Capacity for Surprise

They say that if you can be surprised, it is a sign you're still alive... I'm not sure how true it is, but a few different things have surprised me in the last 48 hours or so, and I thought I'd share.

• It surprised me to discover that I am apparently allergic to the adhesive glue on medical tape. The spots on my arm where the medical tape was after the blood I had drawn yesterday afternoon are an angry, irritated, bright red today. Tender and a bit raw. I have lots of allergies, but this one is new.
• It surprised me to discover that I still have the capacity to read a lot of very finely detailed information about a topic that I would not normally be interested in, because need to care about because now it's going to affect me directly, and that I had the capacity to pursue answers to some questions on that topic when they weren't clear in the information I was reading.
• It surprised me when a pharmacist actually called me back, in a short period of time, with the further information she'd promised to track down and get back to me on. I find it disturbing that it surprises me when good service is provided, but I was really grateful in this case.
• It surprised me when an "experimental" (read, "no recipe, just an inclination in my head") dinner turned out to be more than just okay, but actually really tasty. I'll definitely be cooking with ground chicken and black beans again.