dessert

International cheese selection; Colby Jack, Camembert

Eli's cherry frangipane tart

A dense almond white cake with cherry jam baked on top.
Okay.

prior to arrival

Scrambled eggs with ham and cheese on waffle

Fresh seasonal fruit plate with creamy yogurt

I passed. My seatmate's egg thing looked nasty. Owing to
catering cutback or booboo, there was no salt or pepper on
the trays, which perturbed him.

Today's menu features beef from Australia

1/09
NRT-LAX/SEA/SFO (LD83-B87)
261C002-1

[wines as above]

I slept long if a bit fitfully, as the sound of the vacuum
toilet interrupted me every thirty seconds or minute. When
I woke I found us traveling in formation with a beautiful
JAL 747 and that we'd essentially beelined it across, none
of this great circle stuff. The 47 eventually got tired of
waiting up and ran off, leaving us to poke on to SFO alone.

My seatmate told our favorite of the several quite attentive
FAs that he'd like a comment form; she said they didn't give
them out any more but that he could go on the Website and
offer feedback there. I ended up giving him a GTEM to use
under his signature and gave the crew a little bag of Sweet
Sloops as my contribution. These were pronounced delicious.

We landed pretty much on time; entry was a snap (the agent,
either knowing my type or seeing something in my record,
asked but one question: are you bringing anything edible
in?, to which the reply was, "sorry, no"); what was not a
snap was reentry security at the priority line, where as
usual everyone and his grandma was lined up - it looked
longer than the regular line, but I wasn't in the mood to
trek back there. Still, the wait was only 15 or so, and I
had an hour and half in the extremely crowded RCC.

==

UA 176 SFO BOS 1133 2008 752 2D Ch9^ Empower

Got to the gate just at the end of red carpet boarding;
watched some 1P get turned away; he sheepishly went back
to the back of the regular line.

I arrived to find 1A and 2C the only empty seats besides
mine. I figured they'd be filled, as the boarding area,
zoolike, bespoke a crowded flight. They were, but not for
a while. Meantime, I saw the captain talk to the guy in
1B, a big biker-looking fellow; I figured he must be
some famous country singer or something; maybe he was; but
the captain ended up going down the aisle and chatting with
each flier in the cabin: I can't think of the last time this
happened (experienced it but a handful of times over the
years). His name was announced later over the PA as
something like "John Gorsich."

The flight was a bit of a lovefest, the rather matronly
matrons being matronly in a matronly way. It's different
from SQ, say, as here the FAs treat you as equals, which I
believe is the right way, or perhaps as their kids, which
is almost the right way.

As with all the flights, predeparture drinks. We took off
on time.

My seat kept reclining itself, which was annoying.

Warm nuts with seconds; hot towels.

The meal choice was a steak salad or a chicken, bacon, and
cheese "club" sandwich, both with cream of asparagus soup.
I said I didn't care, surprise me, to which the FA replied,
that's a good choice, both are delicious. At lunchtime, I
was wakened and greeted with a rather enthusiastic "You'll
like this, it's yum." And so it was, given the setting.

The soup was at least as good as Campbell's, which is
actually pretty good. The bread roll could have been from
the basket of a real restaurant. The main course: about 4-5
oz of medium-well but still juicy rump, warm, atop a cold
salad with roast red peppers, white asparagus, roasted corn,
Parmesan shavings, and black beans, Caesar dressing on the
side - a pretty satisfying lunch.

Canyon Road Cab 07 was purply young, bouquet-free, and just
a sort of inky red experience but enough to put me to sleep
and make me dream of the soft, lovely history professor who
won't give me the time of day.

As usual, the scent of baking chocolate chip cookies roused
me, and I had mine with a Courvoisier.

The captain had different standards for turbulence than
most, and the seatbelt sign didn't go on until just before
"flight attendants, please take your seats," which happened
I think twice.

We landed right on time ... and waited half an hour for
them to get the jetway to move. Apparently it was frozen
in place or something. I asked the purser why we couldn't
just re-push back and go to some other gate. She said she
had wondered the same thing.