This afternoon, we visited friends for a physically-distanced Fourth of July (four couples, four pairs of chairs with about 8-10 feet between the closest chairs) BBQ (skewers, so no one had to touch the food after it was cooked). We wore masks much of the time, too.

It was really nice to see friends in person instead of in Zoom squares, but it was unnerving, especially at first – eight people in one (large) front yard! And to think that last year on the Fourth, we were in the same place with the same friends – and many more – and we weren’t worried about being too close, or touching the wrong thing, or….

The new normal may be essential, but it isn’t very normal.

As we’ve added more days to our timeline (how’s that for not saying “gotten older”?), Diane and I have both had to add some prescription medicines to our daily diet. Fortunately, most of them haven’t had significant side effects.

Diane had to renew one of those medicines, dicyclomine, today. It’s a generic; in the past, it’s been very inexpensive (in fact, there was no co-pay when she got her last batch in November). But when she went to pick up her order today, the price was well north of $250 for a 90-day supply!

Luckily, we’d just read an article about using discount cards to lower the price of prescriptions. I did a quick web search and found that if I used the free Singlecare card, the price dropped to $20 (still not free, but reasonable ); a few minutes later, we walked out of the store with the pills and most of our money.

The receipt that came with the pills showed a list price of $357.99. I wonder who pays full list?

The medical payment system in this country is completely insane.