Chocolate Oatmeal and Flocks of Birds

There are a few really good things, and I think these things change at different times of your life, so you have different good things for different periods. That's a little out there, so I'll be more concrete. Today for breakfast, I tried chocolate oatmeal. You just take some oatmeal and mix in a little cocoa powder and a little brown sugar, and voila, chocolate oatmeal. Ty had told me about it and I thought, I simply must try this. So I made it this morning, and holy cow, it's really, really, really good. Just what I hoped it would be. So that's a really good thing. Chocolate oatmeal.

Another really good thing is flocks of birds. I was on a bike ride yesterday down on the new legacy parkway trail, and I was passing this quiet field where a bunch of cows were drinking from a stream and looking lazy in the heat. All of the sudden, as I went by, about fifty birds lifted up from the field with a big whoosh. They came out of nowhere, and it was like this choreographed panic dance, where they all swooped around in the same exact circles over the field until I had gone past, and then they all settled back into the grass at the exact same time to get back to their feeding. How do they do this? It blows my mind. Which one of them sounds the alarm that sends them all up together? And how can they possibly be so in sync? Who is the leader of them all as they move around in the sky doing the exact same thing? It's uncanny. I love watching this. It's one of those things I've wondered about since I was born, one of the things that makes life really mysterious to me. It's seriously amazing. Anyway, that is another really good thing. Flocks of birds.

If I think of more really good things, I'll write them here maybe.

Removing the Wisdom Teeth

Wow, I am really amazed at the power of anasthesia. It's scary. Today, I had my wisdom teeth pulled out, and it was the first time I've ever been put to sleep. It was so wierd! All that is recorded in my mind is the following:

I am sitting on the chair in this room and my mom and the nurse are in there. I have three heart monitor patches stuck on my belly and chest and a thing on my finger. The heart rate monitor is going all over the place, reading 158 bpm then 83 bpm then 105 bpm, and I keep laughing and telling the nurse that I'm really not that nervous; my heart rate is actually really pretty steady. Something must be wrong with the heart monitor. She says I must have good skin, because sometimes good skin makes the monitor do that. (Don't ask me. I'm pretty sure she said that.) The doctor comes in and puts the IV in my arm, and then a nurse comes on my other side and says she is going to give me a little oxygen, and she puts a mask on my nose. I breathe it for a second and it feels thick. I laugh because of the whole heart monitor thing, and the nurse asks me if I feel funny. I say no, and then the ceiling starts to shift into two pieces and move back and forth. I say, "Now I feel a little funny." That's it. Then my brain's register cuts right to a feeling of being hoisted up, and the nurse saying, really far away, through thick fog, "Amanda, wake up." I open my eyes, but she keeps telling me to open them. Okay, I open them. She tells me I need to wake up and open them. I swear they are open. "Amanda, you need to open your eyes. We need to get you up." This time I really open them. She asks me if I feel sick, and I just start laughing. I can't help it. This is soooo funny. She tells me she is going to help me stand up. I literally cannot stifle my laughter. She is hilarious. She pulls me up and ask me what's funny and tells me I need to keep my eyes open, and a string of giggles bursts out. What a funny nurse. But I am also very sleepy. Next thing I know I am lying in a recliner, and I can hear my mom's voice and the nurse's voice talking. Again it strikes me that something is so funny. I cannot hold it in. I burst out in laughter, like I'm in a junior high math class and I'm not supposed to be laughing, but I just have to. This is really hilarious stuff, whatever is going on. So I laugh when they walk me out to the car and then in between sleeping on the way home, I wake up and laugh and go back to sleep. I laugh the whole time there and all the way home. That anasthesia is some kind of something.

So that was my experience having my wisdom teeth removed. I feel pretty good right now, just a little numb, but not very much pain at all. Hooray.