First Week in New Job

[dcwash]

Whew! I just finished my first week at the new job, and I LOVE it! The worst part isn't that bad, and the best part if fabulous. It is exhausting, though.

The first couple of days they had me working at Anacostia, specifically, in the skate pavilion. They're quite proud of the fact that Anacostia has the only roller rink in DC, and the only one in the country run by the National Park Service. Not only is it free to use, but you can check out--not rent!--skates for free. And, I swear, every day camp, day care center, vacation Bible school...you name it...in town brings their kids down to skate in the summer. My job, when I'm there, is to "throw skates out the window." Which isn't exactly hard, but when you've got a dozen antsy kids jumping up and down, waiting for their skates, it can be surprisingly stressful.

I spent the last three days at Kenilworth, which is, technically, part of Anacostia Park, though the only direct route between them is by water. One of the rangers said one of the best ways to learn about the park is to go on everybody's tour to get all the different perspectives. So, on Saturday, I went on a volunteer-led birding tour and, between that and what I saw hanging around the rest of the day, saw (or, in a couple of cases, heard without seeing) at least 23 species of critters:

• A handful of Robin
• A Grackle or two
• Several Red-Winged Blackbirds
• The ubiquitous (around here) Mockingbird
• FOUR Great Egrets. Apparently it's not that uncommon to see one, but four at the same time was something of a coup.
• A lovely Brown Thrasher that was a nice russet color and that sat there and preened for us
• I'm not sure if I saw one Green Heron or two--it might have been one that flew to another spot later in the day. They actually perch in trees, which I didn't think was a heron-thing to do.
• I'm surprised I'd never seen Kingbirds before now, now that I know how common they were, but we spotted a family of them--mama, daddy, and juvenile who wasn't so sure about flying too far away from the 'rents yet.
• Cardinals, which were a new discovery for the eight-year-old on the walk.
• We may have only heard, and not seen, a Yellow-Throated Warbler--I forget.
• A pair of Crested Cormorants flew overhead. I'd never seen them in flight like that.
• The same with a pair of Osprey, which I think I HAVE seen overhead. They're really making a comeback, apparently.
• Monarch Butterfly
• Black Swallowtail
• Toad (I don't know what kind, so no link. It was a...toad! You know, the gray one you see everyplace!)
• Bullfrog tadpoles
• Crawfish
• Muskrat
• Great Blue Heron Actually, I didn't see this in the park, but from the Metro, looking down as we crossed the river. I've seen them several times that way.
• Chickadee Actually, it may have been a Black-capped Chickadee, which looks much like a Carolina. We're kind of on the border between their territories, so it could have been either.
• Mourning Dove You hear these all the time, but don't see them that often.
• Crow. Crows are actually the source of much of our litter problem. People put litter in the trash cans at Anacostia, and the crows take it out.
• Phoebe

I was sitting on the porch of the visitors center when this little thing scuttled across the drive. I thought it was a chipmunk at first, but it turned out to be a toad--given an open, even patch like that, the apparently run as much as hop. I corralled it and grabbed a nearby seven-year-old and told him all about toads (that they eat bugs and worms) and it occurred to me: I'm getting paid to do this! And it's actually one of my duties, not a distraction! For the most part, I've been sitting on the porch, in the shade, reading background materials and making myself available to answer questions, which seems to suit everybody in that I'm getting trained and still making myself useful. But Sunday I got to get in touch with my inner five-year-old: We're having a big waterlily festival on Saturday, and I've been put in charge of the face painting, so had to practice and come up with designs. So far, I've got a pink waterlily, a black-racer snake with a pink tongue, a green turtle, and a dragonfly. That should do.

Now, if I can only get my uniform.... I'm a bit ahead of the game in that my full security clearance is finished, so it should only be a couple more weeks, as opposed to the months it could be. In the mean time, they gave me an "official" Anacostia Park Staff polo shirt and I wear that with whatever non-jeans pants I can scrape up and my own straw hat and loathsome closed-toe leather shoes (I usually live in sandals in the summer, but I can't for this job, and I can't wear tennis shoes, either).

P.S. This sounds pretty good. I'm putting it on my reading list. The first paragraph of the review:

"The Road to Jerusalem," the first volume of Jan Guillou's new trilogy, involves Swedish politics, familial drama, social oppression, ice fishing, wolf-hunting, political assassination, young sex and the Knights Templar. It's a great book.