29 to the doctor's
From
MICHAEL LOO@1:123/140 to
ALL on Sunday, September 29, 2019 12:20:58
We landed early, and for once I had no trouble with the machines,
and the inspector asked what I was bringing in, and I chuckled
and said, chocolate, and soon I was in the maze through the
garage and off to the Hilton Boston Logan, where I was given a
room on the top floor with the full Boston skyline view. This
was fine, but I discovered I was directly above the big Hilton
sign, so even with the curtains shut there was an eerie glow in
the room all night.
UA 203 BOS ORD 0513 0653 320 3A
When I'd booked my Europe flights, the doc hadn't wanted to see
me right away, so this was a later tag-on - instead of chilling
for a couple days and taking Boston-Washington to meet up with
the Shipps, it was Boston-San Diego-Washington, a couple hundred
bucks more, but, hey, how long am I going to live anyway?
The plan was nifty, with Lilli having a forced overnight in LA
(the airlines do not pay for hotels on forced overnights any
more, but the sleeperies offer inconvenienced-passenger rates,
some of which are fairly cheap) before catching the commuter to
San Diego, so my overnight in Boston equalized things, and I was
scheduled to come in just a few minutes before her, but it didn't
work that way.
My first flight turned out to be 2 hours late because of 3 separate
mechanical issues; I deplaned once only to be rebooked on the same
connection, an absurdity, as I was clearly going to miss it. After
complaint to the supervisor, I got a boarding pass for a flight
that would get me into San Diego two and half hours late but would
at least get me there. And so I reboarded meekly, with the whole
cabin laughing at me (perhaps good-naturedly).
Breakfast was the kale and egg white abomination or fruit, cereal,
yogurt, and milk. I asked for just the fruit, and the accommodating
flight attendant brought me two bowls of fairly decent pineapple,
blueberries, watermelon, and orange and some distinctly variable
honeydew.
Alcohol seemed to be in order, so I had a Buffalo Trace rocks.
My original connection was blown, of course, but they'd kindly
rescheduled my ongoing to a gate just across from our arrival gate,
so I could cool my jets more than half an hour and compose a
cautionary note to Lilli (who, as it turns out, didn't get it).
UA1590 ORD SAN 1021 1242 738 2F
was 2192 ORD SAN 0745 1000 738
My seatmate was an oldish woman whose sons had bought her full boat
first class from Grand Rapids back home to California. We chatted a
bit, as well as my incipient and her full-blown senility allowed, and
it turned out she was closer to my age than to what I thought as a conservative 80. Perhaps it was the wheelchair request that affected
my impression.
I proceeded to the Admiral's Club, where I'd told her to wait, but
the attendant said he hadn't seen her, so I checked my mail and
found half a dozen messages the last of which said I'm at the bottom
of the escalator! - she had been looking for me for the whole time
and finally spotted me going past on my way to the club so sent me
that note, so lucky I checked. Later I read the rest of her e-mails,
which had rung the changes on I'm here, where are you?
An hour later, we returned to find various things not working in
the house, from the garage door to the Internet, and the microwave
burned out and the instant-read thermometer broken. I suspect that
as the cleaning lady knows when Lilli is going to be out, she uses
it or rents it out as an AirB&B or something.
At Lilli's I discovered various fuzzy articles in the fridge and not
much to eat. There were steaks in the freezer, so I made a fire and
grilled a couple - one was delicious, the other freezerburned, and I
should have seen that and dealt with it some other way. That's how
I found out that the thermometer was busted.
Ramona Ranch Sauvignon Blanc 15 was just a tad over he hill, with the beginning of oxidation; she'd run out of or perhaps tossed the cassis,
so I tried a maple Kir, which wasn't bad at all, Later I tried
altering this recipe with a few drops of the otherwise fairly nasty
Tropicana pineapple mango drink to add what should have been an
enticing tropicality, but it didn't work at all.
Maple Kir
categories: booze, found art, fusion
servings: 1
4 oz slightly overage Sauvignon Blanc
- substitute any acidy dry white wine
- with a splash of sherry
1 Tb maple syrup
Ingredients should be chilled. Stir together,
Source: moi
There was a bottle of Mahogany Mountain Cabernet 14 kicking around,
so I opened that. It was just slightly corked but not too bad, so
Lilli opened a bottle of Rodney Strong 16 instead. I didn't find it
any better so stuck with what I had.
P.S. The doctor's report was as expected, not dire but not elating,
either. EF is down to 26 from 29, so a loss of 3% or 10% heart
function depending on how you look at things, and the A1C is back
in the double digits. Gail points out that I've been on vacation,
after all.
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