Later on, we went to this wine and cheese party. I looked good in my black dress and red heels (even though the first woman who arrived after me was wearing a very similar outfit, to be followed by Nance in a red skirt with a black shirt and matching pumps, and then by some other woman in a black dress with a red scarf. Thankfully, being dressed originally was not my goal for the evening.), and I chatted along merrily while sipping my fruit juice (and trying to make people guess which wine it was).

I had a lengthy conversation with Nance about her decision to start a PhD program on the East Coast. She followed Tom a year ago when he got accepted at University here, and took on a job. She quite enjoys the job, but does not want to do that kind of things all her life; she loves living with Tom, but she hates the West Coast. So she is going back to the East, and they are going to try the long-distance relationship. It was quite a difficult decision to take, but I approve of it. I think that even if she had been accepted in a program close to here, she would have ended resenting Tom for living in this area she hates, and then of course staying on the West Coast would not have made any sense any more. I wish her all the best.

The rest of the evening was more jolly, and I cannot even remember most of what I talked about. Some rules about matching wine and cheese (the real way, people, is to pair the cheese with a wine from the same region. Believe the French gal ‒ it's not because I have never consciously applied the rule that I don't know it), plans about saving money to buy a plane ticket to Hawaii instead of pursuing in academe, social networking, meeting the in-laws, that kind of stuff. Oh, and blogs. Funny to see we are so many to have one (admitting to having one blog is the safest way to prevent people looking for the second one, by the way), some for technical stuff, some for keeping in touch with old friends, some for writing their hearts away, some public and some private...

From then on, the week-end was rather peaceful. I tried not to think about the health insurance story, as there was clearly nothing I could do for it before today. I spent most of the time lounging with the Fabulous Feline and trying not to think at all, which is actually not that easy at all. I also did a bit of work on Saturday once I was able to get back into the apartment I had locked myself out of, talked to my mum, read a bit, dutifully performed my stretches and abs and other physical therapy exercises on the ground that if I am not going to see a specialist for a few months, I'd better be very, very rigorous, and the week-end drifted away.

Then this morning I called the billing department of my health care center, and after I exposed my problem got to talk to a nice-sounding lady (I have no idea what her position is). Apparently she spends a lot of time trying to extract information from insurance companies (especially mine, which is cheap ‒ and I am not talking of the amount of my tuition fees that go to it) so as to avoid this kind of situation I am in, but they are pretty good at retaining it. She said there are several possible solutions, and that she would talk to my physical therapist to figure out the better way of attacking the problem. I am not quite sure what exactly is going on, but she sounded nice and good at her job, so I am hoping for the best. And not leaving my phone out of sight, as she is to call me back.

I also managed to make an appointment with my psychologist on Friday, after having to cancel my usual session because of a very important meeting my advisor scheduled right at the same time. But I forgot to ask the insurance company where I was in terms of counseling benefits, so I'd better find that out before going.

And then I went to work and had one, two, three meetings in a row, and went to the post office, and back home, and worked some more. Back to normal.