I'd booked (and upgraded) an HNL itinerary to party with
these guys, but professional duties reared their ugly heads, so I
booked a consolation for various things trip instead; no point getting
one's knickers in a knot, and one ought to make the best of the
situation (which turned out to be very good indeed).

UA 527 BOS ORD 0655 0831 752 2A Ch9 Y Empower N

Lynne appeared to be happy to see me at the club, where I
used to appear every two weeks or so; now it's a quarterly
event at best; chatted a bit about the state of the airline
(not excellent); I went off to take advantage of the free
wireless, which cut in and out. Left at :45 and hustled to
the gate to find zone 2 just being called. The agent didn't
look up when I loomed at the red lane and asked, rather
dubiously, when I presented my blue boarding pass "first
class?" I said "yep," whereupon she looked up at me. "Oh,
hi, welcome, it's been a long time."

The guy in 2B had obviously entertained the false hope that
he'd have an empty seat next to him and grudgingly made way
for me. The cabin eventually checked in full.

FAs were pretty good.

I slept through takeoff and order taking, but with my fine-
tuned sense of hearing noticed when the tablecloths were
being distributed. A FA asked me if I wanted breakfast; I
said I'd have the hot one; he said "it's an omelet."

Turned out to be our friend the cheese omelet with the
famous weird marinara sauce, sided by a greasy sausage. a
slice of greasy limp bacon, and potatoes that managed to be
burned crunchy and raw crunchy at the same time. All
lukewarm outside, somewhat chilly inside. Not a stellar
rendition. The croissant, offered by a rather pretty but
completely deadpan blonde, was quite good.

A different rendition of the fruit appetizer: cantaloupe,
grapes, blueberries, all okay.

Smooth flight, and we landed a bit early.

No dark Ghirardelli at the incredibly crowded B RCC, but
copious bad pastries, unripe fruit, and milk Ghirardelli.

UA 1 ORD HNL 1023 1424 777 1A Ch9 Y- Empower Y

As I was in the bulkhead, I made an effort to board early.
As it turns out, there was plenty of space in the overhead.

The pilot made a big deal about Channel 9. Some cool stuff
heard on the way:

ATC: Eagle 473, Delta Bravo to the gate.
E473: Maybe Delta Alpha?
ATC: No, Delta Bravo, but I reserve the right to change
that.
E473: You'll have to do it in a higher voice.
ATC: [in high falsetto] OK.
[after a while, ATC in fact changes the routing to D A]
E473: What a man.

Predeparture OJ, water, or "Champagne," this last being
some tasteless though foxy concoction that at least had a
decent mousse.

FAs were a mixed bag - one was nice but rather abstracted,
doing 3 runs of Champers down the HJ aisle and only one
down AB - the bar being of course on that side; the purser
was pleasant, attentive, and rather cute (though being my
age and gone all gray); there were a couple of others who
helped a bit, unobtrusively.

The movie was about the Loch Ness monster or something.

A Courvoisier helped me relax and went well with the
warm nuts with macadamias.

Astica Cabernet (Mendoza) was a nullity, but the FAs
kept it coming.

An unadvertised special: coconut chicken served grim and
cold with fruit mayonnaise, one skewer per lucky pax.

to begin
Fresh seasonal greens; Trader Vic's Javanese or blue cheese
dressing

The Javanese dressing was brown and salty and tasted like
shoyu and a touch of sesame and maybe a little demiglace
thrown in - very unlike the previous version of the Javanese
that preceded and was very similar to Conway's Asian sesame.

main course
TRADER VIC'S sweet and sour braised short rib; diced potato
shallot hash and glazed baby peas and carrots

What came: a chunk of nearly fatless chuck pot roast, at
least 10 oz, quite salty, in a sauce that tasted of nothing
but salt. A few chunks of almost raw white potato with no
seasoning to speak of and certainly no shallots - at least
it cut the salt of the meat presentation. The vegetables
were sweetish and incredibly salty. I had to keep drinking
red wine to get the food down.

TRADER VIC'S grilled mahi mahi with Trader Vic's ginger
fruit chutney glaze; saffron rice and green beans nui

The FAs were pushing this, saying it was very good. I
didn't see any.

dessert
Your flight attendant will inform you of the selection -
which was vanilla ice cream with pecan sauce and whipped
cream, the sauce incredibly sweet, the cream out of a can.
A hitherto unheard-from young cutish Asian FA gave me a
bowl that had half ice cream and half sauce; I don't know
if she was favoring me or if she was trying to kill me
through diabetic shock.

We invite you to begin your meal with a Trader Vic's
signature Mai Tai

I declined.

Channel 9 went off over the Pacific, as it usually does.
Channel 5 seemed to be featuring finales: among them a
fast-fingered but otherwise repellent version of the Bruch
Scottish Fantasy; Mozart 41st; and the excellent Brahms
horn trio (which I used to perform with my friends Jimmy
Mosher and Eric Mazonson, but that was so long ago that I
sleepily took half the movement to identify this day).

More Courvoisier helped me sleep, and by the time I woke,
it was half an hour before landing. I turned on Channel 9,
but it was dead air; asked the abstracted FA to call up
front and ask for it to be turned on, but she said it was
too late.

We landed a little early but drove around a bit before
docking. I hustled out of there and went to the wrong club -
I saw the PC, right near gate 13, where I was informed there
was a WC next door, so I poked my nose in there to see boxo
gesticulating wildly at me.