My First Month as a Guardian

***I wrote this post a month ago and haven't had a chance to finish and post. Our office has moved so I'll include that update later!**

My first week was a whirlwind and I was glad when I got back home from New Mexico. The Portland office is in the Industrial District, or so I'm told that's what it's called. My commute is just over an hour but it's only a 10 minute drive to the MAX station. I listen to podcasts on my commute and play logic puzzles on the way back. I don't do them on my way to work because I'm not awake enough in the mornings. The logic puzzles make the commute fly by and I even missed my stop when I took a new bus because I was so absorbed in the puzzle.

The Portland office is tiny and we got it when there were only two staff in the city. I joined as the fourth person in our office and we just barely fit. We just added a fifth member to the Portland staff and we're now searching for a new, bigger office while she works remotely. Here is our current office, with four desks squeezed in.

View from the hall

View from my desk

My desk

On Cinco De Mayo, we had a fundraiser in Denver. I was too new to help with much of the prep but I joined and helped with checkout. I also took pictures for social media. The best part of this fundraiser: raptors!! No not those raptors. Birds of prey are calls raptors. Owls are my favorite bird and of those, barn owls are my favorite.

My new best friend

There was also a falcon, an eagle, and a hawk. The eagle wore a hood because she was found blind in one eye. The volunteer told us that when they're learning to fly, they can accidentally run into a branch and blind themselves in that eye. They think that could be what happened to her. She was wearing a hood, because her reduced eyesight made her more likely to be nervous and by covering their eyes, the raptors are more calm. She had an interesting habit of scanning her head like a type writer when the hood was on. The volunteer told us that was because without her eyesight, she was scanning to locate sounds. By moving her head, she could triangulate where the sound was coming from by comparing what she received in each ear. It was a very informational couple of minutes for me!

We also had live music outside, an open bar, and stations where staff could talk about our work with the guests. There was a small silent auction and a raffle as well. Another volunteer group performed visual arts during the reception. A man and a woman, dressed as trash collectors, did floor acrobatics, for lack of a better description. He would lay on his back and hold her with his foot, while she contorted her body. They also had a woman dressed as a mermaid trapped by trash. That was more of a social statement than performance.

I was only in Denver for the afternoon before, day of, and morning after the fundraiser. I was able to walk around downtown for a bit and take in some of the city. We checked in during May the Fourth, sn unofficial Star Wars holiday (May the fourth be with you). The hotel lobby had Star Wars art but they said it was for some exhibit in town. When we walked around that evening, there were people in Star Wars costumes all over celebrating the pseudo-holiday

My dad has one of the R2D2 Pepsi coolers!

The morning of the fundraiser, my colleague and I were walking to breakfast and saw the trees had turned blue. No seriously, they were blue. It was obvious that they'd been painted but we couldn't fathom why. I sent a picture to Brandt and in true Brandt fashion, he looked up why. He sent me an article explaining it was part of a public art project in Denver's Theater District. The artist painted them with chalk-paint, which is temporary and non-toxic, to highlight their vital role in our environment. I thought that was fitting since we were in town!