We had a really nice Christmas. We went over to Bob's folks' house Christmas Eve, and all his siblings were there, and their children--a full house. Then we came home and changed into our jammies and Bob made me a Margarita and we opened the chocolates, and we watched Jurassic Park III, which he gave me for Christmas. It was a really lovely, relaxing time. Our best times, really, are the times when we're just by ourselves, having a quiet evening at home. And the movie was great, too, much better than the second one.

Then on Christmas day we went out to my parents' house. My brother and his family went to visit his wife's family in Albuquerque (I think), and my sister in Denver went to visit her husband's family in (I think) Ft. Collins, so it was just my other sister, her two teenage daughters, and Bob and me. So a pretty quiet, relaxed day there, too.

We're having a relaxed week at work, too--don't come in unless you have to. I had to, but I knew I just had a few hours' worth of work to do, so I took my time getting there, and didn't go in until around 10:30. I could have worked at home, but I was having trouble getting motivated and I figured I could focus better at the office.

There were only a couple of other people there, so it was pretty quiet; I got my work done and left around 3:30 to pick up some CD mailers so I could mail out website back-ups to my clients, pick up a prescription (there's a saga to that, below), and get home and start picking up some of the Christmas debris.

I didn't get much of that (picking up debris) done, though. I probably won't go in to work tomorrow unless something comes up, so I can do it then. Tonight looks like a good night for some more relaxing, maybe a bubble bath and another Margarita . . .

This afternoon's excitement was trying to get a prescription filed using my new insurance.

We have new insurance as of December 1--it was a scramble to get us covered as of that date, and we don't have cards yet, just a photocopied "proof of insurance," which I presented at the pharmacist's office today. The clerk typed in the information from the sheet, but it kept kicking it back out.

She tried a couple of times, then turned and told me that it wasn't accepting my information. I didn't get upset about it, the prescription wasn't an emergency; I told her I'd call them tomorrow and call back and request the refill again once I had whatever information they needed.

She said, "Are you sure this insurance is valid?" and I told her that yes, I was sure it was valid, and she asked me if maybe it wasn't effective until January 1, and I said no, that as it said on the proof of insurance, it was effective December 1. This was the first time I had tried to use it, though, so maybe there was some problem I was unaware of, and I'd have to call in the morning and see what that might be.

Then she said, "Oh, I bet I know what it is! We should have entered your husband's social security number as the primary holder," and I said no, that I was the primary holder. They were out of ideas, and handed me my paperwork back.

As I turned to go, she said, "When you call them, make sure they have your right birthdate. They screw that up a lot," and I turned back around and said, "Do you have it right?

She checked, and of course she had entered it wrong, and once she corrected it, it went right through.

So she filled the prescription and handed it to me, and I paid for it, and she kind of snorted and said, "Well, that didn't do you any good at all," referring to the fact that my insurance hadn't, for whatever reason (and I'll call them tomorrow and find out), paid anything on the prescription. And I think she was making the point that it served me right.