A tour of the house…

The front of the house

The front garden of the house

I don’t really have anything exciting to say in this post, but I thought I should include a few pictures of the house so that you can see where I’m staying.

The side of the house

Our house, informally referred to at times as “the Surgery House” due to the fact that all the visiting surgery residents stay there, is located about a 30 minute walk from the hospital. Currently, there are 4 full-time guests—myself, Laura (another surgery resident from UNC), Claire (a fourth year medical student at UNC doing a year of research), and Rufus (Claire’s fiancé). We also have short-term guests (medical students, residents, and surgery faculty) who visit occasionally.  There are three guards who rotate duty—Gerald, Arnold, and Kingsley—and a housekeeper, Aggie, who comes during the day to help clean.

The living room

Zaza in her favorite chair

We have two house dogs. Zaza, who is likely a mix between a Ridgeback and a Boerbull, was the original guard dog. She is sweet and laid back and well behaved and pretty much perfect. Then we got the new puppy…

The dogs. Puppy, of course, is begging
for attention. Zaza is totally cool and
unfazed.

Puppy, trying to look cute. Most likely
after just destroying something...

The new puppy is some sort of street dog mix, who we adopted from the pound. She is actually more of a teenager, rather than a puppy, meaning she has the energy of a puppy and the manners of a poorly trained (read: not at all trained) adult dog. She’s not quite housebroken, she jumps, bites, chews on everything, growls at the guards and is generally hyperactive and annoying. In the two months that she has lived with us, she has destroyed: the screen door, the doormat, the dog leashes, the pillows for the outside chairs, a backpack, and a mop, among other things. We’re all pretty much thrilled with her existence…Actually, though, she is pretty sweet and I think she wants to be good, she just can’t quite figure out how to do it.