The MARC train from Union Station is a lovesome thing, God
wot. Gets you to the BWI rail depot in half an hour in
relative comfort. As I detrained, an odd little middle-aged
woman (I was going to write "little old lady" but reflected
on that she was about my age, perhaps younger) appeared out
of nowhere with one of those scooters that used to be
popular among kids in the '50s and were revived, I think, in
the energy-conscious '90s and '00s. She proceeded to weave
her way around everyone and proceed to parts unknown.

The rest of us obediently trooped on the shuttlebus
(perhaps she did as well, but I didn't see her - I suspect
she scooted all the way to the airport) and got off at our
respective piers. I tried checkin via Mr. Chicken and his
passport reader, and it worked fine; I got all the day's
passes at once, including for the international leg.

Security took mere moments, despite there being a fairly
long line.

No RCC any more, as we know, and someone has taken down the
protest notes that were springing up last time I was here
a couple weeks ago, but the T-Mobile still functions, with
the extra feature intact. I was so engrossed in FT that I
missed the boarding call and boarded fairly late. In the
meantime, guess who scooted past down the hall?

We emplaned through 1L.

UA 641 BWI ORD 0945 1047 752 2A Ch9^^ Empower

Breakfast: coffee, juice, or water and a 1/2 oz pack of
Biscoffs. The quite decent FA crew was quite forthcoming
with stuff to augment the coffee, juice, and water; I
passed and had a nice hour snooze. Flight came in about
half an hour early; about 15 of that advantage were eaten
up by the airport grand tour.

As we wandered about, the list of connections was announced.
The guy hardly skipped a beat when he read "flight 950 to
Washington Dulles, Gate C10."

Oh, guess who was in 1C: Ms. Scooter. When I left she was
chewing off the ear of the very patient FA about something
or another.

I had plenty of time to get the earlier flight to Dulles,
but I decided to sit tight and keep my beautiful 777,
despite the greater chance for a misconnect. So I sat
at the club munching Werther's Original dark chocolate
with caramel and the new Love and Quiches cookies 'n cream
brownies; both of these are quite acceptable but don't
really make up for the meal cutbacks on the flights.

The usual run of granola bars, Kit Kats, big croissants,
little bagels, boxes of raisins, apples and oranges, and
Sun Chips. At some point some brown pastries came out. I
asked the attendant what they were, and he opined that they
were either bran muffins or chocolate or both; turns out
they were incredibly unbelievably stale pumpernickel rolls.
I know that's a redundancy, but that's how stale they were.

The wi-fi worked exceptionally well, no dropped signals.

UA950C ORD IAD 1315 1614 777 9J Ch9 ^ Empower ^

The flight was checked in at 163 with 25 standbys and 8
hopeful upgraders to F. That's what the big screen said.
The little C cabin had 4 empties, so I guess everyone was
accommodated eventually.

A rather officious, by the rules crew: the downside, a
rather brusque and not forthcoming appearance; the upside,
playing by the old rules, including multiple predeparture
OJ/water services as we sat waiting for our clearance - how
there can be congestion at ORD on a crystalline clear day
I don't know.

Walter the purser kind of melted down when some guy in row 3
had the gall to stay on his phone during the no-cellphone
spiel; he came over and hissed "I'm not doing this just to
hear my own voice" and went on about how rude the pax was.
"I don't want to have to call the FAA on you," he said.

My FA refused to call the cockpit to inquire about Ch9. Some
attitude on these folks! Ch9 did come on without prompting
after takeoff, though.

Premier snack mix did not seem to be a promising snack; but
eventually the dreaded fruit and cheese plate came out: the
canonic 5 fruits (let's see, blueberries, strawberries,
cantaloupe, pineapple, grapes; all surprisingly good) and
two cheeses: a rather peppery Pepper Jack and a Cheddaroid
substance that didn't taste like Jack. Courvoisier helped it
all down.

We landed at C27; the connection was at C1. Luckily we came
in early. I went to the C7 club and tried to find gvdIAD;
turns out he was in C17. At C7 drink coups gladly given. It
was unbelievably crowded, as was the entire concourse.