There’s nothing I enjoy doing more on an airplane than taking advantage of a cheese and fruit plate, accompanied by a glass of wine or cocktail. The elements may not be of the highest quality, but…hello — I’m on a plane. In the air. Watching the world go by. And there are delicious delights resting lazily on the tray table before me, waiting to be consumed.

It’s all but mandatory, having put up with TSA antics, crowds, traffic, and after setting my alarm for zero dark thirty. If a fuselage can’t provide respite from all that, I might as well throw in the towel now.

But it can. And it does.

Today I was especially lucky. While there was no window to lean against, I was blessed with an aisle — and nobody in the middle seat next to me. My window neighbor and I enjoyed the extra room, both taking up our half of 12B.

Another confession: I like to over-order. As I write, a box full of goodies is staring me in the face. Hummus is on deck for later, as are the pita chips, Nutella and honey-graham sticks. I’m not quite in the mood for them yet, but air travel has an odd way of seemingly kicking my metabolism into high gear. Not that my taste buds are complaining, however. They reap the benefits.

37,000 feet in the air affords me time to think about things that I’m often sidetracked from during the course of a day or evening. A glass of wine is great, but being interrupted from it by a phone call at home is not ideal. No calls on a plane means nothing can detract from my zen-like state today. And I rarely take advantage of WiFi on a plane, as I prefer to just sit. And think. And watch the moving map inch along…so the whole routine is really quite pleasant.

Tomorrow I’ll be back at it again, but for now I’ll be thankful for having arrived at the airport and boarded the plane intact — as well as for a nonexistent body in 12B. Such luck may not come around again, but the fact that it did today made my picnic routine that much more enjoyable.