; actually rather fun to talk to, and I guested
him into the LAX RCC, as he had a 2 hour layover.
Onboard service was correct and without a smile, but I
grew to appreciate it. Some interesting subtle ironies
hidden beneath the surface, as though the flight were
manned by some frustrated English majors.
A FA asked me if I wanted the "egg omelet" or the fruit
plate; I bit my tongue and refrained from pointing out
that "egg omelet" is a redundancy ... turned out, in
fact, to be a perfectly okay rolled omelet (slightly
dry around the edges, as the service was interrupted for
almost 15 minutes by emergency bathroom visits by the
cockpit crew, which made me rather want to reconsider
my breakfast choice) with nothing! inside and a tomato
sauce; this came with a mixed home fries of sweet and
regular taters, a timbale of perfectly cooked spinach,
and, my lucky day, two sausages. The croissant was the
usual smashed but okay thing, and a mixture of OJ and
Chardonnay went well with.
Somehow we lucked into a good altitude, and Channel 9
was full of complaints about the ride except at 340
and 350 (our altitude); still, we got a bunch of bumps.
The movies were okay but did not interest me, as I do
not care for movies at all, much less supernatural ones,
much less Tim Burton and Reese Witherspoon ones - Just
Like Heaven and Corpse Bride.
Snoozed through all this with Channel 9 blaring in my
ears (the volume controls didn't work) only to be waked
by the best part of any UA flight, the chocolate chip
cookie. Offered with milk, but I had my Courvoisier.
The intake for the flight: a Chardonnay OJ half-half,
surprisingly good, the whole better than the sum of
the parts - citrus notes (surprisingly, lemon as well
as orange) and tropical fruit (mango, mostly) made this
go well with a headache and an egg omelet; a Chardonnay,
I think one of the Chilean jobbies, okay but not as good
as with the juice, a coach-class wine OJ half-half toward
the end of the flight - quite tasteless, and 2 double
Courvoisiers. Enough to lubricate me for a trip on the
dreaded CRJ.
violist
Jan 6, 06, 12:44 pm
UA 6505 LAX OAK 1420 1539 CRJ 2A
They put in tons of standbys until the plane felt as
though it were ready to burst. One of the later arrivals
was a quite old and dotty woman who sat next to me,
proceeded to cram her giant backpack in the underseat
storage (threatening to mash my innocent little computer
bag, so I helped rearrange the thing, with a few minor
crunching noises), and then produce an almost equally
large purse, which she insisted on carrying on her lap,
saying (among other things) that it was the airline's
fault, they should serve food, and how could they
blame her for bringing snacks aboard. It became clear
that she was at best a fearful flyer with OCD, and
at worst a total loon. She kept taking snacks out of
her big pack (causing a hubbub and incidentally elbowing
me), unwrapping them, dumping the contents into her purse,
and stowing the wrappers in the seatback pocket, which
was soon bulging. And then fiddling with the air nozzle
and the light and her seatbelt and her food, and as she
got more agitated she elbowed me harder and harder (I
think there was no malice here, just incipient panic).
She asked the FA for Sierra Mist, a whole can, and when
that came, she decided she really wanted a diet one,
which caused a tiny fluff on the (extremely saintly) FA's
part. When she got her diet soda, she went back into her
purse and pulled out a bag of minibottles, which excited
her tremendously and with which she washed down various
medications. As she got more excited by the prospect of
alcoholic-tricyclic relief, she elbowed me more and more
(albeit I admit obliviously). Not an excellent flight.
The FA treated her well and in fact got her to clean out
the seatback pocket (after an initial denial that there
was anything in it). We landed, and nobody actually
freaked (there were moments when I considered it, though),
so that has to be counted as not a total loss. Question:
why is craziness that is tolerated, perhaps even welcomed,
among the young (such as Flyertalkers) somehow spooky and
frightening when exhibited by older folks?
Decided to take AirBart to Coliseum - the ticket machines
are gone, and you now need exact change to board, which
actually prevented some from using the service (the
driver told one poor Japanese tourist to go get change
from one of the skycaps and then left without him). Not
bad, actually, $2, 12 minutes. Lots of really weird people
with really weird luggage got on at Terminal 2 (WN).
BART to Powell St. was quick and easy, and I spent some
time window shopping but not buying - the Whisky Shop
has evolved into a whisky-and-woollens shop, and the
whiskies are nothing that I can't get cheaper at
Corridor or Marty's. Then I decided to cram for my test,
as it were.
violist
Jan 9, 06, 2:46 pm
I arrived quite early, despite having cheated and eaten
a peppered tri-tip sandwich at Mocca (just down Maiden
Lane from Union Square) that I'd heard good things
about (it's a tasty, abundant, albeit pricy offering,
a little over a quarter pound of medium beef on a hard
roll drizzled with jus, garnished with mesclun and a
broiled tomato, the beef having been coated with a
random-seeming but nice and quite spicy mixture of
rosemary, fennel, rose and black peppers, and crushed
chiles). Parked myself in the hotel lobby and sipped
on a glass of the Boyer Arroyo Seco Pinot Noir 02, a
medium-bodied, quite acid wine that still managed to
have some honey/beeswax and fruit - rather pleasant,
but not a stellar aperitif.
Atypically, our party was complete by reservation time:
VPescado and travelkhatt, then jrblack and his friend
Debby, then the letiole, Mr. letiole, and T-Wiz family.
They gave us a nice round table, and it was a good size
group for chat (T-Wiz, being a teenager, was reticent in
the face of his elders and silliers). Much conversation,
as always, revolved around the points and miles thing, but
some of the younger fitter crowd had a discussion of
technical climbing that made me feel just a little old
and creaky. I consoled myself with the knowledge that I
have between 10 and 35 years more gluttony, er, gastronomy
under my belt to account for my out of shapeness.
The Belleruche Cotes du Rhone 02, several bottles thereof,
was a pleasant, smooth, lightly fruited accompaniment to
the vegan food.
travelkhatt bucked the tide by having beer - first an
Ommegang dubbel (nicely caramelly) and then a 22-oz
Sacramento Brewery Russian Imperial stout (unbelievable
coffee aroma and taste). I admit I helped a little with
the latter.
Bread (a light sourdough) came with a light, thinnish dip
of garlicked and unoiled some kind of legume; interesting.
I prefer an oil emulsion for this kind of dip, which goes
partway to explaining why I no longer can conceive of
climbing a rock, however modest.
After due consideration and a substantial amount of
discussion (the young, patient waiter came back three
or four times before we decided) of the $45 root
vegetable tasting menu and the $65 regular tasting menu,
we decided to share appies and then have individual
regular main courses.
The starters were good to spectacular.
A plate of chiogga beet "ravioli" was sandwiches of thin
raw slices of the bulls-eye-colored root around some sort
of cashew stuff; tasted pretty good, actually, and at
least before the depredations of the ravening hordes
visually stunning.
The roast eggplant came as a variation of baba ghannouj
but with coconut milk and a spicing scheme that I thought
somewhere between Thai and Indian.
Black bean torte was a layered concoction of a rather too
sweet bean mash and tortillas, served with a very lightly
habaneroed habanero sauce and cashew "sour cream"; good
but for the minor imbalance toward sweetness.
Salt-pepper cornmeal-crusted fried oyster mushrooms with
a kumquat salsa were perfectly dry-fried, but again I
thought the sauce a bit on the sweet side. It's a good
thing we had two plates of this, and we could probably
have done justice to three.
Some of us thought that the main dishes were a little
bit of a letdown after the quite nice appetizers.
KathyWdrf had the masala dosa with chickpeas and
spinach, which was very palatable but very different
from a normal masala dosa - a soft pancake and a
chunky filling; flavor was good, but not 4 times
better than the one one gets at the Indian place
(more like 0.8 times as good).
Also tasted travelkhatt's yuba roulade with various
mushroom filling, garlic polenta, lentil ragout, and
olive paste. It was pretty good.
I had the abalone and king trumpet mushroom paella with
seitan sausage, kale, toasted almonds, and way too many
tomatoes (the menu didn't say this). V the troublemaker
said that he hadn't been aware that abalone are vegetables
- I said that not only are abalone vegetables, one of my
friends has authoritatively stated that bacon is also a
vegetable. No, but seriously, the abalone mushrooms
(lemon marinated) and king trumpets (lightly salted)
were excellent; the dish was otherwise a bit of a flop:
as Mr. letiole pointed out later, it seemed to be a
bit underconceived - the not very abundant and somewhat
undercooked rice tossed with far too many collard
leaves, the sausage, almonds, olives, and covered with
way too many (have I already said this?) stewed tomatoes.
My choice for dessert was the lightest one, the sorbet
sampler - three little scoops, mango, "nog," and pumpkin,
garnished with I believe roasted cocoa nibs; the mango
was pretty pristine, the "nog" tasted like spiced chai,
and the pumpkin was an almost unsweetened and heavily
cinnamon-nutmeg-cloved thing. I thought they would have
done well as palate cleansers between courses, or even
as an appetizer (sure did prick up the taste buds), but
less than satisfying as dessert.
Several of us had the tapioca pudding with huckleberries,
topped with the same nog; I tried a taste of it and found
the dish very palatable.
Kathy had a chocolate fake cheesecake that was quite
convincing.
I tried just enough of V's banana torte to detect that
1. it had bananas, and 2. I was glad I hadn't ordered it.
Begged a ride back to OAK with the letiole clan; this
allowed me almost a half hour more socializing than I
would otherwise have had - if the family is reading,
thank you! And thanks to jrblack and Debbie for being
the impetus for the outing and to V and travelkhatt for
doing the administrative work. Thanks, in fact, to
everyone.
UA 1212 OAK ORD 2320 0517 320 2A
Sat next to a jovial and fairly talkative 57/67 pilot,
who was very enthusiastic about flying in general and
on UA in particular; he made me promise I'd someday
check out the airline's South America service.
An oddly warmed Courvoisier - warm glass, cool liquid
- set the stage for a pleasant nap. A cheese and fruit
plate was offered and refused by almost all on board -
I saw one go by - it was huge, so I figure the FA
probably gave the lucky hungry person doubles or more.
0106 UA 526 ORD BOS 0635 0941 752 2A
This was the only mainline flight that didn't have
ATC on; on the other hand, it was the only one that
had laptop power. Breakfast was an egg puck, mystery
smoked poultry, and sour cheese croissant sandwich.
The sour cheese added some interest to it. The usual
quite good fruit appetizer. No cereal and fruit choice.
I had the OJ - Chardonnay mix again. And so on to the
cluttered disaster of the apartment.
Precis of flights:
On time: 4/4
Meals at appropriate hours: 3/3
Empower on aircraft that are supposed to have it: 1/3
Channel 9 on mainline: 2/3