I had a feeling my upgrade wouldn't clear, so I made a 
sandwich and half for just in case - two rare roast
bottom round with Roma tomato and butter and one crusty
fried pork cutlet. tl;dr - they were needed.

UA 531 BOS SFO 0820 1146 738 21C

The plane downsized from a 57 to a 37 at some point
in the rapid rescheduling and equipment swapping, and
even though I actually put up lots of points for an 
upgrade, I was #3 for two seats. Story of my life, but
at least I got the whole exit row to myself, A to F, 
and the row behind, so there was nobody to breathe on
me even if they wanted to. The plane was full up front, 
37/186 in back, just over 1/4 full all told. 

We were packed up and at 10000 feet by the time the plane 
was supposed to be boarded, and the announcement was made
that we'd be in half an hour early despite the visibility
being pea soup out west.

The flight attendant, who used to be based in Hong Kong
(now with the massive layoffs, 32000 I heard at last
count, the most senior people are flying less important
routes), claimed he remembered me from the San Francisco 
and Singapore flights, and that might easily have been 
true, but it's equally likely that so few people are 
flying that the airline could research every customer 
down to their pocket change if it wanted to.

In front they now get the snack box that used to be
served in back; in coach, now the All-in-one snack bag - 
a half-pint of Dasani, two Biscoffs, and a tiny bag of 
Stellar pretzels. The guy came back and asked me if I 
wanted a boozie, but I just got a coke. He offered 
another snack bag, but one was enough.

A Brunch with Bobby Flay marathon was about all that
interested me at all, until he started boning a whitefish
in a way that pretty well guaranteed that the product
would be full of little sharp bones. That was enough to
write him off for this flight. I started listening to the
voices in my head, which today were a theater organ 
playing elaborate variations on Seventy-Six Trombones and
Donald Trump alternating with Donald Duck, both saying
things I couldn't understand.

Midflight: two water services and then someone came by 
offering me a better connection on what was at one time
the smallest jet flown by United, very cool, as they'd
been unable to do so in advance when they had messed up
my reservation the most recent time.

We got in early, and I hoofed it to the United Club, where
all the food is behind the bar with the drinks, but they
now have a somewhat candied-tasting but not horrible and
identifiably Cabernet along with the standard Camelot
Pinot Noir. I picked up a couple ounces of prepackaged
mixed nuts but then had my nother half roast beef sandwich,
which had been cruelly smashed in my peregrinations but
still tasted good.

UA2186 SFO SAN 1300 1439 319 15E was 8F
was 5526 SFO SAN 1615 1757 E75 2C

When they rescheduled me, they couldn't get me onto the
big 319 but found room for me in first (no service) on the 
jungle jet. I didn't fuss because this was the day the 
Centurion was set to reopen. Unfortunately, AmEx has 
decided to do rolling openings, with Philly and Seattle
today and the others in the hazy future. I found this out 
only after agreeing to the reschedule; I could have fussed, 
but if it wasn't one thing, it would be another. So, when the 
onboard crew found me seats on the earlier flight, I jumped 
on that - but it turned out to be massively delayed and 
conveyed essentially no advantage over my original. Whoopsie. 
And then it got undelayed, it having been deemed that whatever 
had happened could be unhappened, or something, so the club 
reassigned me to the earlier flight. I e-mailed Lilli telling 
her I'd be early and trotted to the new gate, changed from
gate 20 to gate 1. We loaded up more or less on time ... but 
then things stalled. Turns out there were no pilots, their 
connection having been delayed as well.

I found myself assigned in a row with some other 1Ks despite 
there being many seats open, including two in first. Maybe a
ruckus was in order, but it's only an hour flight.

The purser was illiterate or very nearly so - whether that
was of long standing or because of some disease process was 
hard to say - she kept skipping lines or words or reading them 
twice, stumbling over words, and if my safety depended on her,
well, I'd be flying on another carrier.

When the door closed the guy next to me and I discussed things,
and I ended up moving to an empty row that somehow stayed
unassigned even after the other good seats got clogged up by
uniformed employees.

It's just as well we ended up taking off half an hour late, 
because it took her a really long time to spit out the 
safety spiel and the various other announcements.

They announced there would be no service on this flight but 
promptly trotted out a drinks cart. Despite my being entitled 
to free booze I just had another Coke.

Got us there just 20 late (30 beyond the estimate). Not United's 
most stellar effort.

Lilli was right there and happy that we made happy hour at
Jimmy's, which has a $10 burger that she likes. It's only ten
minutes from the terminal. We had our pick of seats, as it was
early for happy hour, so we chose a breezy spot by the water
that had lots of traffic, but she could hold her breath when
people went by unmasked (I've been doing this for years).

For drinks - what was represented as a Perrin Cotes du Rhone
that tasted more like Ramona Ranch; I'd have sent it back, but
she said she'd drink it. For me a Gringo Lingo, not Jimmy's best
effort - a margarita glass limed and rimmed half with sweetened
toasted coconut and half with a mix of sugar, salt, and tasty but 
mild chile flakes, filled with a somewhat spicy mixture of 
"coconut washed Tradicional Silver Tequila, Ancho Reyes Chili 
Liqueur, spicy bitters, lime juice, agave, toasted coconut, 
Tajin rim." It was okay, better than the wine, but for seconds
I got Jimmy's Mexican lager, which had not a whole lot to do with
Mexico but was quenching and cheap.

And so home, where I discovered it had been 97 but was down to 90.