Text 1033, 124 rader
Skriven 2013-06-05 08:50:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: trip 656
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The money-saving route to the airport took less time than
usual and in fact not all that much longer than the direct
subway route, and PreCheck worked like a dream, with only
a deadheading Southwest pilot ahead of me. He gummed up
the works for thirty seconds, not understanding the system,
but I was through the security circus in a minute anyway.

I felt like something really sweet and so went to the Flavia
machine for consolation. This is an automated drink maker
along the lines of (but I believe somewhat less efficient)
than Keurig; it dispenses coffee and tea-like products or,
on coaxing, hot chocolate branded Dove.

The Dove is wimpy and weak, nowhere near so nice as the
Ghirardelli that United offers, so I decided to make a
double strength one, which was quite acceptable, only I
had to use an extra handful of pills. It has a decent
chocolate strength with cardboardy and vanilla notes, and
its wimpy milkiness is masked by the extra chocolate.
There's a puddingy residue at the bottom of the cup,
probably owing to the machine not being designed to make
double strength (you pretend to make a latte but use an
extra chocolate packet when the machine prompts you to
add a milk packet).

The Piroucrisp cookies that replaced the Biscoffs are
still available for breakfast. Around 11 these are
substituted with Food Should Taste Good sweet potato chips,
which are much better than the sweet potato tortilla chips
that sometimes appear in their stead.

US3906 DCA PHL 1201 1305 CRJ 8F

It's a mystery why US Air uses so many little regional
aircraft to service the home airport of the most important
(cough) city in the world, but it does. You go downstairs
and they herd you onto a bus, which takes an inordinate
amount of time turning around in the little parking area
and then takes you a couple hundred yards to where the
equipment is parked. You say goodbye to your carry-on,
which gets stowed who knows where, and climb the rickety
stairs to find your cramped little seat. Ah, the romance
of air travel.

We were all loaded up almost on time but sat around because
of weather and flow control and its being Washington after all.

My exit row seat had about 10% more legroom than a regular
seat. Unfortunately, the lateral space was constricted by
a nice enough girl who, sadly for her, me, and the weight
and balance of the plane, was approximately the size of two
average cooking echo members.

A bumpy 25-minute flight, most of which I slept through.

Due to the modern miracle of schedule padding we landed
early despite taking off late. Due to the modern miracle
of US Air we sat around waiting for our gate to be ready
so we didn't get off the plane until later than advertised.

I still had over an hour to kill so went to visit my friends
at the United Club for a chat and a Ghirardelli. The hot
chocolate was out, so I had a banana instead.

US4405 PHL IPT 1519 1611 DH8 4F

This flight was a bit late owing to the boarding door
being broken, a problem I'd not encountered before.

My exit row seat had about 20% more legroom than a regular
seat, plus the flight wasn't full, so I had oodles of room
to stretch out and have a snooze. Smiley flight attendant.

A bumpy 45-minute flight, most of which I slept through.

Annie had been waiting around, as we were of course tardy,
and she hustled me to the house as it was almost dinnertime.
We were relaxing with a beer when the phone rang - where are
you, the voice said. We were supposed to go to a cookout
across the way, and she'd plumb forgot. So we grabbed the
fixings of our dinner (4 1-lb ribeyes, 2 bottles of wine,
8 cans of Yuengling Light, and a half pound of fiddleheads
- Annie doesn't do things by halves, as you probably have
gathered, except regarding vegetables).

Franny and Jim were lit enough to admit that they liked
their meat pink in the middle - Annie had told me long ago
that they liked it as rare as I did, but that turned out to
be mere politeness on their part. I've probably cooked them
20 blue rare steaks over the years without a contradicting
peep out of them.

I did my steak blue and the rest medium-rare. Jim burned the
heck out of a flank steak that Fran had marinated in wine
vinegar, onions, and rosemary. They didn't deign to have more
than a taste of ours, and we returned the favor. We agreed
on wine, though, all of us except Annie, who had seven of
the cans plus a bottle of Yuengling (she paid the price with
an enormous hangover next day).

The wines.

They provided a Yellow Tail Chardonnay that wasn't as yucky
as I remembered it being. It was a bit solventy, but the
sweetness and acid actually balanced pretty well.

I brought the Dr. Frank Riesling 11, a well-made facsimile
of a Kabinett Mosel, with really nice tropical fruit, a tad
low in acid, but nice with food.

I have had the Voga Pinot Grigio before and refrained from
drinking any of it, leaving it for those who enjoy it more.
It smelled okay. It actually costs as much as the Dr. Frank,
and in fact more than other reputable brands of Pinot Grigio;
I think it's not that great of a deal. At Dimitri's at the
echo picnic a few years ago, it was on half price so was
a much better bargain.

Strawberries and caramel sauce for dessert. I think that
whipped cream and ice cream were available for those interested.

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