I just had to have one of those apple-cheddar bagels after this conversation. Not too bad.

God, I love Epicurious.

Speaking of which, we're doing a pot roast in the slow cooker today, and decided on an ultra-simple recipe from 1963 (the golden age of the pot roast!) that has 112 reviewers and 4 forks. Can't go wrong! (uh, we hope.)

Nora, some of my favorite recipes come from the old General Foods Test Kitchen/Good Housekeeping/et al cookbooks I have from the late fifites/early sixties. (One of my passions-- old cookbooks.)

Timelies. I got about 3 hours of sleep, presented the unfinished system, explained what happens next (uh...I punt?), and then, since that went so well, called the insurance company to find out what the hell was going on.

They require prior authorization of prescriptions. But, the rep was quick to tell me, if the doctor authorizes it, my copay will be $60.00 a month! And then he proceeded to spell out the generic name and a different formulation and tell me that this version would only be $10.00 a month! Yay me. I hung up on him while he was wishing me a happy day.

The medication is Bupropion, which I quit when we started this insurance because there was no coverage for prescriptions in January (it was a weird thing where the company started late, so they cobbled together a faux plan for the first month). He's suggesting I go on the regular release instead of the extended release. It's cheaper--because it doesn't work as well! Oh yay!

I almost told the rep it's a good thing I'm not suicidal...but I figured I didn't need to add to the fun of his day any more than working for an insurance company on a Monday morning must already be, and now I've emailed the doctor who prescribed it with all of the pre-auth information and his 'suggestion', and we'll see what happens.

(((((Deena))))) What a pain in the ass. I hate insurance companies.

We were up way too late last night watching baseball. I have no idea how TCG had the energy to get up and go to work today. When I finally did get to sleep I had a night of the weirdest dreams ever.

Ugh, I'm sorry Deena. I'm on Bupropion extended release that JUST came out in generic a couple of months ago, cutting my copay from $40/month to $8.

I hope this gets worked out soon. I mentioned ugh, right??

I just had to have one of those apple-cheddar bagels

You know that after you posted that, every NYC-ista simultaneously thought, "That's NOT a bagel!"

ION, back from doctor. My ears don't have impacted wax, so that wasn't the problem. He says there's some fluid built up where it shouldn't be, probably triggered by my allergies (we have a LOT of ragweed right now, and because it hasn't rained for weeks, there's no humidity/dampness to kind of weigh the pollen down and keep it from roaming free).

He also said my eardrum in the "full" ear is appears to be concave towards the inner ear, and that's probably indicative of the fluid build-up causing the pressure to be whacked out.

Finally, he said it looks like I've got a medium-level ear infection.

So I'm to keep taking claritin and sudafed for the allergy end of it, and he prescribed clarithromycin for the ear infection (big fuck-off horse pills, man!), and meclizine for the vertigo. I'm hoping the meclizine gets the vertigo well enough under control that I can go to work tomorrow. I took it about 10 minutes ago, so I'm assuming that I should be able to notice its effects within an hour or two.

So now I'm eating PB&J and reading DC comics' message boards to try to figure out WTF is up with the current Batman storyline. Big day.

You know that after you posted that, every NYC-ista simultaneously thought, "That's NOT a bagel!"

Or, as when Nora first posted about them, "Eat a frelling muffin, whitey!"

That said, Au Bon Pain's more extreme "bagels" may not be real bagels, but they are gooooooood!

Teppy, I'm glad you got in to the doctor, and I hope the meds help quickly.

Deena, I hope your presentation went ok.

Mr. Joe, you sure are a good daddy.

Dear Daniel, please don't be surprised if there is no pie left when you get home. I accidentally ate it all left it where Harvey could get to it, and he ate it all. Yeah, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

I just had to have one of those apple-cheddar bagels after this conversation. Not too bad.

EAMW

I purchased 7 year old cheddar in Wisconsin at the F2F. I'm looking forward to making a pie.