Doodle Dispatch: Week 1 in Winston

My sister Doodles and I summarize her first week in town (click to enlarge):

Bee Startup

"Lookit -- some bees are trying to make a hive right on my garage. They're just getting started."

"How do you know it's bees?"

"There's a bee right there."

"Oh. Weird."

"Yeah."

"You should take a picture of the hive and then kill it."

Pickles the Cat Theme Song

Several weeks ago, I posted a heart-warming story about the cat that often hangs out in my yard, and asked readers to give the cat a name.

The winner was JaryMane, who suggested the name "Pickles", which somehow seemed to fit to me given that the "Pickle Man" is one of my favorite starting hands to play in Texas Hold'Em (**privileged insider information). In any case, I subsequently commissioned JaryMane to write a song in honor of Pickles the Cat, to be sung to the tune of Winnie the Pooh -- this is what she came with:

Pickles the cat
Pickles the cat
Furry little feline I'll make you fat
it's Pickles the cat
Pickles the cat
DW's sorta kinda maybe pet....

The lyrics appear to be largely inspired by JaryMane's sense that it was horrible that I wasn't actually feeding the cat (Line 3 in particular seems to be wishful thinking). In fact, JaryMane even decided to forgo her payment for the song (which was going to be SUBSTANTIAL, btw) under the condition that "you have to make Pickles a bowl now. That was part of the deal."

Make Pickles into a bowl? That's gross! But OK JaryMane, whatever you say...

My Cat

As I walked out of my house to get to my car on my way out of town, I noticed this cat sitting on a pile of pine nettles. The cat looked at me for a couple seconds before getting up and walking away. I decided to chase the cat down and take a picture of it, because I've seen the cat sitting in that same pile of pine nettles so often that I feel like it might as well be my cat. Sadly, I have never been able to pet my cat... This picture is about the closest I've ever gotten to the cat (it was taken about 10 feet away).

I still haven't figured out a name for my cat. Right now I'm thinking "Snookums."

Patio Art #1

As I was washing old paint off a wicker chair with a power washer on my back patio, I discovered that I could use it to "draw" on the ground. A couple days later, I drew this:

Title: "Have a Nice Day" on Dirty Concrete

Amazing but true! --The "i" on the word "nice" was originally undotted. The dot is a final touch added by a bird a day later.

What should I do for Patio Art #2?

The Roommate Search is On...

I've been toying with the idea of getting a roommate for the new place for some time. I discussed this idea shortly after moving into the house with fellow Winston-Salem blogger SarahSouth, who suggested that maybe I shouldn't be so eager to get a roommate, because often roommates are terrible people that suck the joy out of life. But then she thought about it some more and asked "how much would they be paying for rent?" and I said the going rate I was finding from Craigslist indicated that I might be able to get about $450 a month. Wheels turned, and soon the approximately $5000 a year of additional income snapped into her mind, and she asked "So... what are you waiting for?"

And it looks like soon, this will all be a go. A couple days ago, I posted an ad for a roommate on Craigslist, and ended up getting a number of responses. Auditions for the part of "DW's Roommate" will thus begin next week.

A Finalist in DW's Roommate Search. Interesting guy!

I imagine little alarms are going off in some people's heads about Craigslist as a place for finding a roommate. And I have had my reservations. So how has this worked? In the end, the people I received responses from have ended up being both more and less crazy than I expected. This has been determined through Google-stalking. On the less crazy side, a couple candidates appear to be up-standing young professionals working in various capacities at my college. On the more crazy side, I had one person email me whose only match I was able to make from Google was to find his name on the list of people wanted for arrest by the Winston-Salem Police. Interesting...

In any case, the nice thing about the search is that you don't actually have to accept all the crazies that might have contacted you to be your roommate. As a person over-educated in the dark arts of studying people to peer deep into their souls and discover their true nature, I am hoping that my screening skills will be good enough to weed out the crazies. On the other hand, if these efforts and my Google-stalking efforts fail, and I do end up living with a wanted criminal, maybe they're offering some sort of bounty for turning these people in. And that might be another couple hundred bucks right there! Cha-ching!

Home Sweet Home

Just moved into my new place yesterday, and while everything is still in complete disarray, I've already discovered a couple things that are high on my list of favorite things about the house:

• Cooking on the stove with gas burners. (Incidentally, this may also be the most likely thing to burn the house down.)
• Filling the claw-foot bathtub with cold water for a soak after moving all day.
• Looking out at the back patio when its raining, and pretending that I'm living somewhere in Europe (I don't know if this really makes sense, but it is a pleasant daydream nonetheless).
• Getting hit with the smell of fresh rosemary as I walk down the steps to the house.