Flights with a few evocative points.

UA 659 ORD OAK 735 2D. S&P y, Empower n, linen y,
hot towels n, Ch 9 y

I couldn't get confirmed in F on my SFO flight (I'm fairly
confident patience would have been rewarded, but I didn't
feel like taking any chances this day) so asked whether
there was space in F to OAK. No prob, and I was on my way
with 2C the only empty. Pretty relaxed cabin crew except
that the purser was somewhat exercised at having to stand
in the doorway with the wind howling around; he continued
to wear his overcoat through the drink service. The
safety lecture was interesting, as I could not understand
it: rapid, heavily accented, and mumbled (as a speaking
style, not a question of incoherence). Took off on time
or a little early. Cold mixed nuts. Dinner was a choice of
"cracay a chicka." No printed menus.

I had the crab cakes, as I'd recently had them out of ORD
and they had been quite good - on that occasion my seatmate
and I had agreed that they wouldn't have been out of place
in a good restaurant. Only 4 had been loaded, and they went
rapidly, as the crab cakes have a decent rep, and as you
know chicken on the airlines is a miss-or-miss proposition.
One 8-oz-plus cake, only slightly browned, slightly over
the hill. Asparagus okay, not so brilliant green nor so al
dente as I've seen before. Red pepper sauce still in its
foil cup, not a bad idea, as the cakes are better without,
and the Spanish rice, which was hard, needed moistening.
The only dessert loaded was the Mrs. Fields' cookie. A
rather miserable Sonoma Chardonnay accompanied: tasted
soda-poppy; no sparkler of any kind on this flight. No
headwinds meant that touchdown was about 40 min early, and
even with the shenanigans of pushing another aircraft out
of our gate area we were nearly half an hour early deplaning.

Food: okay. Service: okay plus. Transportation: good.

UA 970 SFO IAD 777 12F. S&P y, Empower Y!, linen first
service only, hot towels I think so but was asleep, Ch 9 y

On this itinerary I had decided to use up some of my 500s
figuring that I could always change things (as I did on the
way out) and further this was a nice big international 777,
so I should have no problem upgrading. Well, I didn't get
my 100-hr confirmation, nor yet a 24-hr one: showed up at
the landside RCC where the agent said the magic words:
"Mr. violist, how will you be supporting your upgrade?"
The club was stuffed, so I didn't have time to pick over
the breakfast selection too carefully other than avoiding
the pastries with obvious cheese oozing out: ended up with
what looked like a plain croissant that turned out to be
chocolate and what looked like a chocolate (square, brownish
stain on one side) that turned out to be spinach and cheese.
Some guy with a name like an Italian star was kicking up a
stink at the desk about how if the military were run by UA,
we'd have lost all our wars - an interesting counterpoise to
the idea harbored by the rest of us that UA is run by the
military, so that despite the outward rigidity, delivery of
product is about as reliable as those Patriot missiles.
Interesting about the change in tone as he settled down by
a phone and reported to someone, rather loudly but also
deferentially, about a business meeting he'd had, quite
oblivious to people within a 20-foot radius rolling their
eyes and perhaps being able to glean a bit of proprietary
information, assuming this guy ever had been entrusted with
any. RCCs can be amusing but noisy. I went airside to the
1K room to make my obligatory affectionate phone call and
check my e-mail. I didn't get a window but a center-section
aisle, which was fine.

The flight was uneventful, aside from Airshow showing our
ground speed as fast as 723 mph owing to some impressive
tailwinds.

Service was exemplary - unobtrusive but attentive enough
at the same time.

Brekkers was the dreaded bistro eggs (I never get the
fruit plate with cereal, as you get almost as much fruit
with the hot main dish, and cereal and milk is/are gross).
A tolerable rendition, not badly flavored if you added
some pepper (I should have brought a bottle of hot sauce),
but the eggs were rubbery - the second worst texture for
eggs, first being sandy. Bouvet Brut Signature was a
nice pour, tropical fruit, stone fruit, toast, nice long
finish. I was asleep when they did the second service -
there's only so much Elizabeth Hurley one can drool over,
and I didn't have any work or correspondence with me so
the Empower port being back (yippee) didn't help - but
they hustled me up a plate 40 mins before landing when I
woke up: Smoked Gouda and caramelized onion fondue with
Parmesan and garlic breast of chicken, apple salad with
toasted almonds, raisins, and celery. The fondue thingy
tasted exactly like the sauce under the eggs, alas. The
chicken was moist and tender, and the ingredients of the
apple salad were fresh. The heavy powdering of dill over
all did some damage, though. Instead of the Chilean Cab,
I just had water, which is good as the Cab would have
fought with the dill for sure. I had just time to wipe
the remains of the very messy Mrs. Fields' cookie from
my lips when it was time to return all service items and
make sure my seatback and tray table were in the upright
position, headrests, footrests, and video screens
securely stowed for landing.

Food: okay. Service: very good. Transportation: good.